Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville has paid tribute to Dame Maggie Smith by calling her a “true legend of her generation”. Bonneville, who played Dame Maggie’s son in the long-running drama, praised her “sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent”.
He said: “Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent. She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances. My condolences to her boys and wider family.”
Bonneville joined a host of famous faces in paying tribute to Dame Maggie, whose death was announced yesterday, including US movie stars Whoopi Goldberg and Rob Lowe. Goldberg said she felt “lucky” to have worked alongside the British actress in Sister Act, where Dame Maggie played Reverend Mother Superior.
And she shared an old picture on Instagram of the two on set, dressed as nuns, describing her as a “great woman”. Lowe, who appeared with Dame Maggie in 1993 BBC drama Suddenly, Last Summer, referred to his late co-star as a “lion”.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, he wrote: “Saddened to hear Dame Maggie Smith has passed. I had the unforgettable experience of working with her; sharing a two-shot was like being paired with a lion. She could eat anyone alive, and often did. But funny, and great company. And suffered no fools. We will never see another. Godspeed, Ms Smith.”.
Among other celebrities paying tribute, Kristin Scott Thomas said Dame Maggie “saw through the nonsense and razzmatazz” of acting, and “had a sense of humour and wit that could reduce me to a blithering puddle of giggles”.
She starred opposite the actress in the 2014 drama My Old Lady and wrote on Instagram: “So very, very sad to know she has gone. She was a true inspiration. She took acting very seriously but saw through the nonsense and razzmatazz. She really didn’t want to deal with that. She had a sense of humour and wit that could reduce me to a blithering puddle of giggles. And she did not have patience with fools.”
Thomas added that you “had to be a bit careful”, but she “absolutely adored her”, called her comedic timing “perfection” and vulnerable roles “heartbreaking”. She added: “The last time I saw her she was very cross about being old. ‘Maddening’, I think she said.”
Truly, Madly, Deeply actress Juliet Stevenson told Times Radio that Dame Maggie was “a goddess”. She said: “For me, I think that there was literally nothing that she couldn’t do. If you look at the body of her work over 70 years, she started in theatre, she did a long period with Laurence Olivier at his first National Theatre, playing Shakespeare.
“She was on Broadway by the age of 22, she did high comedy, tragedy, and she conquered Hollywood. Her versatility was almost unrivalled. For me, she’s the greatest, really”.
TV presenter Gyles Brandreth described her as “wise, witty, waspish, wonderful”. In a post on X, Bafta said she was a “legend of British stage and screen”.
Ilford-born Dame Maggie – perhaps best known for the Harry Potter films and Downton Abbey – died at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital yesterday at the age of 89. During her long career she won five Bafta film awards for acting and received the Bafta fellowship in 1996.
She also won two Oscars – for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1970 and California Suite in 1979 – and had four other nominations, and received seven Bafta awards.
Dame Maggie began her career in the 1950s and was nominated for her first Oscar for playing Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier in Shakespeare’s Othello in 1965. Other memorable roles included 1985 Merchant Ivory film A Room With a View, which earned her another Oscar nomination and a Bafta.
She appeared as an English woman living in 1930s Italy in the film Tea with Mussolini, in 1999; and was the firm but fair Reverend Mother in the two Sister Act films. The veteran actress also played the old woman who spent 15 years living in a van outside Alan Bennett’s house in theatre and film adaptations of the writer’s The Lady in the Van.