THE GRAND DAME (REMEMBERING MAGGIE SMITH)

It's hard to believe an actress as accomplished as Maggie Smith could have been gripped by nervousness and fear.

However in a 2015 interview with the Scottish newspaper, The Sunday Post, the Oscar winning actress admitted her reputation in later years for being a difficult star was often borne out of those two emotions.

“Obviously at some times I have been like that," she acknowledged.

"The awful thing is, I’m sort of very aware when I’m being difficult but I’m usually so scared," she confessed.

“And that’s shaming, at the age one is. Because every time I start anything, I think, 'This time I’m going to be like Judi Dench, and it will all be lovely, it will be merry and bright, the Quaker will come out in me’.

“But it never works. Jude has a wonderful calm, it’s very enviable.

“When you’re young you’re just so thrilled to be doing it; of course you’re terrified but as you get older it’s because you realise how difficult it is to do. When you’re young it’s excitement and terror. Now it’s just terror.”

@ MGM

Smith, however, had earned the right to be difficult.

Over the years, she turned in many iconic performances on the big and small screen.

Born in Ilford in Essex in 1934, her mother hailed from Glasgow and worked as a secretary.

Her dad was a public health pathologist from Newcastle upon Tyne, based at the University of Oxford.

Her parents met on a train from Glasgow to London and romance blossomed.

Maggie had two older brothers who were twins, Alistair and Ian.

After attending Oxford High School, she left to study acting at the age of 16 at the Oxford Playhouse and two years later was appearing in productions, playing Viola in 'Twelfth Night'.

@ 20th Century Fox

Among the other productions she appeared in were 'Cinderella,' Ben Travers' farce 'Rookery Nook,' an adaptation of W Somerset Maugham's novel 'Cakes and Ale' and Nikolai Gogol's 'The Government Inspector'.

The broadcaster and stage director Ned Sherrin was one of the first to latch onto her talents and he gave Smith her first taste of television on the programme 'Oxford Accents'.

In 1956, Smith went to New York, making her Broadway debut in a review called 'New Faces of 56'.

That year, she also made her first uncredited movie appearance as a guest at a party in Cy Enfield's drama 'Child in the House' with Phyllis Calvert, Eric Portman and Stanley Baker.

Now attracting a lot of attention, she starred alongside Kenneth Williams in Bamber Gascoigne's 1957 comedy musical 'Share My Lettuce'.

Her first credited movie role came a year later as a naive Chief Constable's daughter in Seth Holt's British crime drama 'Nowhere To Go' with Bernard Lee, Harry H Corbett and Bessie Lee but it drew a tepid response from critics and underwhelmed at the box office.

Maggie's performance earned her the first of 13 BAFTA nominations in her career in The Best Newcomer category.

@ MGM

Other prominent West End roles followed.

Smith scooped Evening Standard awards in 1962 for 'The Private Ear' and 'The Public Eye'

Impressed by her performance at the Old Vic in William Congreve's Restoration comedy 'The Double Dealer,' Laurence Olivier coaxed her into joining the National Theatre where she became quite a fixture.

The renowned English theatre critic Michael Coveney once observed that Olivier regarded her as a match for his talent.

So impressed was he that he acted opposite her as Desdemona in 'Othello,' in Henrik Ibsen's 'The Master Builder,' in George Farquhar's 1706 comedy 'The Recruiting Officer' and in 'Much Ado About Nothing'.

Coveney believed a rivalry even developed between them.

Smith would claim in an interview on 'The Graham Norton Show' Olivier even slapped her across the face onstage while performing 'Othello'.

Her time at the National would see her acting alongside contemporaries like Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon and she would spend eight years there.

Back on the big screen, Michael Truman directed her, Robert Morley, Norman Rossington, Daniel Massey and Dennis Price in the 1962 English crime comedy 'Go to Blazes' in which she was cast as a French woman.

In Anthony Asquith's 1963 Terrence Rattigan scripted 'The VIPs,' she was a lovelorn secretary to Rod Taylor's Australian businessman in an airport drama which also starred Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret Rutherford, Orson Welles and Louis Jourdan.

Asquith's film played well with audiences despite mixed reviews.

Her next role saw her as a woman suspected of having an affair with Anne Bancroft's husband, played by Peter Finch, in the Jack Clayton directed and Harold Pinter scripted 1964 dysfunctional marriage drama 'The Pumpkin Eater'.

Clayton's film got positive, if not totally enthusiastic reviews and earned Bancroft Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations but it has grown in stature over the years as an overlooked and very underrated work.

The legendary Hollywood director John Ford cast her in his 1965 movie 'Young Cassidy,' based on the life of the celebrated Dublin playwright Sean O'Casey, with Rod Taylor, Julie Christie, Michael Redgrave, TP McKenna and Jack MacGowran.

Ford's movie didn't set either the critics or audiences on fire but she did pick up a BAFTA nomination for Best British Actress.

Following her appearance in the acclaimed National Theatre production of 'Othello,' Stuart Birge directed alongside Laurence Olivier, Joyce Redman and Frank Finlay in a movie version.

This landed Smith her first Academy Award nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category and a Golden Globe nomination.

She lost out, however, to Shelley Winters in the Oscars race who won for her performance in 'A Patch of Blue'.

Her next film was Joseph L Mankiewicz's 1967 crime comedy drama 'The Honey Pot' with Rex Harrison and Cliff Robertson in which she played the nurse of Susan Heyward's Texan billionaire.

Shot on location in Venice and Rome, it was loosely based on Ben Jonson's play 'Volpone' and on Frederick Knott's play 'Mr Fox of Venice' but it did not really makes waves.

In 1967, she married the actor Robert Stephens.

The marriage lasted eight years and the couple had two sons - Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens who both became actors and gave her five grandchildren.

Two months after divorcing Stephens, she married the playwright Alan Beverley Cross in a registry office in Guildford and they remained together until his death in 1998.

Eric Till directed her in the 1968 caper movie 'Hot Millions' in which she played a terrible secretary and frustrated flautist who marries Peter Ustinov's conman.

Written by Ustinov and Ira Wallach, the film with Karl Malden, which received an Oscar nomination for its screenplay, stuttered at the box office.

1969 would see Smith land two significant roles.

In Ronald Neame's 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,' she dazzled as an eccentric art teacher with fascist leanings in an Edinburgh girls school in a role that would capture her her first Oscar in the Best Actress category.

Richard Attenborough directed her in the well received comedy musical 'Oh! What A Lovely War' in which she played a Music Hall star among a cast that included Michael Redgrave, Dirk Bogarde, John Geilgud, Laurence Olivier, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Susannah York, Corin Redgrave and Ian Holm.

During the 1960s, she would appear in small screen versions of Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing' for the BBC with Robert Stephens, George Bernard Shaw's 'Man and Superman' for the BBC, and Frederick Lonsdale and Stanley Miller's 'On Approval' with Judi Dench, Robert Stephens and Moray Watson for 'ITV Playhouse'.

In the 1970 New Honours List, Queen Elizabeth II awarded her a CBE and 20 years later made her a Dame Commander of the British Empire for services to the performing arts.

Smith returned to the big screen in some style with an Oscar nominated performance in George Cukor's 1972 comedy 'Travels With My Aunt'.

Earning another Best Actress nomination for her performance as an eccentric woman twice her age who claims to be the aunt of Alec McCowan's London bank manager, critics lauded her performance.

She lost out in the Oscar race to Liza Minnelli who won for playing Sally Bowles in 'Cabaret'.

That year she played Portia in 'The Merchant of Venice' alongside Frank Finlay and Epifania in George Bernard Shaw's 'The Millionairess' with Tom Baker for the BBC's 'Play of the Month' strand.

A year later, Alan J Pakula directed her in the comedy drama 'Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing' with Timothy Bottoms, in which she played a socially awkward tourist in Spain harbouring a secret who becomes romantically involved with his character.

The film was well received by critics but a big hit did not materialise.

Smith popped up as a guest on CBS's sketch show 'The Carol Burnett Show' in 1974.

Neil Simon also directed Smith in a star studded 1976 comedy mystery 'Murder By Death' which parodied Agatha Christie's country manor whodunits.

Also starring Peter Falk, Eileen Brennan, Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers and Truman Capote, she and David Niven portrayed a Dashiell Hammett-style socialite couple with a wire haired terrier.

Enthusiastically received by critics, the film notched up strong box office figures.

Two years later, Smith appeared in the real McCoy - John Guillermin's mostly well received, star studded adaptation of Agatha Christie's murder mystery 'Death On The Nile' with Peter Ustinov as the celebrated Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot.

Playing another nurse to Bette Davis' Marie Van Schuyler, she found herself among a cast that comprised of David Niven, Mia Farrow, Olivia Hussey, George Kennedy, Angela Lansbury, Jack Warden, Sam Wanamaker and Harry Andrews.

Despite receiving decent reviews, Guillermin's movie underperformed at the box office but it did land Smith a BAFTA Best Supporting Actress nomination.

There was another Poirot movie in Guy Hamilton's 1982 murder mystery 'Evil Under The Sun' in which she played a hotel owner with Peter Ustinov.

James Mason, Colin Blakely, Jane Birkin, Diana Rigg, Sylvia Miles and Roddy MacDowell were among her co-stars but the film flopped.

1978 saw her capture her second Oscar as a British Academy Award nominee married to Michael Caine's closeted gay antiques dealer in the acclaimed Herbert Ross directed Neil Simon comedy 'California Suite' with Jane Fonda, Walter Matthau, Alan Alda, Elaine May, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor.

She won the Best Supporting Actress gong for a film that was a huge hit with audiences and critics.

After a three year break from the film industry, Maggie landed an Evening Standard Best Actress award for her performance as an artist in James Ivory's well received 1981 movie 'Quartet' with Isabelle Adjani, Alan Bates and Anthony Higgins.

It was to be the start of a fruitful partnership with the Merchant Ivory stable of period dramas.

Desmond Davis directed her, Harry Hamlin, Burgess Meredith, Judi Bowker, Ursula Andress and Laurence Olivier in the 1981 old style sword and sandals epic 'The Clash of the Titans'.

Playing the sea nymph Thetis, the film did well at the box office but was outgunned by Steven Spielberg's 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'.

1982 saw the first of two memorable British comedies where she co-starred with Monty Python's Michael Palin.

In Richard Loncraine's cheeky comedy 'The Missionary,' Maggie played a Lady of the Manor who becomes smitten with Palin's clergyman and funds his rather unorthodox mission to redeem the souls of London prostitutes.

An indie hit in the UK, the film scripted by Palin with Trevor Howard, Denholm Elliott, Michael Horden, Phoebe Nicholls, David Suchet and Timothy Spall was well received by critics.

In Bryan Forbes' 1983 comedy 'Better Late Than Never,' she teamed up with David Niven, Art Carney and Lionel Jeffries in a comedy that made little impression on audiences or critics.

There was a critically acclaimed lead performance in 'Mrs Silly,' a one-off ITV TV film in 1983 adapted from a William Trevor short story.

Her next film, Károly Makk's 1984 comedy 'Lily in Love' with Christopher Plummer about a self important actor who pretends to be an Italian actor to land a part in his wife's movie was well received.

However it did not reach the heights of her acclaimed comic performance alongside Palin in the Alan Bennett scripted, Malcolm Mowbray directed hit movie 'A Private Function' with Liz Smith, Denholm Elliott, Richard Griffiths, Tony Haygarth and Bill Paterson.

Smith and Palin played a couple who kidnap a pig from businessmen and try to rear it for a celebration that gets round postwar England food rationing.

A critical success on both sides of the Atlantic, Smith picked up a Best Actress BAFTA, while Mowbray's film made a modest profit.

There was a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her next cinema role as Charlotte Bartlett, the spinster chaperone of Helena Bonham Carter's Lucy Honeychurch in the delightful Merchant Ivory production of EM Forster's 'A Room With A View'.

Reunited with director James Ivory, critics enthused about the film and her Golden Globe winning performance alongside Julian Sands, Denholm Elliott, Judi Dench, Simon Callow and Daniel Day Lewis.

However she lost out in the Oscar battle to 'Hannah and Her Sisters' star Diane Wiest.

She captured a Best Actress BAFTA and an Evening Standard award for her next role in Jack Clayton's 1987 adaptation of Brian Moore's novel 'The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne'.

Relocating the story from Belfast to Dublin, Clayton's film with Bob Hoskins, Wendy Hiller, Prunella Scales, Marie Kean and Ian McNeice was well received, with Smith's performance coming in for particular praise.

Smith was diagnosed with Graves Disease in 1988 - an autoimmune condition that affects the thyroid and she underwent radiotherapy but it did not slow down her career.

That year she picked up a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress in a TV drama and won the Royal Television Society Best Actress award for her performance as a nervous, alcoholic vicar's wife who has an affair with an Asian shopkeeper in Alan Bennett's monologue 'A Bed Among the Lentils' in his acclaimed BBC1 series 'Talking Heads'.

She joined Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Powell, Ben Kingsley, Francesca Annis, Victor Spinetti and Quentin Crisp to provide the voices for a feral cat in Amanda Acosta's bizarre 1990 art film adaptation of 'Romeo and Juliet' which also featured an appearance John Hurt.

The film secured a limited release after screening in Venice.

Steven Spielberg directed her as the older version of Wendy in 'Hook' - his 1991 reworking of JM Barrie's 'Peter Pan' with Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts, Bob Hoskins, Gwyneth Paltrow and Phil Collins.

Hammered by the critics, it made a $50 million profit but spectacularly underperformed.

She was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in 1992 and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame two years later.

There was a surprise appearance as a disapproving Mother Superior in Emile Ardolino's huge 1992 comedy hit 'Sister Act' with Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Najiny, Harvey Keitel and Bill Nunn about singing nuns.

It would spawn a hit stage musical version and also 'Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit' with James Coburn a year later, which didn't charm audiences in quite the same way but still made a decent profit.

Playing Mrs Medlock in Agnieszka Holland's beautifully made 1992 cinematic version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 'The Secret Garden,' Smith earned much praise alongside a cast that included Kate Maberly, Heydon Prowse, Andrew Knott, Irene Jacob and John Lynch.

She teamed up again with director Jack Clayton for a 'BBC Screen Two' adaptation of Muriel Spark's 'Memento Mori' with Michael Horden, Stephanie Cole, Zoe Wanamaker and Thora Hird.

In 1993, BAFTA honoured her with a Special Award and three years later bestowed a Fellowship which is its highest honour.

She was Emmy nominated for Outstanding Actress in a TV Movie or Miniseries for her performance as Violet Venable in Richard Eyre's BBC version of a National Theatre production of Tennessee Williams' 'Suddenly, Last Summer' which co-starred Rob Lowe, Richard E Grant and Natasha Richardson.

There was a terrific performance as the Duchess of York in Richard Loncraine's stirring, acclaimed 1995 reworking of Shakespeare's 'Richard III' with Ian McKellen playing him as a fascist dictator and a cast that included Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent, Nigel Hawthorne, Kristin Scott Thomas and Robert Downey Jr.

Maggie scored another Hollywood comedy hit in 1996, playing a New York socialite in Hugh Wilson's 'First Wives Club' alongside Bette Midler, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Dan Hedaya, Sarah Jessica Parker, Philip Bosco, Elizabeth Berkley, Marcia Gay Harden, Stephen Collins and Bronson Pinchot.

She teamed up again with Agnieszka Holland in 1997 for another period drama in the critically acclaimed adaptation of Henry James' 1880 novel 'Washington Square' with Jennifer Jason Leigh, Albert Finney, Ben Chaplin, Jennifer Garner and Judith Ivey.

Despite many critics claiming Smith stole most of the scenes as Aunt Lavinia, the widowed aunt who chaperones Jennifer Jason Leigh's shy Catherine, the film didn't draw audiences despite its rave reviews.

A year later, she and Michael Caine played bickering ghosts in Peter Yates' underwhelming romantic comedy 'Curtain Call' with James Spader, Polly Walker, Sam Shepard, Marcia Gay Harden and Buck Henry.

Franco Zeffirelli directed her, Cher, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Lily Tomlin in the amiable 1999 comedy drama 'Tea with Mussolini' about a boy being raised among older British and American women in Italy during the Second World War.

A modest hit, Smith captured a Best Supporting Actress BAFTA for her performance as the widow of a former British Ambassador to Italy.

In Deborah Warner's 'The Last September,' a film which drew mixed reviews, Smith played a Lady of the Manor married to Michael Gambon who are looking after Keeley Hawes' high spirited niece during the Irish War of Independence.

The romantic drama also starred David Tennant, Lambert Wilson, Fiona Shaw, Richard Roxburgh, Tom Hickey and Gary Lydon.

Julian Jarold directed her, David Jason, David Troughton and Patrick Malahide in the acclaimed BBC TV film 'All The King's Men' about soldiers based in the Sandringham Estate who suffered heavy losses in Gallipoli during the First World War in which she played Queen Alexandra.

There was also an appearance as Betsey Trotwood in Simon Curtis' star studded BBC1 adaptation of Charles Dickens' 'David Copperfield' with Ciaran McMenamin, Bob Hoskins, Zoe Wanamaker, Trevor Eve, Pauline Quirke, Dawn French, Ian McKellen, Alun Armstrong, Imelda Staunton, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Cherie Lunghi, Michael Elphrick, Paul Whitehouse and a young Daniel Radcliffe.

2001 saw Maggie's first appearance as the head of Gryffindor and deputy headmistress Minerva McGonagall in Chris Colombus' 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' with Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint.

Undoubtedly one of the 'Harry Potter' series' best loved characters, she appeared in seven of the eight films between 2001 and 2009 alongside a who's who of British and Irish thesps that included Richard Harris, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane, Gary Oldman, Julie Walters, Mark Williams, David Thewlis, Richard Griffiths, Fiona Shaw, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Isaacs, Brendan Gleeson, Helena Bonham Carter, Timothy Spall, Robert Hardy, John Hurt, Robert Pattinson, Warwick Davis, David Bradley, Emma Thompson, Helen McCrory, Kenneth Branagh, Zoe Wanamaker, Ian Hart, John Cleese and Dawn French.

2001 saw her play a Countess in Robert Altman's star studded and critically acclaimed Julian Fellowes' scripted comedy 'Gosford Park'.

A prototype 'Downton Abbey,' the Oscar and Golden Globe winning film starred Kelly McDonald, Helen Mirren, Derek Jacobi, Kristin Scott Thomas, Michael Gambon, Emily Watson, Richard E Grant, Charles Dance, Bob Balaban, Geraldine Somerville, Tom Hollander, Jeremy Northam, Clive Owen, Alan Bates, Eileen Atkins, Ryan Phillippe, Adrian Scarborough and Stephen Fry.

Critically lauded and a commercial success, the cast won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble and Smith joined Mirren and Watson in securing a Best Actress nomination at the European Film Awards.

However despite Fellowes picking up a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award, Altman's film disappointingly lost out to Ron Howard's 'A Beautiful Mind' in the Best Picture and Best Director contests.

It would pave the way for one of Maggie's best known small screen roles as the acid tongued Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Fellowes' popular ITV series 'Downton Abbey' with Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Jim Carter, Phyllis Logan, Michelle Dockery, Dan Stevens, Brendan Coyle, Joanne Froggatt, Robert James Collier, Alan Leech, Siobhan Finneran and Penelope Wilton.

A huge ratings and critical success in the UK, US and around the world, the show ran for six series between 2010 and 2015, Smith's character was a fan's favourite.

It also spawned two movies which saw her reprise the role - Michael Engler's critically lauded hit 'Downton Abbey' in 2019 and Simon Curtis' 2022 sequel 'Downton Abbey: A New Era'.

In 2002, Callie Khouri secured her for the Southern Belle comedy drama 'Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood' with Sandra Bullock, James Garner, Ellen Burstyn, Ashley Judd, Angus MacFadyean, Shirley Knight and Fionnula Flanagan.

Indifferently received by movie critics, it nevertheless performed decently at the box office.

Richard Loncraine directed her, Ronnie Barker, Chris Cooper, Giancarlo Giannini and Timothy Spall in the 2003 HBO movie of Irish writer William Trevor's 'My House In Umbria' in which she played an eccentric British romance novelist living in Italy who gets caught up in a terrorist attack.

Her acclaimed performance won her an Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a TV Movie or Miniseries and landed her a Golden Globe nomination..

Stepping behind the camera, Charles Dance directed her in the 2004 period movie 'Ladies in Lavender' which reunited her onscreen with her chum Judi Dench.

Also starring Natascha McElhone, David Warner, Daniel Bruhl, Toby Jones, Freddie Jones and Miriam Margoyles, they played elderly sisters in Cornwall who nurse a handsome young Polish violinist back to health after discovering him washed up on a beach in the amiable 1930s drama which performed respectably at the box office.

Smith scored another comedy hit playing Rowan Atkinson's mother in Niall Johnson's so so 2005 English black comedy 'Keeping Mum' with Kristin Scott Thomas, Tamsin Edgerton, Liz Smith and Patrick Swayze.

In 2007, she revealed she had discovered she had breast cancer but within two years she had made a full recovery.

That year Maggie appeared in Julian Jarold's minor hit romantic drama 'Becoming Jane' with Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy, Julie Walters and James Cromwell.

Stephen Poliakoff also directed her in his one-off BBC2 and HBO TV film 'Capturing Mary' with Ruth Wilson and David Williams in which she played a former journalist and socialite who recounts a story about a sinister individual she met at a soiree in the 1950s who ruined her career.

Her performance as a finally strapped grandmother and owner of a country estate in Julian Fellowes' 2009 fantasy drama 'From Time to Time' with Timothy Spall, Carice Van Puten, Hugh Bonneville, Alex Etel, Eliza Bennett, Elizabeth Dermot-Walsh, Dominic West and Pauline Collins was well received even if the movie underwhelmed audiences and critics.

There was a delightful performance as an eccentric granny in Susanna White's 2010 Emma Thompson scripted family movie sequel 'Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang' with Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rhys Ifans, Ralph Fiennes and Katy Brand.

2011 saw her voice the part of the leader of the blue gnomes in Kelly Asbury's hit animated romcom 'Gnomeo and Juliet' whose cast included James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Jason Statham, Stephen Merchant, Julie Walters, Patrick Stewart and Ozzy Osbourne.

She reprised the role in the hit, critically panned 2018 sequel 'Sherlock Gnomes' which added Johnny Depp and Mary J Blige to the cast.

Following the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand in 2011, Smith gave her backing to a NZ$4.6 million campaign to rebuild the city's Court Theatre.

In 2012, she became a patron of the International Glaucoma Association and was also a patron of the Oxford Playhouse where she began her acting career.

She served as a vice president of the Chichester Cinema in New Park and as the vice president of the Royal Theatrical Fund which supports those no longer able to perform due to serious illness - taking part in a fundraising event with Kathleen Turner in 2021 and also supported other actors' charities and animal welfare causes.

Along with her pal Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Tom Wilkinson, Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup and Dev Patel, she racked up another comedy hit with John Madden's 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'.

A critically lauded film about a group of English people relocating to a retirement community in Jaipur, it was a hit around the world with Smith's performance as a former housekeeper who requires a hip replacement coming in for particular praise.

A sequel 'The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' inevitably followed with Richard Gere and David Strathairn joining the cast and same director in 2015 and was well received by audiences and critics whole not scaling the same heights.

Dustin Hoffman directed her, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon and Sheridan Smith in another retirement home drama 'Quartet' in 2012 about a group of retired opera singers which earned decent reviews and box office returns.

In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours, Smith became only the third actress to receive the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to her profession - following Dames Sybil Thorndike and Judi Dench.

During her illustrious career, she would also be awarded honorary degrees from the Universities of St Andrews, Bath, Cambridge and from Mansfield College in Oxford.

Israel Horowitz directed her alongside Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas and Dominique Pinon in the charming 2014 comedy 'My Old Lady' in which she played an elderly woman occupying a flat in Paris inherited by a cash strapped New Yorker.

Christopher Plummer presented Maggie in 2014 with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's Legacy Award at a ceremony in Toronto.

Smith enjoyed some of her best reviews on the big screen in 2015 in the Nicholas Hytner directed comedy 'The Lady in the Van' with Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Frances de la Tour and Roger Allam.

Based on a memoir by Alan Bennett about a woman who lived in a van in his driveway in London for 15 years, it was a critical and arthouse success.

In April 2016, Smith received the Bodley Medal from the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries for her outstanding contribution to the performing arts.

Roger Michell also directed her, Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins and Joan Plowright in the hilarious 2018 documentary 'Nothing Like A Dame' in which the four celebrated actresses told anecdotes about their careers on stage and screen.

There was an appearance in Gil Kenan's straight to streaming 2021 Festive Season film 'A Boy Named Christmas' with Henry Lawfull, Sally Hawkins, Toby Jones, Michel Huisman, Jim Broadbent, Stephen Merchant and Kristen Wiig.

Irishman Thaddeus O'Sullivan directed her alongside Laura Linney, Kathy Bates, Agnes O'Casey, Mark O'Halloran and Stephen Rea in 'The Miracle Club,' a Jimmy Smallhorne penned comedy drama about a group of 1960s working class women from Dublin who go on a pilgrimage to Lourdes looking for a variety of miracles.

While the film received mixed reviews, Smith's performance as an elderly mother mourning a son who committed suicide earned the best notices.

It was to be her last big screen performance but one which underlined her place as a grand dame of acting.

Smith was a rare beast.

She dazzled generations in a variety of big and small screen roles that will continue to shine in decades to come.

But she was also irreplaceable.

No-one will ever dominate the screen quite like Maggie Smith.

(Maggie Smith passed away at the age of 89 on September 27, 2024)

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THE GRAND DAME (REMEMBERING MAGGIE SMITH)

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