Maggie Smith

Dame Margaret Natalie Smith CH DBE born 28 December 1934 is an English actress She has had an extensive career on stage film and television which began in the mid1950s Smith has appeared in more than 60 films and over 70 plays and is one of Britains most recognisable actresses She was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for contributions to the performing arts and a Companion of Honour in 2014 for services to drama Smith began her career on stage as a student performing at the Oxford Playhouse in 1952 and made her professional debut on Broadway in New Faces of 56 For her work on the London stage she has won a record six Best Actress Evening Standard Awards for The Private Ear and The Public Eye both 1962 Hedda Gabler 1970 Virginia 1981 The Way of the World 1984 Three Tall Women 1994 and A German Life 2019 She received Tony Award nominations for Private Lives 1975 and Night and Day 1979 before winning the 1990 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Lettice and Lovage She appeared in Stratford Shakespeare Festival productions of Antony and Cleopatra 1976 and Macbeth 1978 and West End productions of A Delicate Balance 1997 and The Breath of Life 2002 She received the Society of London Theatre Special Award in 2010 On screen Smith first drew praise for the crime film Nowhere to Go 1958 for which she received her first nomination for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA Award She has won two Academy Awards winning Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 1969 and Best Supporting Actress for California Suite 1978 She is one of only seven actresses to have won in both categories She has won a record four BAFTA Awards for Best Actress including for A Private Function 1984 and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne 1988 a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for Tea with Mussolini 1999 and three Golden Globe Awards She received four other Oscar nominations that were for Othello 1965 Travels with My Aunt 1972 A Room with a View 1986 and Gosford Park 2001 Smith played Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series 20012011 Her other films include Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing 1973 Death on the Nile 1978 Clash of the Titans 1981 Evil Under the Sun 1982 Hook 1991 Sister Act 1992 Sister Act 2 Back in the Habit 1993 The Secret Garden 1993 The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 2012 and The Lady in the Van 2015 She won an Emmy Award in 2003 for My House in Umbria to become one of the few actresses to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting and starred as Lady Violet Crawley Dowager Countess of Grantham on Downton Abbey 20102015 for which she won three Emmys her first nonensemble Screen Actors Guild Award and her third Golden Globe Her honorary film awards include the BAFTA Special Award in 1993 and the BAFTA Fellowship in 1996 She received the Stratford Shakespeare Festivals Legacy Award in 2012 and the Bodley Medal by the University of Oxfords Bodleian Libraries in 2016 Description above from the Wikipedia article Maggie Smith licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia