The wonderful actress was 89.
NYT obituary here.
ADDED: Sorry my embedded video doesn't put Maggie Smith in the freeze frame, but she does appear prominently in the clip, and it's a great clip from one of my favorite movies, "A Room With a View." Smith plays the stilted chaperone for the main character, who is an exuberant young woman, but feeling the emotion of the repressed older woman is crucial to the deepest understanding of that incredibly moving film.
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33 comments:
Classy Actress. Classy Lady. RIP
The dowager Countess of Grantham more often than not had the best lines.
Wonderful actress. I don't think she was capable of a bad performance, so incredibly gifted. And really a very beautiful woman. It's easy just to think of her as this aged kind of crone figure, as in Downton Abbey or Best Exotic Marigold Hotel but seeing her in some of the earlier films, really very pretty. She knew all the greats, i bet she had a lot of interesting stories about people!
I forgot that tedious English scene. Julian Sands is also gone. Very sad.
Maggie Smith is delightful - same with Judy Dench.
Vulgarity is no substitute for wit. Great lady.
"Incredibly moving" means nothing from a woman.
Loved her in both Travels with my Aunt and Downton Abbey
I first loved her in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Wonderful performance.
The Alan Bennett monologue "Bed Among the Lentils" is really fantastic and Maggie Smith is perfect in it. A great choice to celebrate her career if you're looking for something to watch.
The Miss Allens. Wonderful movie.
And the great Denholm Elliott.
I think you have blinders of your own. "Incredibly moving" appears to mean "insufferably tedious", and as such serves as a useful warning.
McGonagall but not McForgottenagall
I recall her as a great guest on the Carol Burnett Show.
Snippets of that guest performance are on YouTube.
I bought the VHS. It was my ‘Dinner with Andre’.
"What is a 'week-end'?"
She had some excellent lines in "Downton Abbey" -- worthy of Oscar Wilde.
What a star! And thank you for highlighting "A Room with a View"; she was a standout in that ensemble of great actors.
Helena Bonhsm Carter was the most beautiful young woman ever.
She won an acclaimed actress when younger, but she had her great roles and best lines as an old woman. She played Desdemona next to Laurence Olivier's blackface Othello in 1965. She was kind of hot in that role, but it's an example of post facto type casting. It's kind of confusing to see the Countess as a hot Desdemona. Not so bad as Judi Dench though. Dench had to wear pasties and a nude body suit for her portrayal of Titania in A Midsummer Night.
Jupiter said...
”Incredibly moving" appears to mean "insufferably tedious", and as such serves as a useful warning.
“Incredibly moving” is what I want from a fiber supplement.
One of my favorite films - I watched it for the first time in a long while recently. What a treat!
In that brief clip there appear, in addition to Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, Judi Dench, Simon Callow, Denholm Elliot, and Julian Sands. That's a lot of talent!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059555/mediaviewer/rm2159291136?ft0=name&fv0=nm0001749&ft1=image_type&fv1=still_frame&ref_=tt_ch
WaPo is calling her "ebullient scene-stealer of stage and screen".
No, she didn't "steal" a scene. She performed a scene, as written. If she was better at what she did than others, that's because she was the better actor. Actors know what "stealing" a scene means, and I never saw her do that.
Mmm Judi Dench...was wondering who that was. Her beauty makes the others around her look common, including Helen Carter and her bushy eyebrows.
And Daniel Day-Lewis was also in the movie, but not in this scene. A great ensemble cast!
Loved her in the black comedy “Keeping Mum”.
Loved her in the black comedy “Keeping Mum”.
RIP Dame Maggie. One of the most formidable actresses of her time. Just one of my and my daughters’ favorites, her withering line in Gosford Park: “shop bought marmalade? I consider that very poor”.
One of our family favorite movies is A PRIVATE FUNCTION with Maggie as a nagging, social climbing wife of a specialist in "feet". Pure gold British humor.
In the novel (Room with a View), George realizes that Charlotte is consistently bringing Lucy's attention back to him, even when her comments are ill-intentioned. This realization is not shown in the movie, but Maggie Smith's performance conveys the emotional tension Charlotte feels in connection with George. More movie commentary from our Professor, it will exciting for both us and for her.
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