OAN Staff James Meyers
8:30 AM – Friday, September 27, 2024
Legendary Actress Maggie Smith, the British legend of the stage and screen who enjoyed a 70-year career in show business, died on Friday at the age of 89.
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Her sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin said in a statement, “It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith.”
They added: “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.”
“We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time,” the statement concluded.
Smith, who was born in Ilford, England, on December 28th, 1934, was best known for playing stern Professor McGonagall in the eight “Harry Potter” films and the acerbic Dowager Countess of Grantham on “Downtown Abbey.”
The acclaimed tv drama ended its run in 2015 after five seasons, Smith said in an interview with Graham Norton that she heaved a sigh of relief.
“By the time we were finished, she must’ve been 110,” Smith joked of her aging character. “She couldn’t go on and on and on. It didn’t make sense.”
In a surprise statement, the actress admitted she never once watched the massively popular series, “I’ve got the box set,” she said.
The actress was also known for her role as vicious Violet Crawley in two successful films: 2019’s “Downtown Abbey” and 2022’s “Downton Abbey: A New Era.”
Smith began her career onstage at 17, playing Viola in a production of “Twelfth Night” in Oxford, England, in 1952. Just five years later she made her Broadway debut in “Faces of ‘56” at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
Over the next 34 years, she appeared in three more Broadway shows, which included Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” in 1975 and “Lettice and Lovage” in 1990.
Additionally, Smith won her first Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1970.
In the 90s, she played a series of character roles: Staunch Mother Superior in “Sister Act” and “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.”
She was then treated for breast cancer during filming of “Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince,” claiming that being sick while shooting the movie pushed her to retirement.
“It leaves you so flattened,” she told The Times of London in 2009.
However, Smith returned to the stage in 2019, in a London production of “A German Life” at the Bridge Theatre.
Despite her accolades she was known for shunning the spotlight.
“Her contract is with the audience, and that’s the end of it. She doesn’t do meet-and-greets. She doesn’t bother with the red carpet. And she cannot cope with this new celebrity she has from ‘Downton Abbey.’ Somebody told her that her last birthday was tweeted 7 million times. She literally fell over.”
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