We lost a good one today. British actress Maggie Smith passed away today at the age of 89. Because she began her career on stage at 17, her career encompassed a wide variety of characters that stand out for people of all ages.
I still remember the first time I saw her, as the tight-lipped but controversial teacher at an all-girls school in Edinburgh in the 1930s, in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I was a teenager, impressed by Smith’s ability to present such a complicated character who was simultaneously off putting and strangely sympathetic.
For younger viewers, Smith reached fame as a different kind of teacher, Hogwarts Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter series. Again, Smith convinced viewers that her character deserved the high regard in which her students and peers held her, despite her sternness. Her dry wit was her charm.
But surely the role that made her a household name was that of Lady Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, on Downton Abbey. Lady Crawley was—as had become Smith’s trademark—stony, demanding, but also witty and deliciously naughty. No one ever got the best of Violet Crawley.
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith was wonderfully talented, and she had certainly her share of tough turns in life. Becoming a widow in 1998, she once said, “It seems a bit pointless, going on on one’s own, and not having someone to share it with.” I do hope she knew the Lord and is sharing life with Him and many of her loved ones now. It would be a pleasure to meet her in eternity, don’t you think?
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