Maggie Smith, who played Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter, has died

The star of the Harry Potter movie saga and the Downton Abbey series, Oscar-winning British actress Maggie Smith has died at the age of 89. The actress passed away in a hospital early in the morning today, September 27.

The news was reported by the celebrity's sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin, the BBC writes. "Being a very private person, she was with friends and family at the last moment. She is survived by two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," the statement reads.

Smith's relatives thanked the fans for their support and kind words, calling for respect for the actress's privacy. It is not known for certain what caused her death.

Born in 1934, Smith grew up in Oxford and began acting at the city's Playhouse Theater as a teenager. After appearing in a number of theatrical productions, she also began acting in films, landing her first significant role in Seth Holt's 1958 thriller Nowhere to Go, for which the young star was nominated for a Bafta Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Smith was subsequently invited to join the newly formed National Theater company in 1962, for which she appeared in a number of productions, including as Desdemona in Othello. The following year, Smith reprised the role in the film version, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award.

In 1969, she landed the lead role in The First Miss Jean Brodie, an adaptation of Muriel Spark's novel about an Edinburgh teacher who becomes obsessed with Mussolini. Maggie won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1970. She was nominated for another golden statuette in 1973 for Graham Greene's film adaptation of Travels with My Aunt, and in 1979 she won an Oscar (for Best Supporting Actress) for California Suite.

In the 1980s, Smith continued her successful parallel career in film and on stage. The roles kept coming, including agreeing to play Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter series, appearing in all but the Deathly Hallows between 2001 and 2011.

Meanwhile, Maggie landed perhaps her most influential role on television as the Countess of Grantham in the Downton Abbey series, created by writer Julian Fellowes and based on Gosford Park, and reprised the role in two separate films released in 2019 and 2022.

Smith was married twice: to fellow actor Robert Stevens between 1967 and 1975 and to Beverly Cross from 1975 until his death in 1998.

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