Opinion The Third Edit: Dame Maggie Smith, the millennial superstar
In a storied career of over seven decades, the Downton Abbey actor had one of the best third acts of all time
At a time when descriptors such as “icon”, “legend” and “GOAT” are applied equally to actors, athletes and unsuspecting stars of viral memes, Smith stood apart, as she had through her 70 years as a performer. 
In the early aughts, Dame Maggie Smith, who died at 89 last week, accomplished the rare feat of becoming a millennial superstar in her late 60s. She had been a towering institution of cinema and theatre, revered as much for her talent as her acerbic wit, for almost four decades by then, having more than held her own against such giants of the stage and screen as Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton. After playing Professor Minerva McGonagall in the wildly-popular Harry Potter films from 2001 onwards and the acid-tongued Dowager Countess of Grantham on the smash-hit TV show Downton Abbey (2010-2015), Smith complained of finding fame of the kind that, for the first time in her storied career, no longer allowed her to shop at her local grocer.
At a time when descriptors such as “icon”, “legend” and “GOAT” are applied equally to actors, athletes and unsuspecting stars of viral memes, Smith stood apart, as she had through her 70 years as a performer. Her career followed the familiar stage-to-screen trajectory, but the acclaim that punctuated her journey right from the start, including two Oscars, a Tony, five Baftas, and three Golden Globes, was testament to a rare talent. Smith sparkled in comedy and shone in tragedy and melodrama, her deeply intelligent and empathetic performances often stealing the show from her co-stars — Burton, famously, accused her of committing “grand larceny”.
One only needs to watch a scene from any of her performances, whether it’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), Travels With My Aunt (1972) or The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012), to understand the truth of this. Arguably, for her younger audiences, Smith was a bigger star than any of her Downton Abbey or Harry Potter colleagues (except perhaps Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson) at the time of her death. For someone who once said “When you’re into the granny era, you’re lucky to get anything,” Smith managed to have one of the best third acts of all time.
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