MAGGIE SMITH
Maggie Smith plays Minerva McGonagall, deputy head of Hogwarts and head of the Gryffindor house.
Dame Maggie Smith is quite simply one of the world's greatest stage and screen actresses revered both by her peers and the public alike and the recepient of countless awards, including two Academy Awards, the CBE and the DBE.
Smith first appeared on stage with the Oxford University Drama Society in 1952 and then made her professional debut in New York in The New Faces 1956 Revue. She joined the Old Vic Company in 1959 and began gathering awards including the 1962 Evening Standard's Best Actress Award for her roles as Doreen in The Private Ear and Belinda in The Public Eye.
She joined The National Theatre in 1963 playing Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier's Othello and went on to further success in Black Comedy, Miss Julie, The Country Wife, The Beaux Strategm and Much Ado About Nothing.
But, it was in 1969 and her portrayal in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie which catapulted her into the public eye and won her an Academy Award and the Society of Film and TV Arts Best Actress Award. Further film roles followed including: Travels with my Aunt (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress) and Death on the Nile. Then, in 1977 Smith won her second Academy Award and a Golden Globe for her role in Neil Simon's California Suite.
The accolades continued to flow with Alan Bennett's A Private Function (co-starring Michael Palin) for which she won a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, a Variety Club Award and her fifth Academy Award nomination. Further film success followed with Merchant Ivory's A Room with a View; The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress); Stephen Spielberg's Hook; Sister Act; The Secret Garden; Richard III, The First Wives Club; Washington Square; Tea with Mussolini (for which she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress) and The Last September.
Smith has remained faithful to her stage career throughout her illustrious film and television career. She played the title role of Hedda Gabler in 1970 and won her second Variety Club Best Actress Award for her portrayal of Mrs Millamant in the Way of the World. Further stage productions include: Night and Day and Edna O'Brien's Virginia for which she received the Evening Standard Drama Award for Best Actress. Other notable productions include: The Interpreters; Infernal Machine; Coming in to Land; Lettice and Lovage (for which she won a Tony Award for Best Actress); The Importance of Being Earnest; Three Tall Women (for which she won the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress); A Delicate Balance and most recently Alan Bennett's Lady in the Van.
Major television credits include: Granada's Mrs Silly for which she won a Bafta for Best Actress; the BBC's Momento Mori; Suddenly Last Summer and Talking Heads: Bed Among the Lentils for which she won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Actress and most recently The BBC's All the King's Men and David Copperfield.
In 1970 Smith received a CBE and in 1990 she became Dame Maggie Smith when she received the DBS. She was awarded the Hamburg Shakespeare Prize in 1991, is a Fellow of the British Film Institute; was awarded a Silver Bafta in 1993, is an Hon. DLitt of Cambridge University and St. Andrews and is a patron of the Jane Austen Society.
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