Maggie Smith, star of Downton Abbey and Harry Potter films, dies at 89

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Maggie Smith, the actor best known for her roles in Downton Abbey and the Harry Potter films, has died aged 89.

Smith’s death on Friday at a London hospital was confirmed in a statement from her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens.

“An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” they said.

Smith’s award-winning career spanned seven decades, starting in revues in Oxford in 1952. She went on to win two Oscars, eight Baftas, four Emmys and one Tony.

Although she described them as “a gallery of grotesques” and quipped that she had only taken the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall as her “pension”, the roles Smith adopted in the latter stages of her career were her most memorable.

As Prof McGonagall in the Harry Potter films and Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, her acerbic wit was on full display.

She once summed up her life as: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one’s still acting.” 

Hugh Bonneville, Smith’s co-star in Downton Abbey, said: “Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent.”

Principally known for her work on stage during the early years of her career having joined the National Theatre company in 1963, Smith’s breakout role on screen came in the 1969 film adaptation of Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. She won an Oscar for her performance in the titular role.

Smith followed that up in 1979 with the Oscar for best supporting actress for her rendition of Diana Barrie in California Suite.

Smith was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1990, cementing her status as a leading light in a generation of gifted British female actors that included fellow dames Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench.

In a post on X, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined the tributes: “She was beloved by so many for her great talent, becoming a true national treasure whose work will be cherished for generations to come.”

Margaret Natalie Smith was born on December 28 1934 in Ilford, Essex. She married actor Robert Stephens in 1967 with whom she had Chris and Toby. They divorced in 1975 and that year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998.