janeaustenfilmclub: Dame Maggie Smith- Actor of the Week

Dame Maggie Smith as Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey

Maggie Smith can entertain me like few other actresses of any age. Whether she is firing off hilarious acerbic one liners in Downton Abbey as Violet the Dowager Countess ("What is a weekend?") or when she does witchcraft as Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter with a twinkle in her eye ("I've always wanted to use that spell").

Maggie Smith as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter series

"It's true I don't tolerate fools but then they don't tolerate me, so I am spiky. Maybe that's why I'm quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies."

Maggie Smith as Constance Countess of Trentham and her maid Mary from Gosford Park

As for her role as Violet, the Dowager Countess, Maggie Smith remarks, "It is very satisfying to play a character such as Violet...Julian (Fellowes) is good at those sorts of ladies. This is the third old lady I've played for him, so I am getting the hang of it now," Smith laughs.

Maggie Smith in her Oscar winning performance with Michael Caine in California Suite 1978

This wonderful actress has won 2 Academy Awards (for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 1969 and for California Suite 1978) and has been nominated for 3 more as well as being made a Dame Commander (DBE) in 1990. She has two sons by her first marriage to actor Robert Stephens (one of whom is the yummy Toby Stephens from Jane Eyre) and had a very happy second marriage to playwright Beverley Cross who died in 1998.

Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judi Dench in A Room with a View

I remember her first for her spate of Agatha Christie mysteries (or spoof of same by Neil Simon) from the 1970s (Murder by Death, Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun) but one of her best will always be as prim passive-aggressive chaperone Charlotte Bartlett from A Room with a View.

Charlotte Bartlett: I shall never forgive myself.
Lucy Honeychurch: You always say that, Charlotte. And then you always do forgive yourself.