Harry Potter, Downton Abbey actor Maggie Smith dies at 89

Oscar-winning actor Maggie Smith, best known for her impeccable performances in the Harry Potter franchise, British drama series Downtown Abbey and others, has passed away at the age of 89. On Friday, the veteran actor took her last breath in the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London.

The news was shared by her two sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephen, though no cause of death has been disclosed yet. The statement by Smith's sons said, “It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. 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.

Smith began her journey as a stage performer at the Oxford Playhouse in 1952. Later, she made her professional debut on Broadway in New Faces of 56. Over the following decades, she established herself alongside legendary fellow British actor Judi Dench as among Britain's most established theatre performers, working for the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

She also received Tony Award nominations for Noël Coward's Private Lives and Tom Stoppard's Night and Day, and later won the Tony Award for best actress in a play for Lettice and Lovage in 1990. In the same year, Smith was knighted by Queen Elizabeth and officially attained the title of Dame (an honorific title for women in the British honours system and other Commonwealth realms).

In the years to follow, Smith became one of the most prominent personalities in the film industry as she clinched Academy Awards for best actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 and best supporting actress for California Suite (1978).

She was also nominated for her 1965 cult classic Othello helmed by Stuart Burge. Later, her career gained fresh momentum after she portrayed Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series, and played Violet Crawley in the 2010 period drama series Downtown Abbey.

As news of her passing spread, tributes came pouring in from the likes of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer as well as Smith's co-actors. Hugh Bonneville, who appeared alongside Smith in Downton Abbey, said: “Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent. She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances. My condolences to her boys and wider family."

Smith also reprised her role for the two Downton Abbey films. In 2022's Downton Abbey: A New Era, her character died of the illness she revealed at the end of the 2019 film, to the huge upset of her family and friends. 'Downton' followed the success of yet another period drama Gosford Park (2002), which earned Smith both Oscar and Bafta nominations for her role as the dowager countess of Trentham.

In his statement on Friday, Starmer said Smith "introduced us to new worlds with the countless stories she acted over her long career. Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones. May she rest in peace".

The actor's other memorable roles included the 1985 Merchant Ivory film A Room With a View, in which she starred alongside Helen Bonham Carter, and which earned her another Oscar nomination and a Bafta.

Along with Dench, she appeared as an English woman living in 1930s Italy in Tea with Mussolini (1999), A Room With a View and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011).

Smith also earned fame as the strict but fair reverend mother in the two Sister Act films co-starring Whoopi Goldberg as nightclub singer Doloris Wilson, who hides from a mob in San Francisco by posing as a nun in a local convent. Goldberg called Smith "a great woman and a brilliant actress".

Rob Lowe, who starred with Smith in Suddenly, Last Summer (1993), recalled "the unforgettable experience of working with her. Sharing a two-shot was like being paired with a lion. She could eat anyone alive, and often did. But funny, and great company. And suffered no fools. We will never see another. God speed, Ms Smith!"

Smith also played an old lady who lived for 15 years in a van outside Alan Bennett’s house in a film adaptation of the writer’s The Lady in the Van in 2015. Among her final roles were 2023’s The Miracle Club, which follows a group of women from Dublin on a pilgrimage to the French town of Lourdes, co-starring Kathy Bates and Laura Linney.

With IANS inputs

Additional information: The BBC, UK