• Britain’s Maggie Smith, the double Oscar-winner who shone on stage and screen for more than seven decades, passed away in London on September 27. She was 89.

• Smith was one of the most acclaimed actors of her generation. For many younger fans in the 21st century, she was best-known as Professor McGonagall in all seven ‘Harry Potter’ movies, and the Dowager Countess in the hit TV series ‘Downton Abbey’.

• Smith was one of a select few to win the treble of an Oscar, Emmy and Tony during seven decades on stage and screen.

• Over the course of her career, Smith won a Tony, two Oscars, three Golden Globes and five Baftas.

• Born in 1934 in Oxford in central England, the daughter of an Oxford professor of pathology, Smith made her stage debut in 1952 with the Oxford University Dramatic Society.

• After starting on stage in the 1950s, Smith became a fixture at Britain’s new National Theatre in the 1960s. 

• Laurence Olivier spotted her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of Othello.

• Smith’s first Academy Award nomination was for her turn playing Desdemona opposite Olivier’s ‘Othello’ in 1965, before winning the Oscar for her role as an Edinburgh schoolmistress in 1969’s ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’.

• She won her second Oscar for her supporting role in the 1978 comedy ‘California Suite’.

• Other critically acclaimed roles included Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ on the West End stage, a 92-year-old bitterly fighting senility in Edward Albee’s play ‘Three Tall Women’, and her part in 2001 black comedy movie ‘Gosford Park’.

• From 2001, her role as Minerva McGonagall in the ‘Harry Potter’ films introduced her to a younger generation.

• It was ‘Downton Abbey’, which ran from 2010, that made her an international star again.

• In 1990 Smith was knighted by Queen Elizabeth and became a Dame.

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