Dame Maggie Smith

Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Cross on December 28th 1934 in Ilford, Essex. Maggie trained at the Oxford Playhouse School, she made her stage debut with the Oxford University Dramatic Society in 1952 as Viola in Twelfth Night. She joined the Old Vic Company in 1959 and the National Theatre in 1963, giving notable performances in As You Like It, Richard II, The Rehearsal, and Private Lives.

Among her films are her first film, Nowhere to Go (1958), Othello (1966), Travels with My Aunt (1973), A Room with a View (1985), and A Private Function (1985). She has won two Academy Awards, for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and, ironically, in the role of a nominated actress on Academy Award night, in California Suite (1978). Smith, whose range is seemingly limitless being equally adept at both dramatic and comedy roles, appeared in many mainstream commercial films. She made a charming Nora Charles-type female detective in Murder by Death (1976), played suspects in the all-star Agatha Christie whodunits Death on the Nile (1978) and Evil Under the Sun (1982), and managed to make her presence felt in the special effects-laden fantasy Clash of the Titans (1981), as Thetis. She charmingly played an elderly Wendy in Hook (1991), Steven Spielberg's "Peter Pan" saga. She then co-starred in the hit, Sister Act (1992, as the unamused Mother Superior), and reprised this role in Sister Act 2: Back In the Habit (1993). Her television work has brought her a Royal Television Society Award for Best Actress for Talking Heads: Bed Among the Lentils and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress for the title role in Granada TV's play Mrs. Silly. More recent performances in plays include Three Tall Women (1991) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1992); in films, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1991) and The Secret Garden (1993). Her current West End theatre engagement is in Alan Bennett’s The Lady In The Van at the Queen's. Maggie Smith was awarded the CBE in 1970 and in 1989 she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire. She was awarded the Hamburg Shakespeare Prize in 1991, is a fellow of the British Film Institute, an Honorary D.Litt of Cambridge and St. Andrew's University and a patron of the Jane Austen Society. She is married to the author and screenwriter Beverley Cross. In 2001 watch out for Maggie in the film of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.