LComic artists loved to imitate his legendary laugh. That of an old lady who is a little uptight but never stingy with witticisms and killer retorts. Like those of her character, Violet Crawley, whom she played for six years in the ultra-popular series “Downton Abbey”. Dame Maggie Smith has just passed away at the age of 89.
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The world of theater and cinema mourns the loss of a legend. An icon of British theater and an inspired Shakespearean actress, it was in the cinema that she gradually built her notoriety. Two Oscars, three Golden Globes, six Baftas, so many prizes have rewarded a career led with taste by this actress, born in Ilford, in Essex, in 1934.
It will have been directed by the greatest directors: from Laurence Olivier to Ronald Neame (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for which she won her first Oscar in 1970), James Ivory (Room with a view) or Robert Altman (Gosford Park). And it was in the Harry Potter franchise that young audiences discovered her in the role of Minerva McGonagall, professor of transfiguration at Hogwarts.
In Agatha Christie adaptations
Maggie Smith discovered her passion for the stage very early on. Trained at the Oxford Playhouse, she distinguished herself by her talent, mainly in complex roles. But it was on screen that Maggie Smith became a household name for audiences. His role in comedy California Suite, in 1978, allowed him to collect a second statuette in Hollywood.
The general public enjoys her stilted airs, which she does not hesitate to abuse in the roles of foul-mouthed old maids, in adaptations of Agatha Christie novels. As Death on the Nile by John Guillermin, in which she plays opposite the great Bette Davis and Peter Ustinov, excellent Hercule Poirot. Or a few years later, in Murder in the Sun always with Peter Ustinov and Jane Birkin.
In 2010, it was television that gave him new notoriety with the series by Julian Fellowes, Downton Abbey in which the audience is amused by his scathing replies in the role of the cantankerous Violet Crawley, surely much more progressive than she seems.
She was elevated to the rank of lady commander in 1990 by Queen Elizabeth II for “services to the performing arts”.
