– British actress Maggie Smith dies
The wizarding world is in mourning: the one who played transfiguration professor Minerva McGonagall has died at the age of 89.
Maggie Smith has died at the age of 89.
AFP/Niklas HALLE’N
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British actress Maggie Smith, legend of theater and cinema, has died at the age of 89, her two sons announced on Friday.
“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 will also be missed by many fans. She had played the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, as well as the transfiguration professor Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter.
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Born in 1934, she was renowned for her acerbic humor and natural elegance. She also marked the history of cinema by winning two Oscars: that of Best Actress for “The Beautiful Years of Miss Brodie” (1969) and that of Best Supporting Actress for “California Suite” (1978).
Her career was marked by the eclecticism of roles and genres: from the mother superior alongside Whoopi Goldberg in “Sister Act” (1992) to the neurotic chaperone in “Room with a View” (1986) or old homeless lady in “The Lady in the Van” (2015).
From theater boards to cinema
Margaret Smith started on the stages of the Oxford Playhouse in the early 1950s. She then joined the troupe of the London theater of the Old Vic and then that of the Royal National Theater where she had a string of successes, alongside her husband , actor Robert Stephens.
Her 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, awarded for services rendered to the country in the field of the arts.
She had been married twice, and had her two sons, also actors, with the comedian Robert Stephens.
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AFP/Myrtille Wendling
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