Maggie Smith ✝

Dame Margaret Natalie Smith CH DBE (born 28 December 1934) is an English actress. She has had an extensive, varied career on stage, film, and television, spanning over 66 years. Smith has appeared in over 50 films, and is one of Britain\'s most recognizable actresses. A prominent figure in British culture for six decades, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for services to the performing arts, and received the Companion of Honour from the Queen in 2014 for services to drama.\n', ' 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 five 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), and Three Tall Women (1994). 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. Other stage roles include 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).\n', ' On screen, Smith first drew praise for the crime film Nowhere to Go (1958), for which she received her first BAFTA Award nomination. 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 six 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. A six-time Oscar nominee, her other nominations were for Othello (1965), Travels with My Aunt (1972), A Room with a View (1986), and Gosford Park (2001).\n', '