Maggie Smith

Dame Margaret Natalie Smith[1][2] CH DBE (born 28 December 1934) is an English actress. With an extensive career on screen and stage beginning in the mid-1950s, Smith has appeared in more than 60 films and 70 plays. She is one of the few artists to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, having received highest achievement for film, television and theatre, winning two Academy Awards, a Tony Award and four Primetime Emmy Awards. She is also a recipient of various accolades including five BAFTA Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and five Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 1996 she was honored with the BAFTA Fellowship.[3] Hailed as one of Britain’s most recognisable and prolific actresses, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for contributions to the Arts,[4] and a Companion of Honour in 2014 for services to Drama.[5]

Smith began her career on stage as a student, performing at the Oxford Playhouse in 1952, and made her professional debut on Broadway in New Faces of ’56. For her work on the London stage, she has won a record six Best Actress Evening Standard Awards for The Private Ear and The Public Eye (both 1962), Hedda Gabler (1970), Virginia (1981), The Way of the World (1984), Three Tall Women (1994), and A German Life (2019). She received Tony Award nominations for Private Lives (1975) and Night and Day (1979), before winning the 1990 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Lettice and Lovage. She appeared in Stratford Shakespeare Festival productions of Antony and Cleopatra (1976) and Macbeth (1978), and West End productions of A Delicate Balance (1997) and The Breath of Life (2002). She received the Society of London Theatre Special Award in 2010.