Maggie Smith, the decorated British actress best known for her roles in “Downton Abbey” and the “Harry Potter” franchise, was pronounced dead at 89 in a London hospital Friday.
Smith’s sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, thanked both hospital staff and fans of their mother for their kind words in a statement released Friday morning by publicist Clair Dobbs.
“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” Larkin and Stephens said in the statement.
Born in 1934, Smith made her acting debut at a local playhouse in Oxford. She transitioned to the screen in 2010 after a breakout role in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” where she starred opposite Robert Stephens and Pamela Franklin.
Modern audiences know Smith best for her roles as professor Minerva McGonagall in the “Harry Potter” movie series and Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the 2010 television show “Downton Abbey.”
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Smith, whose career on stage and screen spanned over seven decades, has over 50 total film credits and awards, including two Academy Awards and three Golden Globes.
