Maggie Smith: A Life in Pictures

Maggie Smith, who died on Friday at 89, was among the most venerable British actors of her era, embarking in the 1950s on a decades-long career and a run of memorable, award-winning performances. She won two Oscars, a Tony, three Golden Globes, four Emmys and several British Academy of Film and Television Awards.

But incredibly, she did not reach mainstream stardom until later in her career, first as Minerva McGonagall, the Hogwarts School’s stern and fearless transfiguration teacher, in seven of the eight “Harry Potter” films, and then as Violet Crawley, the acid-tongued dowager countess on the British historical drama “Downton Abbey.”

“It’s not even that you particularly want to be an actor,” Smith once said. “You have to be. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

Here are some snapshots from his life and career.

Maggie Smith in 1957, the year she made her London stage debut in the musical revue “Share My Lettuce.”

Smith in 1963, when she appeared in “The V.I.P.s,” a melodrama whose all-star cast also included Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Smith behind the scenes of the 1968 MGM British comedy caper “Hot Millions.” Vincent Canby, in his review for The New York Times, described her performance as “marvelously funny.”

In “Oh! What a Lovely War” (1969), Smith “minces to center stage and sings a raucous, deliberately naughty recruiting song, ‘I’ll Make a Man of You,’” Mr. Canby wrote in his review in The Times.

Smith rehearsing with Robert Stephens, a British actor and her frequent co-star, in 1966 as the theater director John Dexter observes. Smith and Stephens married in 1967 and divorced in 1974.

Laurence Olivier, center, introduced Smith to Queen Elizabeth II in 1966.

Smith in 1969, the year she appeared in the film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” Her performance earned her the first of her two Oscars and introduced her to American audiences.

Smith and Stephens celebrating her first Oscar win in 1970.

Smith had two sons, Toby and Christopher, with Stephens.

Smith attending the Tony Awards in 1970. Twenty years later, she would win a Tony for her lead role in “Lettice and Lovage.”

Smith was in her 30s when she starred in “Travels With My Aunt” (1972), playing Aunt Augusta, an amoral world traveler in her 70s.

Smith played the title role in a 1973 production of “Peter Pan” at the London Coliseum.

Smith won a second Oscar in 1979, for her supporting role in “California Suite,” based on Neil Simon’s stage comedy.

Smith in a London production of Jean Cocteau’s “The Infernal Machine” in 1986. “She’s a miracle,” the play’s director, Simon Callow, told The Times, “sustaining three or four complex thought patterns in the middle of a performance.”

Smith with Kelly MacDonald in Robert Altman’s 2001 murder mystery, “Gosford Park.” Smiths portrayal of the Countess of Trentham was “almost sinfully delicious,” Stephen Holden wrote in his review for The Times.

Smith as Minerva McGonagall in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” (2011), one of the seven “Harry Potter” films in which she appeared.

From the beginning, Smith was the breakout star of the British television drama “Downton Abbey.” Her role as Violet Crawley, the acid-tongued dowager countess, earned her three Emmy Awards.

Smith in London in 2015. One of her final films, “The Lady in the Van,” in which she played a strong-willed homeless woman, was released that year.

Smith attended the Wimbledon women’s singles final in 2023.