“She was a very private person, she spent the end of her life with friends and family. She leaves behind two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” reads a statement published by her children, British media reports.
Smith was born on December 28, 1934 in Essex, England, she comes from the family of a secretary and a pathologist and has two older brothers. She studied acting at the Oxford Playhouse School and then performed in shows in Oxford and the capital. In 1963 she joined the National Theater in London. There, for example, she played the character of Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello.
British actress Maggie Smith
She first appeared on the screen in the late fifties, starring alongside George Nader and Bernard Lee in the film Nowhere to go. In 1963, she appeared in the movie People of Influence with Elizabeth Taylor in the lead role, and her acting career began to take off.
Not only McGonagall in Harry Potter
Two years later, she played in the Shakespearean drama Othello, but she really became famous only in 1969 in the leading role in the film The Best Years of Miss Jean Brodie, for which she won her first Oscar.
After that, she played many other roles in films, mostly dramas, such as Death on the Nile, Murder at Dinner, Clash of the Titans, Peace with a View, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearn or the American comedy Club of Deferred Women. She won her second Oscar in 1978 for the film Apartment in California.
However, she is most associated with the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall from the wizarding saga about Harry Potter.
Among her other famous roles are Countess Violet in Downton Manor, the mother introduced in the comedy with Whoopi Goldberg Sister in Action or Lady Gresham in the movie Passion and Feeling. From recent years, we can recognize her from the films Universal Cleaner or Fabulous Hotel Marigold.
