(CNN) – Maggie Smith, one of the best-known British actresses whose long career spanned from co-starring with Laurence Olivier in “Othello” on stage and screen to roles in “Harry Potter” and “Downton Abbey,” has died, her children announced in a statement shared by her publicist Claire Dobbs. She was 89 years old.
“With great sadness, we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in the hospital early this morning, Friday, September 27. An intensely private person, she was surrounded by friends and family at the end,” the statement read. “She leaves behind two children and five beloved grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unconditional kindness during her final days.”
Smith was born in 1934 in Ilford, then a middle-class suburb of East London. Just before the outbreak of World War II, the family moved to Oxford, where her father worked as a pathologist at the University of Oxford.
After graduating from high school, Smith attended the Oxford Playhouse School from 1951 to 1953, making her stage debut in a production of the Oxford University Dramatic Society’s “Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare.
She then appeared on Broadway in “New Faces of 1956” and later played the role of lead comedian in the London revue “Share My Lettuce” from 1957 to 1958. She soon began appearing regularly in plays at The Old Vic theatre in London.
In 1964, she played the role of Desdemona in Olivier’s Othello, before reprising the role in the film version the following year. Smith won her first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1969 for her portrayal of an unconventional schoolteacher in the film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.”
In 1978, she received a second Academy Award, this time for Best Supporting Actress, for her performance in Neil Simon’s “California Suite.” She also received BAFTA film awards for her work, including her roles in 1985’s “A Room with a View” and 1987’s “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne.”
Smith was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990, and has since been widely known as Dame Maggie Smith.
But in many ways, her best roles were yet to come, including a leading role in the 1999 classic “Tea with Mussolini,” about a group of upper-middle-class Englishwomen in Florence, Italy, during the fascist era, directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
She may be best remembered as an actress who managed to achieve not only longevity but even greater fame in her later life.
She captured the attention of younger audiences as the strict but fair witchcraft professor Minerva McGonagall in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (2001), and also appeared in several “Harry Potter” sequels.
Acclaim came again on both sides of the Atlantic for her portrayal of the acerbic Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” the acclaimed period drama about the British aristocracy. She received three Emmy awards for the role, which she reprised for a 2019 feature film.
In her later years, Smith became a role model for aging gracefully, a process she navigated with her characteristic charm and wit.
When asked by the British magazine “Women’s World” in 2017 why she had not attended more awards ceremonies, Smith replied: “I really think that if I were to go to Los Angeles, for example, I think I would scare people… They don’t see old people.”
Smith was married twice, first to actor Robert Stephens (the couple divorced in 1974) and then to playwright Beverly Cross, from 1975 until his death in 1998.
She is survived by her two children, actors Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens.