Dame Maggie Smith: December 28, 1934-September 27, 2024 (Image via collage)

Dame Maggie Smith, one of the most acclaimed actors of the stage, screen, and TV, died Friday in a London hospital at 89.

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Her career was among the most storied in her field.

Born in Ilford, Essex, England, on December 28, 1934, Smith said in 2017, “I wasn't aware of [the theatre] at all, as a child. I can only think that it started at school with the English teacher I had, who encouraged me, because I was so fascinated by — we only read Shakespeare, obviously, at school, and I was never in any school plays, which always drove me insane, I used to get furious — but it was really down to her. I just knew I had to do it, which is weird.”

She first took to the stage in 1952, and made her Broadway debut in New Faces of '56. She received Tony nominations for Broadway's Private Lives (1975) and Night and Day (1979), winning for Lettice and Lovage (1990).

Following her film debut in 1956, she garnered 18 BAFTA nominations and six Oscar nominations, winning Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and picking up Best Supporting Actress for California Suite (1978).

Among her most important films were The V.I.P.s (1963), Travels with My Aunt (1972), Murder by Death (1976), Death on the Nile (1978), Clash of the Titans (1981), Evil Under the Sun (1982), A Room with a View (1985); Sister Act (1992) and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993); Richard III (1995), The First Wives Club (1996), Gosford Park (2001), seven Harry Potter films (2001-2011); The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) and its sequel (2015); The Lady in a Van (2015) and The Miracle Club (2023).

Smith became a sensation all over again on PBS's Downtown Abbey (2010-2015), on which she played prickly Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham. With lines like, “What is a weekend?,” she endeared herself to a whole new audience. It led to two feature films: Downton Abbey (2019) and Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022).

Smith was married twice, first to actor Robert Stephens and then to playwright Alan Beverly Cross. Cross preceded her in death in 1998.

She is survived by her actor sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, and by her grandchildren.