THE COUNTESS IS DEAD - LONG LIVE THE COUNTESS

Dame Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, has left the set.

Damn. I first became aware of the incredible talent of Maggie Smith 55 years ago when I saw “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (which if you haven’t seen it, you should) and she only better every time after.

LONDON (AP) — Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for 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 Friday. She was 89.

Smith’s sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital.

“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs.

Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with two Oscars, a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies.

She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that “when you get into the granny era, you’re lucky to get anything.”

Smith drily summarized her later roles as “a gallery of grotesques,” including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: “Harry Potter is my pension.”

Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of “Suddenly, Last Summer,” said she was “intellectually the smartest actress I’ve ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith.”

“Jean Brodie,” in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well.

Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978, Golden Globes for “California Suite” and “A Room with a View,” and BAFTAs for lead actress in “A Private Function” in 1984, “A Room with a View” in 1986, and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” in 1988.

She also received Academy Award nominations as a supporting actress in “Othello,” “Travels with My Aunt,” “Room with a View” and “Gosford Park,” and a BAFTA award for supporting actress in “Tea with Mussolini.” On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for “Lettice and Lovage.”

From 2010, she was the acid-tongued Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in hit TV period drama “ Downton Abbey,” a role that won her legions of fans, three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe and a host of other awards nominations.

She continued acting well into her 80s, in films such a 2022 big-screen spinoff “Downton Abbey: A New Era” and 2023 release “The Miracle Club.”

Smith had a reputation for being difficult, and sometimes upstaging others.

Richard Burton remarked that Smith didn’t just take over a scene in “The VIPs” with him: “She commits grand larceny.” However, the director Peter Hall found that Smith wasn’t “remotely difficult unless she’s among idiots. She’s very hard on herself, and I don’t think she sees any reason why she shouldn’t be hard on other people, too.”

Smith conceded that she could be impatient at times.

“It’s true I don’t tolerate fools, but then they don’t tolerate me, so I am spiky,” Smith said. “Maybe that’s why I’m quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.” (I love this statement - TC)

Critic Frank Rich, in a New York Times review of “Lettice and Lovage,” praised Smith as “the stylized classicist who can italicize a line as prosaic as ‘Have you no marmalade?’ until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram by Coward or Wilde.”

Smith famously drew laughs from a prosaic line — “This haddock is disgusting” — in a 1964 revival of Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever.”

She repeated the gift for one-liners in “Downton Abbey,” when the tradition-bound Violet acidly asked, “What is a weekend?”

Fellow actors paid tribute to her on Friday. Hugh Bonneville, who played the son of Smith’s character in “Downton Abbey,” said “anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent.”

“She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances,” he said in a statement.

Rob Lowe, who co-starred with her in “Suddenly, Last Summer,” said he “had the unforgettable experience of working with her; sharing a two-shot was like being paired with a lion.”

“Maggie Smith was a truly great actress and we were more than fortunate to be part of the last act in her stellar career. She was a joy to write for, subtle, many-layered, intelligent, funny and heart-breaking. Working with her has been the greatest privilege of my career, and I will never forget her.” — Julian Fellowes, who created, wrote and produced “Downton Abbey,” in a statement to the AP.

“Maggie Smith was a great woman and a brilliant actress. I still can’t believe I was lucky enough to work with the ‘one-of-a-kind.’ My heartfelt condolences go out to the family…RIP.” — actor Whoopi Goldberg, who starred in “Sister Act” with Smith, on Instagram.

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