Dame Maggie Smith, “Harry Potter” and “Downton Abbey” actress, has died at 89
British actress Dame Maggie Smith, known for her prolific career in roles like Professor McGonagall in the “Harry Potter” series and Violet Crawley in “Downton Abbey,” has died, her family confirmed to CBS News. She was 89.
Smith passed away peacefully in the hospital early Friday morning, her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens said in a statement via publicist Clair Dobbs.
“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,” the statement said.
John Phillips/Getty Images for BFI
Margaret Natalie Smith, who was frequently rated the preeminent British actress of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, was born in Ilford, Essex on Dec. 28, 1934. When she was 4 years old, her family moved to Oxford, where Smith began studying acting at the Oxford Playhouse at the age of 16.
told CBS “Sunday Morning” in 2015.
She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that “when you get into the granny era, you’re lucky to get anything.”
Smith gained a new audience when she accepted the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall in the “Harry Potter” movie series. She once quipped that “Harry Potter is my pension.”
“A lot of very small people kind of used to say hello to me, and that was nice. It was a whole different lot of people,” she said on “The Graham Norton Show” in 2015. “One kid once said to me, he said, ‘were you really a cat?’ And I heard myself say ‘just pull yourself together! How could I have been?'”
She continued acting well into her 80s, in films such as the 2022 big-screen spinoff “Downton Abbey: A New Era” and the 2023 release “The Miracle Club.”
When former “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft asked Smith in 2013 — at the height of “Downton Abbey” fame — if she’d ever retire, the actress had this to say: “I think that the date for that has gone by. I fear that I won’t work in the theater again. I’m sad about that. But I won’t retire. I think I’ll keep going with Violet and whatever other old biddy comes along,” she said.
Smith was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the equivalent of a knight, in 1990.
She married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons, Christopher and Toby, and divorced in 1975. That same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998.
contributed to this report.
Lucia Suarez Sang
Source: cbsnews.com