Maggie Smith’s most memorable performances from Shakespeare to the big screen

Dame Maggie Smith was one of Britain’s best-loved and most celebrated actresses, with a career spanning eight decades.

Her first performances came on stage in the 1950s, and her last screen role was just a year ago, when she starred in The Miracle Club.

She was one of a select group of actors to win the treble of big US awards, with two Oscars, four Emmys and a Tony – as well as seven Baftas and an honorary Olivier Award in her home country.

Here are six of her most best-known performances:

One of Smith’s most iconic early roles was as Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello.

Sir Laurence Olivier, who was playing the title role, offered her the part at the National Theatre in 1963.

The production, with the original cast, was made into a film two years later, and Smith nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress.

Reflecting on the role much later, Smith told the Guardian she did the role “with great discomfort and was terrified all the time”.

Shakespeare, she added, “is not my thing”.

The role that brought Smith international fame came in 1969 when she played the determinedly non-conformist teacher in the title role of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

The film was adapted from the 1961 novel by Muriel Spark, set in 1930s Edinburgh, and the character was based on the author’s inspirational teacher.

The part won Dame Maggie a best actress Oscar, and she married co-star Robert Stephens.

Smith won critical acclaim for her role as Betsey Trotwood in a BBC adaptation of David Copperfield at the turn of the century.

The part also brought her Bafta and Emmy nominations.

She starred alongside a young Daniel Radcliffe, who she would later act with again in the Harry Potter films.

At the age of 67, a whole new generation were introduced to the acting marvels of Dame Maggie Smith.

In 2001, she took on the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Her formidable character was in all eight films and she was reportedly the only actor that author JK Rowling specifically asked for.

In 2007, while working on Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, Dame Maggie was diagnosed with breast cancer but continued filming. She was given the all-clear after two years of treatment.

At the same time as appearing in Harry Potter, Smith also starred in another huge hit – Downton Abbey.

Between 2001 and 2015 she played Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in ITV’s British period drama.

Her performance as the quick-witted matriarchal figure won her three Primetime Emmy awards, a Bafta, a Golden Globe and four Screen Actors Guild awards.

She reprised her role of Violet in the Downton Abbey films in 2019 and 2022.

In the final film, her character’s health deteriorates and she dies.

One of Smith’s most famous later roles was as a homeless woman in The Lady In The Van.

In the 2015 film, she starred as Miss Shepherd, who lived in a battered van in playwright Alan Bennett’s driveway for 15 years.

Her performance in the comedy-drama was described as “terrifically good” and “magnificent” by critics. She received a Golden Globe award and was nominated for a Bafta.

But it wasn’t the first time she had played Miss Shepherd.

The actress also starred as the lead character in 1999 when the play, based on Bennett’s memoir, opened in London’s West End.

Her performance earned her an Olivier Award nomination for best actress in 2000.