RIP, Professor McGonagall

Dame Maggie Smith, the beloved actor recognizable for her roles in the Harry Potter and Downton Abbey franchises, has died. She was 89 years old. Smith, who for decades has been one of the most prolific and acclaimed British actresses on the planet, earned an Academy Award as well as a BAFTA for her role in 1969's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Her sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, announced her passing today, saying that she had died at a London hospital on early Friday local time.

"An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. 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 a statement issued through their publicist (via The Daily Mail).



Smith began her career on the stage, and drew acclaim for her performances on London's West End and Broadway for years. Besides making a name for herself in Mary, Mary, Othello, Private Lives, and more, she dove into screen work, where she did not only Miss Jean Brodie, but other hits like California Suite, A Room With a View, Gosford Park, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Already one of the most esteemed performers of her generation, Redgrave had a late-career renaissance, with millions of new fans encountering her for the first time as Countess Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey and Professor Minerva McGonagall in Warner Bros.' Harry Potter films.

In 1990, she was named Dame Commander of the British Empire, a rare honor.

Smith was born in Ilford, Essex, in 1934, and attended the Oxford School for Girls, and then the Oxford Playhouse School, where she studied theatre. In 1952, she started appearing in stage productions at Oxford University, and eventually was asked to join New Faces of 1956, a Broadway variety show. The next year, she made her film debut in Nowhere To Go, before moving back to the stage and joining the cast of The Old Vic. There, she appeared in plays like "As You Like It," "Richard II," "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "What Every Woman Knows."

In 1963, she starred alongside legendary celebrity couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in The V.I.P.s, then the next year she went head to head with Ann Bancroft in The Pumpkin Eaters.