Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE (born 28 December 1934), better known as Dame Maggie Smith, is a two-time Academy Award-winning English film, stage, and television actress.

Early life

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Smith was born in Ilford, Essex to Nathaniel Smith, who worked at Oxford University, and Margaret Hutton Little, who was Scottish; she has two older twin brothers, Alistair and Ian. She studied at Oxford High School although she didn't enjoy the experience.

Career

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She started her career at the Oxford Playhouse Theatre with Frank Shelley, and made her first film in 1956. In 1969 she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as an unorthodox Scottish schoolteacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. She was also awarded the 1978 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a brittle actress in California Suite. Other notable roles include the querulous cousin Charlotte in the Merchant-Ivory production of A Room with a View and a vivid supporting turn as the aged Duchess of York in Ian McKellen's film of Richard III. Given the international success of the Harry Potter movies, she is possibly most widely known to younger filmgoers in the role of Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films.

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