Dame Maggie Smith, ‘Downton Abbey’ star and Professor McGonagall in ‘Harry Potter,’ dies at 89;
Dame Maggie Smith, the British actress best known for her starring roles in “Harry Potter” and “Downton Abbey,” has died at 89.
Smith’s two sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephen, said that their mother died peacefully early Friday at a London hospital. Her cause of death was not revealed.
“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” the siblings said.
Smith, defied Hollywood stereotypes with breakout roles into her 70s’ whose career as an older working actress and a star in the “Harry Potter” film franchise and “Downton Abbey,” were so outstanding that they broke new ground on stage and screen, turning mature, quirky characters into Oscar-nominated audience favorites.
Margaret Natalie Smith was born on Dec. 28, 1934, in Essex, northeast of London. She moved to Oxford as a child when her father, a pathologist, took a role at the university, and she began acting in the local theatre at 17.
Her big breakthrough came in 1956 with “New Faces” on Broadway. Her 1958 performance in the British crime movie “Nowhere to Go” earned her a BAFTA nomination. By 1965, she received her first Oscar nomination for the film adaptation “Othello” for her role as Desdemona. The British actress was also famously private, despite her public fame.
“I wish I could just go into Harrods and order a personality,” she once said, referring to the iconic luxury London department store. “It would make life so much easier.”
Smith was married twice, first to British actor Robert Stephens and then to the playwright Beverley Cross until he died in 1999. Her two sons, from her first husband, are also actors.
