Images of Maggie Smith

Maggie Smith’s Amazing Career

Posted by Speakeasy News > Friday 04 October 2024 > Celebrate


Maggie Smith passed away on 27 September at the age of 89, after a long and distinguished career in theatre, TV and film. Her talents in both comedic and dramatic acting won her two Oscars and countless awards across the acting world.

Smith started acting at just 18 in 1952, and honed her craft on the stage in repertory theatre in Oxford (where actors had to play several roles a week), before winning a role in a comedic revue on Broadway. During her career she played in Shakespeare (including a memorable Desdemona to Sir Laurence Olivier's Othello) and Restoration comedies.

She won her first Oscar for 1969's film adaptation of Muriel Spark's novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, about a charismatic but unorthodox teacher in an Edinburgh girls' school. Her second, ironically, was for playing an actress who almost wins an Oscar in California Suite (1978).

Although her true love was theatre, film and television brought her to the notice of international audiences, as the Mother Superior in Sister Act, Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films and as the acerbic Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey. She stole the show in The Lady in the Van (1999), playing a tramp who installs her van in playwright Alan Bennett's driveway and stays for year. She came to represent a certain type of ferociously intelligent older woman who could deliver a sarcastic put down like no other.

Her friend and fellow actor Eileen Atkins (Gosford Park, The Crown) explained that Smith adored the rehearsal and performance experience of a theatre company, and never watched herself in her screen performances. But her fans will have those to fall back on to remember a rare acting talent.

This short video gives a panorama of her career.