Dame Maggie Smith, known for her roles in Harry Potter and Downton Abbey, has died at the age of 89, her sons have said.
Her children Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens said in a statement she died in hospital on Friday and they were “devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother”.
The King and Queen have paid tribute calling her a “national treasure” adding they would remember “with the fondest admiration and affection her many great performances, and her warmth and wit”.
Born in Essex in 1934, Dame Maggie became an internationally recognised actress and one of the most versatile, accomplished and meticulous performers of her generation – winning two acting Oscars, several BAFTAs and numerous other awards.
More recently she won a new generation of fans as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, in Downton Abbey and playing Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter movies.
But she later told ES Magazine: “I am deeply grateful for the work in [Harry] Potter and indeed Downton [Abbey] but it wasn’t what you’d call satisfying. I didn’t really feel I was acting in those things.”
Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe said she was “a fierce intellect, a gloriously sharp tongue, could intimidate and charm in the same instant and was, as everyone will tell you, extremely funny”.
JK Rowling simply tweeted: “Somehow I thought she’d live forever. RIP Dame Maggie Smith.”
While Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger throughout the franchise, posted a picture of Dame Maggie holding her face while on the set of one of the films.
She wrote: “When I was younger I had no idea of Maggie’s legend… it is only as I’ve become an adult that I’ve come to appreciate that I shared the screen with a true definition of greatness… Maggie, there were a lot of male professors and by God you held your own.”
Gary Oldman, who also shared the screen with Dame Maggie in several Potter films, described her as the kind of talent that “comes along about every other generation”.
The Downton Abbey TV series won her a series of awards – three Emmys, a Golden Globe, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.
In a statement, her co-star Hugh Bonneville, who played Violet’s son Lord Grantham, said: “Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent.”
On Instagram Dan Stevens, who played Matthew Crawley, wrote simply: “Truly one of The Greats. RIP” alongside two pictures of his former co-star.
Downton creator Julian Fellowes – who also worked with Dame Maggie on the movie Gosford Park – told Sky News she was “always very kind, very professional, very funny, both in her acting and off the screen. And you never had to explain a line”.
Whoopi Goldberg said she felt “lucky” to have worked alongside her in Sister Act, adding she was “one of a kind”.
Meanwhile, a message on X from BAFTA said: “Dame Maggie was a legend of British stage and screen, winning five BAFTAs as well as a BAFTA Special Award and BAFTA Fellowship during her highly acclaimed career.”
Although she was a tour de force in leading roles on the West End stage, she was equally happy – even during the years of her mega-stardom – to accept supporting roles, particularly in films.
A master of portraying vulnerability
While, to younger generations in particular, Dame Maggie’s gift for acid-tongued comedy is how she will be remembered, there was much more to the actress behind Downton’s Dowager Countess.
A lifetime on stage and screen, the skills she had honed made her a master of portraying vulnerability.
Back in the 50s, in an era of starlets, she came of age as a true talent.
While, decades later she would carve a niche playing those caustic comedy battleaxes, actually, throughout her career, the range of depth she was able to show in the strong female characters she portrayed, resonated so strongly with female audiences.
Her greatest work as a character actor – the merest flicker of a facial muscle to represent inner turmoil, repression, vulnerability, a woman’s inner strength.
Yes, she starred in countless film blockbusters, but theatre also mourns the loss of an incredible Shakespearean.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Dame Judi Dench, she was perhaps the greatest stage actress of her generation.
At the National Theatre and Old Vic, she excelled in both tragedy and comedy, moving easily from Shakespeare to Noel Coward, to Restoration comedy to Ibsen.
Even in smaller roles, she could upstage the film “giants”. In one film, Richard Burton described her scene-stealing as “grand larceny”.
Some of her other best-known movies included: Death On The Nile, Gosford Park, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its sequel, and The Lady In The Van – the adaptation of Alan Bennett’s memoirs.
She married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967, had two sons who both became actors, and divorced in 1975. The same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998. She was made a Dame in 1990.