Maggie Smith - Career

Career

Smith began her career at the Oxford Playhouse with Frank Shelley and made her first film in 1956. She became a fixture at the Royal National Theatre in the 1960s, most notably for playing Desdemona in Othello opposite Laurence Olivier and winning her first Oscar nomination for her performance in the 1965 film version.

She appeared with Ronnie Barker at the Oxford Playhouse in the play The Housemaster and various others. Barker did not think much of her, saying "she only had two styles-either grand and rather camp, or sharp cockney".

In 1969, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as an unorthodox Scottish schoolteacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a role originally created on stage by Vanessa Redgrave in 1966 in London. (Zoe Caldwell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play when she created the role in New York.) Smith was also awarded the 1978 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the brittle actress Diana Barry in California Suite, acting opposite Michael Caine. Afterwards, on hearing that Michael Palin was about to embark on a film (The Missionary) with Smith, Caine is supposed to have humorously telephoned Palin, warning him that she would steal the film. She also starred with Palin in the black comedy A Private Function in 1984.

Smith appeared in Sister Act in 1992 and had a major role in the 1999 film Tea with Mussolini, where she appeared as the formidable Lady Hester. Indeed, many of her more mature roles have centred on what Smith refers to as her "gallery of grotesques", playing waspish, sarcastic or plain rude characters. Recent examples of this would include the judgmental sister in Ladies in Lavender and the cantankerous snob Constance, Countess of Trentham, in Gosford Park, for which she received another Oscar nomination.

Other notable roles include the querulous Charlotte Bartlett in the Merchant-Ivory production of A Room with a View, a vivid supporting turn as the aged Duchess of York in Ian McKellen's film of Richard III, and a little known but powerful performance as Lila Fisher in the 1973 film Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing with Timothy Bottoms. Due to the international success of the Harry Potter movies, she is now widely known for playing the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall, opposite Daniel Radcliffe, with whom she had previously worked in the 1999 BBC television adaptation of David Copperfield, playing Betsey Trotwood. She also plays an older Wendy in the Peter Pan movie Hook, and Mrs. Medlock in The Secret Garden.

In 2010, she started appearing as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the British period drama Downton Abbey, which is currently in its third series. In 2012, she earned another Golden Globe Awards nomination (her ninth) for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for series 1 of Downton Abbey. Smith has won two Emmy Awards for this role.

She appeared in numerous productions at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, to acclaim from 1976 through to 1980. These roles included Queen Elizabeth in Richard III, Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Virginia Woolf in Virginia, and countless lead roles with long-time Stratford icon Brian Bedford including the Noël Coward comedy Private Lives. In September 2012, Smith received the prestigious Stratford Shakespeare Festival Legacy Award, recognizing her career.

On stage, her many roles have included the title character in the stage production of Alan Bennett's The Lady in the Van and starring as Amanda in a revival of Private Lives. She won a Tony Award in 1990 for Best Actress in a Play for Peter Shaffer's Lettice and Lovage, in which she starred as an eccentric tour guide in an English stately home. In 2007, she appeared in Edward Albee's The Lady from Dubuque at Theatre Royal Haymarket.

She appeared in a 1954 BBC television programme, Oxford Accents, produced by the late Ned Sherrin. She was one of the performers, playing several roles, in New Faces of 1956 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre from 14 June to 22 December 1956. She was "in Orange" in the musical comedy Share My Lettuce, based on the book by Bamber Gascoigne, that opened at the Lyric Hammersmith on 21 August 1957. With Anthony Bowles as musical director, it transferred to the Comedy Theatre on 25 September 1957 and to the Garrick Theatre on 27 January 1958. Smith's musical numbers in this performance included: Love's Cocktail (solo), On Train He'll Come (solo), Party Games (solo), Bubble Man (with Kenneth Williams) and Menu (with Kenneth Williams). Eight photos from this performance as well as an article on Smith appeared in the November 1957 issue of Theatre World magazine. One of Smith's earliest acting citations was as nominee for Most Promising Newcomer to Film of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for Nowhere To Go in 1958. In Hollywood, Smith was a nominee for the Golden Globe Awards New Star of the Year (Actress) in 1964 for her performance in The V.I.P.s.

In 2012, Maggie played Muriel in the British comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. She is also starring as Jean Horton in Quartet, based on Ronald Harwood's play, directed by Dustin Hoffman.

Smith was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1970 New Year Honours and was raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in the 1990 New Year Honours.

In 1986, she was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) from the University of Bath. She also received honorary degrees from the University of St Andrews in 1971 and the University of Cambridge in 1995.