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Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE (born 28 December 1934), better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years. She has won numerous awards for acting, both for the stage and for film, including five BAFTA Awards ( plus the BAFTA Fellowship Award) two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, two Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, two SAG Awards, and a Tony Award.
Her critically acclaimed films include Othello (1965), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), 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 series.
Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, Essex. 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. She has older twin brothers, Alistair and Ian. Smith studied at Oxford High School.
Smith has had an extensive career both on screen and in live theatre, and is known as one of Britain's pre-eminent actresses. She 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.
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'd previously worked in the 1999 BBC television adaptation of David Copperfield, playing Betsie Trottwood. 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, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the British period drama Downton Abbey, and is signed to reprise her role in the second season, which was filmed in Spring 2011.
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, 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. The play, first performed in London, also featured Margaret Tyzack, whom Smith insisted should also appear in the Broadway production despite initial resistance from the American Actor's Equity. In 2007, she appeared in Edward Albee's The Lady from Dubuque at Theatre Royal Haymarket.
She was awarded Commander of the Order of the British (CBE) in 1970, and was raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 1990.
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), and divorced on 6 May 1974. Smith is a grandmother via both her sons.
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.
Director Agnieszka Holland admired Maggie Smith for years before making The Secret Garden (1993). She knew of Smith's talents and immediately offered her the role of Mrs. Medlock.
I wanted to be a serious actress, but of course that didn't really happen. I did Desdemona [at the National, opposite Olivier] with great discomfort and was terrified all the time. But then everyone was terrified of Larry.
Maggie Smith
Margaret Natalie Smith
28 December 1934, Ilford, Essex, England
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Mother of actor Chris Larkin.
Mother of Toby Stephens.
Appointed a CBE in 1970 and a DBE (Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in 1990.
Created an honorary D.Litt of the Universities of St Andrews and Cambridge in 1971 and 1995 respectively.
She ranked tenth in the 2001 Orange Film Survey of greatest British film actresses.
Mother-in-law of actress Anna-Louise Plowman.
She was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 2000 (1999 season) for Best Actress for her performance in "The Lady in the Van" at the Queen's Theatre.
She was nominated for a 1998 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actress of the 1997 season for her performance in "A Delicate Balance" at the Haymarket Theatre.
She was awarded the 1984 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance in "The Way of the World".
She was awarded the 1981 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?".
She was awarded the 1994 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance in "Three Tall Women".
Portrayed by Ian McKellen on ""Saturday Night Live" (1975)".
In 2003, she became the seventeenth performer to win the Triple Crown of acting. Oscars: Best Actress, 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' (1969) & Best Supporting Actress, 'California Suite' (1978), Tony: Best Actress-Play, 'Lettice and Lovage' (1990), and Emmy: Best Actress-Miniseries/Movie, 'My House in Umbria' (2003).
Is a good friend of Judi Dench.
Worked with Laurence Olivier in the 1960s at the National Theatre.
Her father Nathaniel was a Geordie and a pathologist. Her mother Margaret was a Glaswegian and a secretary.
Her twin brothers Ian and Alistair are six years older then she is. They are both architects.
Won Broadway's 1990 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for "Lettice and Lovage." She was also nominated twice before in the same category: for a revival of Noel Coward's "Private Lives" in 1975, and for "Night and Day" in 1980.
Educated at the High School for Girls in Oxford, she started out in the theater as a prompt girl and understudy at the Oxford Repertory. She claims she never went on as no one ever fell ill.
Made her stage debut with the Oxford University Dramatic Society as Viola in Shakespare's "Twelfth Night." Bird-dogged by an American theatrical impresario, the part led to her being cast in her Broadway debut in "New Faces of 1956."
Had to change her stage name to "Maggie Smith" as there already was an actress named "Margaret Smith" at the time she started in the profession.
Appeared with Laurence Olivier in "Rhinoceros" in the English Stage Company's 1960 London production. Olivier pronounced her acting "Marvelous.".
Was a member of the Old Vic Company from 1959 to 1963, when the company was dissolved. It served as the basis for the new National Theatre being organized by Laurence Olivier, whom invited her to join. She gave a memorable performance as Desdemona opposite Olivier's Othello at The National Theatre's temporary home at the Old Vic theater building in 1964. Repeating the performance in the 1965 film made of that production, she won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination, her first of six Oscar nods.
Is one of only a few actresses to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar after winning a Best Actress Oscar.
While filming Death on the Nile (1978), aboard ship, no one was allowed his or her own dressing room, so she shared a dressing room with Bette Davis and Angela Lansbury.
Was the first of 4 consecutive winners of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar to have the initials 'M.S.', the others being: Meryl Streep - Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Mary Steenburgen - Melvin and Howard (1980), and Maureen Stapleton - Reds (1981).
Is a vice-president of Chichester Cinema at New Park. Anita Roddick and Kenneth Branagh are also vice-presidents.
One of the first people to have a star on the Avenue of Stars - a British version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Seven other "Harry Potter" actors also have one.
She and her first husband, Robert Stephens, appeared together in "Much Ado About Nothing". In 1993, Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, who were also married at the time, played the same roles. Smith later worked with both Branagh and Thompson in the Harry Potter films.
Has been in three films that have the word "secret" in their titles: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), The Secret Garden (1993) and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002).
She was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of her outstanding contribution to film culture.
Is a patron of the Jane Austen Society, devoted to author Jane Austen and her work.
Has played fictional fascists twice: first Jean Brodie in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and then Lady Hester Random in Tea with Mussolini (1999).
Was a good friend of "Carry On" star Kenneth Williams.
In 2008, it was reported that she was fighting breast cancer. She has had a tumor removed and undergone chemotherapy.
At the Oscars in 2002, Whoopi Goldberg introduced her, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith as "The Smith Family".
She appeared in "The Master Builder" with Michael Redgrave and Celia Johnson (who had replaced the recently deceased Diana Wynyard') as part of the new National Theatre Company in 1964. She and Johnson would later appear together in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969).
Not only does she frequently work with Judi Dench, but they have also both worked with each other's children. Maggie worked with Finty Williams in Gosford Park (2001), while Dench worked with Toby Stephens in Die Another Day (2002).
One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, and one's still acting.
"Jude is the most incredibly level person. Generous, understanding. All the things I'd have to work very hard at, Jude is like that all the time. I would love to be like that. And working with Jude you have to try to remember that you ought to be like that." [on her friend Judi Dench]
"I love it, I'm privileged to do it and I don't know where I'd be without it." [on acting]
The performances you have in your head are always much better than the performances on stage.
"I still miss him so much it's ridiculous. People say it gets better but it doesn't. It just gets different, that's all. Even in my dream I kept saying to him, 'You are dead. You can't be here.'" [on her second husband Bev]
I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost - it's there and then it's gone.
It's true I don't tolerate fools but then they don't tolerate me, so I am spiky. Maybe that's why I'm quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.
I longed to be bright and most certainly never was. I was rather hopeless, I suspect.
"But there was an incredible nervousness about him. You couldn't do this, couldn't do that. Mustn't ride a bike, you'd be bound to fall off. Couldn't swim, you'd most certainly drown." [on her father]
My career is chequered. Then I think I got pigeon-holed in humour; Shakespeare is not my thing.
I tend to head for what's amusing because a lot of things aren't happy. But usually you can find a funny side to practically anything.
[on roles] "When you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything."
It's true I don't tolerate fools, but then they don't tolerate me, so I am spiky. Maybe that's why I'm quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.
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