Dame Maggie Smith DBE
Smith filming in Kensington Gardens, 7 March 2007
Born	Margaret Natalie Smith (1934-12-28) 28 December 1934 (age 77) Ilford, London, England, UK
Other names	Dame Maggie Smith
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1952–present
Spouse	Robert Stephens (1967–74, divorced) Beverley Cross (1975–98, his death)
Children	Chris Larkin, Toby Stephens

Dame Margaret Natalie "Maggie" Smith, DBE (born 28 December 1934) is an English film, stage and television actress. She has had an extensive career both on screen and in live theatre, and is known as one of Britain's pre-eminent actors. She made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 60 years. She has won numerous awards for acting, both for the stage and for film, including seven BAFTA Awards (five competitive awards and two special awards including the Bafta Fellowship in 1996), two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, two Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, two SAG Awards and a Tony Award. Dame Maggie is the only actor ever to win this collective of awards and is one of the most successful and acclaimed actors of the film era.

Her critically acclaimed films include Othello (1965), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), Travels with My Aunt (1972), California Suite (1978), Clash of the Titans (1981), A Room with a View (1985) and Gosford Park (2001). She has also appeared in a number of widely-popular films, including Hook (1991), Sister Act (1992) and as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series. She currently stars in the critically acclaimed drama Downton Abbey as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, for which she has won an Emmy.

Early life[link]

Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, London. She is the daughter of Margaret Smith (née Hutton), a Glasgow-born secretary, and Nathaniel Smith, a Newcastle upon Tyne-born public health pathologist who worked at Oxford University.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} She has older twin brothers, Alistair and Ian, who went to architecture school.^[6] Smith studied at Oxford High School.

Career[link]

Smith began her career at the Oxford Playhouse with Frank Shelley and made her first film in 1956. She became a fixture at the Royal National Theatre in the 1960s, most notably for playing Desdemona in Othello opposite Laurence Olivier and winning her first Oscar nomination for her performance in the 1965 film version.

She appeared with Ronnie Barker at the Oxford Playhouse in the play The Housemaster and various others. Barker did not think much of her, saying "she only had two styles-either grand and rather camp, or sharp cockney".^[7]

In 1969, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as an unorthodox Scottish schoolteacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a role originally created on stage by Vanessa Redgrave in 1966 in London. (Zoe Caldwell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play when she created the role in New York.) Smith was also awarded the 1978 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the brittle actress Diana Barry in California Suite, acting opposite Michael Caine. Afterwards, on hearing that Michael Palin was about to embark on a film (The Missionary) with Smith, Caine is supposed to have humorously telephoned Palin, warning him that she would steal the film. She also starred with Palin in the black comedy A Private Function in 1984.

Smith appeared in Sister Act in 1992 and had a major role in the 1999 film Tea with Mussolini, where she appeared as the formidable Lady Hester. Indeed, many of her more mature roles have centred on what Smith refers to as her "gallery of grotesques", playing waspish, sarcastic or plain rude characters. Recent examples of this would include the judgmental sister in Ladies in Lavender and the cantankerous snob Constance, Countess of Trentham, in Gosford Park, for which she received another Oscar nomination.

Other notable roles include the querulous Charlotte Bartlett in the Merchant-Ivory production of A Room with a View, a vivid supporting turn as the aged Duchess of York in Ian McKellen's film of Richard III, and a little known but powerful performance as Lila Fisher in the 1973 film Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing with Timothy Bottoms. Due to the international success of the Harry Potter movies, she is now widely known for playing the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall, opposite Daniel Radcliffe, with whom she had previously worked in the 1999 BBC television adaptation of David Copperfield, playing Betsey Trotwood. She also plays an older Wendy in the Peter Pan movie Hook, and Mrs. Medlock in The Secret Garden. In 2010, she appeared as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the first and second series of the British period drama Downton Abbey.

She appeared in numerous productions at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, to acclaim from 1976 through to 1980. These roles included Queen Elizabeth in Richard III, Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Virginia Woolf in Virginia, and countless lead roles with long-time Stratford icon Brian Bedford including the Noël Coward comedy Private Lives.

On stage, her many roles have included the title character in the stage production of Alan Bennett's The Lady in the Van and starring as Amanda in a revival of Private Lives. She won a Tony Award in 1990 for Best Actress in a Play for Peter Shaffer's Lettice and Lovage, in which she starred as an eccentric tour guide in an English stately home. In 2007, she appeared in Edward Albee's The Lady from Dubuque at Theatre Royal Haymarket.

She appeared in a 1954 BBC television programme, Oxford Accents, produced by the late Ned Sherrin.^[8] She was one of the performers, playing several roles, in New Faces of 1956 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre from 14 June to 22 December 1956.^[9][10] She was "in Orange" in the musical comedy Share My Lettuce, based on the book by Bamber Gascoigne, that opened at the Lyric Hammersmith on 21 August 1957. With Anthony Bowles as musical director, it transferred to the Comedy Theatre on 25 September 1957 and to the Garrick Theatre on 27 January 1958. Smith's musical numbers in this performance included: Love's Cocktail (solo), On Train He'll Come (solo), Party Games (solo), Bubble Man (with Kenneth Williams) and Menu (with Kenneth Williams).^[11] Eight photos from this performance as well as an article on Smith appeared in the November 1957 issue of Theatre World magazine.^[12] One of Smith's earliest acting citations was as nominee for Most Promising Newcomer to Film of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for Nowhere To Go in 1958.^[13] In Hollywood, Smith was a nominee for the Golden Globe Awards New Star of the Year (Actress) in 1964 for her performance in The V.I.P.s. In 2012, she earned another Golden Globe Awards nomination (her ninth) for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for series 1 of Downton Abbey.^[14] Smith won her second Emmy Award for this role.^[15]

In 2012, Maggie played Muriel in the British comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. She is also starring as Jean Horton in Quartet, based on Ronald Harwood's play, directed by Dustin Hoffman.

Smith was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1970 New Year Honours^[16] and was raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in the 1990 New Year Honours.^[17]

In 1986, she was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) from the University of Bath.^[18] She also received honorary degrees from the University of St Andrews in 1971 and the University of Cambridge in 1995.^[19]

Personal life[link]

Smith has been married twice. She married actor Robert Stephens on 29 June 1967 at Greenwich Register Office. The couple had two sons: actors Chris Larkin (born in 1967) and Toby Stephens (born in 1969),^[4] and divorced on 6 May 1974.^[4] Smith is a grandmother via both her sons.^[20][21]

She married playwright Beverley Cross on 23 August 1975 at the Guildford Register Office; he died on 20 March 1998.

In 2007, the Sunday Telegraph's Mandrake diary disclosed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was subsequently reported to have made a full recovery.^[22]

Filmography[link]

Television and cinema[link]

Theatre roles[link]

• Twelfth Night, Oxford Playhouse, 1952
• He Who Gets Slapped, Clarendon Press Institute, 1952
• Cinderella, Oxford Playhouse, 1952
• Rookery Nook, Oxford Playhouse, 1953
• The Housemaster, Oxford Playhouse, 1953
• Cakes and Ale (revue), Edinburgh Festival, 1953
• The Love of Four Colonels, Oxford Playhouse, 1953
• The Ortolan, Maxton Hall, 1954
• Don’t Listen Ladies, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• The Government Inspector, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• The Letter, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• A Man About The House, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• On the Mile (revue), Edinburgh Festival, 1954
• Oxford Accents, New Watergate Theatre, London, 1954
• Theatre 1900, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• Listen to the Wind, Oxford Playhouse, 1954
• The Magistrate, Oxford Playhouse, 1955
• The School For Scandal, Oxford Playhouse, 1955
• New Faces (revue), Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York, 1956
• Share My Lettuce (revue), Lyric Hammersmith and Comedy Theatre, 1957
• The Stepmother, St. Martin's Theatre, 1958
• The Double Dealer, Old Vic, 1959
• As You Like It, Old Vic, 1959
• Richard II, Old Vic, 1959
• The Merry Wives of Windsor, Old Vic, 1959
• What Every Woman Knows, Old Vic, 1960
• Rhinoceros, Strand Theatre, 1960
• Strip the Willow, UK Tour, 1960
• The Rehearsal, Bristol Old Vic and Globe Theatre, 1961
• The Private Ear and The Public Eye, Globe Theatre, 1962
• Mary, Mary, Queen's Theatre, 1963
• The Recruiting Officer, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1963
• Othello, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1964
• The Master Builder, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1964
• Hay Fever, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1964
• Much Ado About Nothing, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1965
• Trelawney of the Wells, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1965
• Miss Julie, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1966
• Black Comedy, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1966
• A Bond Honoured, National Theatre/Old Vic, 1966
• The Country Wife, Chichester Festival Theatre, 1969
• The Beaux Stratagem, National Theatre/Old Vic and Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, 1970
• Hedda Gabler, National Theatre/Cambridge Theatre, 1970
• Design For Living, Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, 1971
• Private Lives, Queen's Theatre, 1972
• Peter Pan, London Coliseum, 1973
• Snap, Vaudeville Theatre, 1974
• Private Lives, US tour and 46th Street Theatre, New York, 1975 [Tony nomination]
• The Way of the World, Stratford, Canada, 1976
• Antony and Cleopatra, Stratford, Canada, 1976
• Three Sisters, Stratford, Canada, 1976
• The Guardsman, Stratford, Canada and Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, 1976
• A Midsummer Night's Dream, Stratford, Canada amd Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, 1977
• Richard III, Stratford, Canada, 1977
• As You Like It, Stratford, Canada, 1977
• Hay Fever, Stratford, Canada, 1977
• Macbeth, Stratford, Canada, 1978
• Private Lives, Stratford, Canada, 1978
• Night and Day, Phoenix Theatre, Washington D.C. and ANTA Playhouse, New York, 1979 [Tony nomination]
• Much Ado About Nothing, Stratford, Canada, 1980
• The Seagull, Stratford, Canada, 1980
• Virginia, Stratford, Canada, 1980 and Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1981
• The Way of the World, Chichester Festival Theatre and Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1984
• The Interpreters, Queen's Theatre, 1985
• The Infernal Machine, Lyric Hammersmith, 1986
• Coming Into Land, National Theatre/Lyttelton, 1987
• Lettice and Lovage, Globe Theatre, 1987
• Lettice and Lovage, Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York, 1990 [Tony win]
• The Importance of Being Earnest, Aldwych Theatre, 1993
• Three Tall Women, Wyndham's Theatre, 1994 and 1995
• Talking Heads, Chichester Festival Theatre and Comedy Theatre, 1996
• A Delicate Balance, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1997
• The Lady in the Van, Queen's Theatre, 1999
• The Breath of Life, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2002
• Talking Heads, Australian tour, 2004
• The Lady From Dubuque, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2007

Awards and nominations[link]

See also[link]

• Tale Spinners For Children
• University College Players

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Maggie Smith

• Maggie Smith at the Internet Movie Database
• Maggie Smith at the Internet Broadway Database
• You have to laugh – The Guardian, 20 November 2004, in-depth interview and profile.
• Maggie Smith at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Maggie Smith at Emmys.com