British actress Maggie Smith, legend of theater and cinema, has died at the age of 89, her two sons announced on Friday. She notably played the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall in the “Harry Potter” saga and starred in the hit series “Downton Abbey”.
“She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning,” said her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens. “She was a very private person, but she was with her friends and family at the end of her life. She leaves two loving sons and five grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother.” , they added.
Maggie Smith’s career has been marked by the eclecticism of roles and genres: from the mother superior alongside Whoopi Goldberg in “Sister Act” (1992) to the “transfiguration” professor in the “Harry Potter” saga films. Potter”, through the neurotic chaperone in “Room with a View” (1986) or the homeless old lady in “The Lady in the Van” (2015). Then she especially won the affection of the international public by playing the ruthless but endearing dowager countess Lady Violet Crawley in the successful series (and then the two films) “Downton Abbey”.
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Two Oscars and six Baftas
During her long career, she has won two Oscars, six Baftas (including an honorary one), four Emmy Awards, for a total of 108 nominations across all awards.
Born on December 28, 1934 in Ilford, in the south-east of England, Margaret Smith began on the stage of the Oxford Playhouse in the early 1950s. She then joined the troupe of London’s Old Vic theater and then that of the Royal National Theater where she had a string of successes, alongside her husband, the actor Robert Stephens. His film career took off in the 1960s.
One of Britain’s best-known and most celebrated artists, Maggie Smith was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990 and a Companion of Honor in 2014, for services to the country in the arts.
She had been married twice, and had her two sons, also actors, with the comedian Robert Stephens.
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