Maggie Smith had the luck and virtue of engaging and captivating different generations with the interpretation of characters that she imbued with her own personality. If the witch Professor Minerva McGonagall marked all the followers of the Harry Potter saga, the caustic and sagacious Dowager Countess of Grantham, Violet Crawley, from the series Downton Abbey became the living representation of the British aristocracy: “Don’t be so defeatist, dear. “It’s so middle class,” the character said in one of those iconic phrases that the actress uttered with prodigious naturalness.
Smith has died at the age of 89, according to his family in a statement. “He died peacefully in hospital early this morning on Friday, September 27,” his sons, Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin, detailed. “He was a very reserved person who was accompanied by his friends and family until the last moment. “He leaves behind two children and five beloved grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother.”
The actress, a great drama of the British screen and theater, was admitted to a London hospital. “We thank you for your messages and ask for respect for our privacy at this time,” the statement added.
Winner of two Oscars – for her performance in Miss Brodie’s best yearsas the protagonist in 1970, and in California Suitefor her supporting role in 1979―, was nominated four times for the Hollywood Academy Awards, including distinctions for Othello (Stuart Burge, 1965), Trips with my aunt (George Cukor, 1972), A room with a view (James Ivory, 1985) y Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001).
He also won a Tony for his theater work, five Baftas awards for British cinema, three Golden Globes and four Emmys for his work on television. Queen Elizabeth II invested her as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and in 2014 granted her an even higher appointment, including her in the Order of the Companions of Honour.
The news of his death has unleashed a flood of praise from actors, directors and cultural critics. There is a consensus in pointing her out as one of the great ladies of British acting. But it was not always like this, because his physique, his diction and his personality were difficult to pigeonhole, much less to define.
And she, who shunned public exposure in the media and rarely gave interviews, was the first to downplay her art: “You go to school, you want to dedicate yourself to acting, you start acting and you continue acting.” , once summarized his life and professional career.
His fascinating ability to adapt to British comedy, with that mix of sarcasm, sagacity and self-parody that such a historically classist society offers, made Smith an essential character. She was the only actress that the writer JK Rowling expressly claimed for the role of the witch McGonagall.
“Anyone who was able to share the stage with Maggie on any occasion can attest to her sagacity, her spark and her formidable talent,” actor Hugh Bonnevile, a co-star in the film, told the BBC. Downton Abbeywho in the series was his son.
The years with Laurence Olivier
In 1963, British theater legend Sir Laurence Olivier inducted Smith into the founding group of actors of the National Theater Company. The actress’s first response to the offer, however, was rejection, although she ended up being convinced by colleagues.
“My career is irregular,” the London actress told The Guardian in 2004, before triumphing with the saga of the boy wizard and the series Downton Abbeywhich recovered it for the large global public: “I think they pigeonholed me into humor… If you do comedy, in a way you don’t count. Comedy is never considered real.”
Smith enjoyed success in the final years of her career, which culminated first with the two films about the series in which she played the now iconic Lady Graham, with the success of the octogenarian voyages of The Grand Marigold Hotel (2012) and in 2015 with The Lady in the VanAlan Bennett’s memoirs about the homeless woman, with mental problems, who lived in the entrance of her house and who already performed on stage in 1999. Bennett, one of the playwrights who have best known how to capture the English soul, adored the actress, who performed several of his most popular works on stage, such as the monologue of Susan, the disappointed wife of a vicar, in the series Talking Heads that the BBC filmed.
“The most wonderful thing about Maggie is that she can jump from comedy to tragedy in a single sentence,” Bennett said of her. “He’s like me, he also thinks things are just as disastrous as they are funny. “We are both very gloomy, but we also love to have a good laugh from time to time.”
In his career, Smith mixed theater in London with popular films during different decades. Among them, Death on the Nile (John Guillermin), Hook, Captain Hook (Steven Spielberg, 1991), where she played an aged Wendy, and that of the mother superior of Sister Act (Paul Rudnick, 1992).
In the eight films of Harry PotterSmith, in high-necked Victorian-style dresses, a distinctive Scottish brooch, and her hair pulled back under a tall black witch’s hat, had a striking screen presence. She was not an actress much besieged by her followers in public, except for children: “A lot of very small people used to say hello to me and that was nice,” she recalled on the Graham Norton show in 2015. A child asked her carefully: “Would you like me to say hello?” “Were you a cat?”, referring to the transformations of the powerful Hogwarts wizard.
Smith’s personal life was always closely intertwined with the world of acting. His two sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, are also actors. She was married twice: to fellow actor Robert Stephens, between 1967 and 1975, and to Beverley Cross between 1975 and his death in 1998. In 2013, they asked her if she felt alone: “Sometimes it doesn’t make much sense to keep going. move forward on your own, without anyone to share it with,” he said.