30 September 2024 - Maggie Smith dies aged 89
Dame Maggie Smith, acting legend, star of Downton Abbey and Harry Potter, dies aged 89
Minnie Wright (Radio Times, 27/09/2024)
Beloved actress of stage and screen Dame Maggie Smith has died, aged 89.
In a statement, her sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin said: "It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith.
The Exhilarating Brilliance of Maggie Smith
Rebecca Mead (The New Yorker, 28/09/2024)
Dame Maggie Smith, who died on Friday, at the age of eighty-nine, was one of a generation of female British actors who carved out a long career on the stage, in the movies, on television, and, in a final unexpected turn, on TikTok. Recently, a clip featuring a conversation between Dame Maggie and Dames Joan Plowright, Judi Dench, and Eileen Atkins, from a 2018 documentary, “Tea with the Dames,” directed by Roger Michell, went viral. In it, the four eminent and versatile performers discuss their later-in-life professional opportunities.
Maggie Smith found a clarity on stage that in some ways surpassed her screen work
Michael Billington (The Guardian, 28/09/2024)
Maggie Smith was an actor of legendary wit and style who, even off stage, seemed to have the capacity to deliver a one-line zinger. There’s a lovely moment in Roger Michell’s TV film Nothing Like a Dame in which the assembled quartet (including Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins) are asked to talk about the difficulty of living with a title.
Dame Maggie Smith found fame ‘awful’ after popular series ruined ‘perfectly normal life’
Danni Scott (Metro, 29/09/2024)
Dame Maggie Smith was beloved by many for her numerous on-screen appearances but one popular series destroyed her ‘perfectly normal life’.