It is with a very heavy heart that we report the passing of one of the most talented actresses of the last 70 years, Dame Maggie Smith. The legendary actress took to the stage in the early 1950s when she was just 16 years old, and never looked back. Her career would take her to acclaim, success, and massive fandom with roles in films like “Hook,” the Harry Potter franchise as Professor McGonagall, and on television as Violet Crawley on “Downton Abbey.”
To say she will be missed is an understatement. She is one of the few actors whose extraordinary talent was recognized by critics and audiences and is associated with roles that will live on in popular culture for generations to come.
Maggie Smith was born in Essex, England in 1934. At the age of 16, she began studying and performing at the Oxford Playhouse which would soon lead to her gaining recognition enough to transition over to film. A notable occurrence of this was with her portrayal of Desdemona in a 1964 production of “Othello” alongside Laurence Olivier. The production would be adapted into a film the next year, landing Smith an Oscar nomination.
A career highlight would come a few years later when in 1969, Smith would win her first of two Academy Awards with her performance in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” The second win would come in 1978 for “California Suite.” Across her career she would be nominated three additional times alongside numerous BAFTA nominations and 5 wins for that award. Her later years would lead to success in television where her aforementioned role in “Downton Abbey” would land her 3 Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. Also, as befitting an actress of her caliber on the stage, she would win a Tony Award in 1990 for “Lettice and Lovage.”
While some actors and actresses are more renowned for their artistic performance than their popular ones, the same can not be said for Dame Maggie Smith. In 1991 she appeared in Steven Spielberg‘s “Hook” as an aged Wendy, who helps lead Peter, portrayed by Robin Williams, to rediscover his old identity as Peter Pan. The role would endear her to ’80s and ”90s kids the world over, and continue to introduce her to younger audiences as the film has become a family classic.
She also had the chance to show off some of her comedic chops as Mother Superior in the two “Sister Act” movies. Dame Smith was no stranger to comedy through her career, as also seen in the oft forgotten classic, “Murder By Death,” but “Sister Act” became a surprise hit of 1992 and continued to keep her film career running well into its third decade.
If there’s any role though that will forever be associated with her though, it’s that of Professor McGonagall from the Harry Potter franchise. As was the case with many of the casting choices for the films, Smith effortlessly took the role from the written page to the screen in a way that has endeared her to the hearts of millions around the world. Anyone who is able to recognize her from that character has a wealth of performances they can go back through to see how her gravitas as an actress made McGonagall the force that she is on screen. In the books, the professor was arguably the backbone of Hogwarts beyond Dumbledore and Smith’s performance makes you believe that, fully.
Some losses in the world of acting hit a bit harder and in different ways than others do. We know that this is one of those ones that hurts. We were lucky to have Dame Maggie Smith with us for so long and to give us so many performances that will stay with us for decades to come. Thank you for all that you did and all that you gave to the world of entertainment and the art of acting. You will be missed.
