30 of the Best Portraits of a Young and Beautiful Maggie Smith

Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in  Downton Abbey and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died on Friday in London. She was 89.

Smith’s sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement via publicist Clair Dobbs: “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.”

In 1952, aged 17, under the auspices of the Oxford University Dramatic Society, Smith began her career as Viola in Twelfth Night at the Oxford Playhouse. She continued to act in productions at the Oxford Playhouse including, Cinderella (1952), Rookery Nook (1953), Cakes and Ale (1953) and The Government Inspector (1954). That same year, she appeared in the television program Oxford Accents (1954) produced by Ned Sherrin. In 1956 Smith made her Broadway debut playing several roles in the review New Faces of ‘56, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre from June to December 1956. In 1957, she starred opposite Kenneth Williams in the musical comedy Share My Lettuce, written by Bamber Gascoigne.

In 1962, Smith won the first of a record six Best Actress Evening Standard Awards for her roles in Peter Shaffer’s plays The Private Ear and The Public Eye, again opposite Kenneth Williams. After seeing Smith in The Double-Dealer at The Old Vic, she caught the eye of Laurence Olivier, who invited her to become part of his new National Theatre Company soon after it was formed at The Old Vic in 1962. Alongside Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon, she soon became a fixture at the Royal National Theatre in the 1960s. British theatre critic Michael Coveney wrote that during her eight years in the company, Smith developed a fierce rivalry with Olivier writing.

Taking on more comedic and child-geared fare in the 1990s, Smith starred in films like Steven Spielberg’s Hook, The Secret Garden, and female-forward hit The First Wives Club. While Harry Potter and Downton may ultimately have become what she is best known for, Smith’s career was long, eclectic, and without comparison. Here, below is a selection of 30 stunning portraits of a young and beautiful Maggie Smith in the 1950s and 1960s: