Maggie Smith, actor famed for Harry Potter, ‘Downton Abbey,’ dies at 89

London: Maggie Smith, the brilliant, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for the 1969 film "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and attracted new admirers in the 21st century for her roles as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films and the dowager countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey," passed away on Friday. She was eighty-nine.

Smith passed away early on Friday in a London hospital, according to a statement from her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens.

“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs.

With two Oscars, numerous Academy Award nominations, and a cabinet full of acting prizes, Smith was often considered the preeminent British female actor of a generation that also included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench.

Despite her complaint that "you're lucky to get anything when you get into the granny era," she was still in demand in her senior years, AP reported.

Smith drily summarized her later roles as “a gallery of grotesques,” including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: “Harry Potter is my pension.”

Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of “Suddenly, Last Summer,” said she was “intellectually the smartest actress I’ve ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith.”

She won both the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) and the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh school teacher in "Jean Brodie."

Smith also won a BAFTA for lead actress in "A Private Function" in 1984, "A Room with a View" in 1986, and "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne" in 1988.

She also won an Oscar for supporting actress in 1978 for "California Suite," two Golden Globes for “California Suite” and “A Room with a View.”

In addition, she was nominated for four Academy Awards as a supporting actress: "Othello," "Travels with My Aunt," "Room with a View," and "Gosford Park." She also won a BAFTA for her supporting role in "Tea with Mussolini." She was the recipient of a Tony Award for "Lettice and Lovage" in 1990.

In the popular TV historical drama "Downton Abbey," she played the acid-tongued Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, from 2010. The role gained her a devoted following, three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe, and numerous more nominations.

She performed in films long into her eighties, including the 2023 release of "The Miracle Club" and the 2022 big-screen spinoff "Downton Abbey: A New Era." Smith was known for being difficult and at times upstaging others.

Richard Burton stated that Smith didn’t only take over a scene in “The VIPs” with him: “She commits grand larceny.”

However, the director Peter Hall found that Smith wasn’t “remotely difficult unless she’s among idiots. She’s very hard on herself, and I don’t think she sees any reason why she shouldn’t be hard on other people, too.”

Smith agreed that at times she could be impatient.

“It’s true I don’t tolerate fools, but then they don’t tolerate me, so I am spiky,” Smith said. “Maybe that’s why I’m quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.”

Smith was well known for being incredibly private, despite her extravagant behaviour when performing or in front of the cameras.

“She never wanted to talk about acting. Acting was something she was terrified to talk about because if she did, it would disappear,” said Simon Callow, who performed with her in “A Room with a View.”

Smith received the title of Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1990, which is the same as being a knight.

In 1967, she wed fellow actor Robert Stephens. They had two boys, Christopher and Toby, who both went on to become actors and got divorced in 1975. In the same year, she wed Beverley Cross, a writer who passed away in 1998.