Maggie Smith’s beloved characters have transcended generations.

The English actor worked in film, theater and television from the early 1950s until last year.

She was one of the few actresses to win the Triple Crown of Acting – an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony in the acting categories.

She won two Oscars, four Emmys and a Tony Award, as well as five BAFTAs and five Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The diversity and longevity of her career in film, television and theater is a rare achievement.

From witch to dowager countess, Smith played comedic, dramatic and eccentric roles.

While fans mourn the late actor, many are re-watching their favorite films or series with the lady.

Let’s take a look back at some of her best and most iconic roles.

Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films

Perhaps Maggie Smith’s most iconic role of the 21st century is that of Professor Minerva McGonagall in all eight Harry Potter films.

Professor McGonagall, the head of Gryffindor House, is famous for her witch hat and her strict demeanor towards the young witches and wizards at Hogwarts.

Her famous lines included: “Why is it always at the three of you when something happens?” and “I won’t allow you, in the course of a single evening… to tarnish that name by behaving like a babbling, staggering band of baboons!” “

When asked why she took the role, she quipped: “Harry Potter is my retirement.”

Co-star Daniel Radcliffe released a statement that read in part: “I will always feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to work with her… the word legend is used often, but if it applies to anyone in our industry, then it applies it for them too.” “

Bonnie Wright, who played Ginny Weasley, wrote on Instagram: “Our dearly loved and revered Head of Gryffindor House, you will be so missed by the Harry Potter community.”

In an interview with Graham Norton, she said that she had a whole new fan base after the release of Harry Potter.

For the first time she was stopped on the street by “little people” who only knew her through her role in Harry Potter.

“They were completely different people,” she said.

Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey

From 2010 to 2015, Smith played the matriarch of the Crawley family in the popular BBC drama Downton Abbey.

The Dowager Countess was a scene-stealer known for her tight-lipped lines and snarky remarks that provided the audience with light relief at more tense and dramatic points in the story.

She received a Golden Globe nomination for this role.

In an interview about her role in Downton Abbey, she said: “What I think is so brilliant is that it’s not an adaptation of anything. Coming up with these original ideas is breathtaking.”

The heyday of Miss Jean Brodie

For her title role as a teacher at a girls’ school in Edinburgh, Maggie Smith won her first Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969.

The film is about Jean Brodie, a teacher who tends to deviate from the school curriculum and gets into trouble due to her unorthodox teaching methods and approach to life.

Despite the praise and recognition for Smith’s performance, the film itself was a box office disappointment, grossing $3 million against a budget of $2.76 million.

Her most famous line from the film is, “Little girls, I’m all about putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my students are the crème de la crème.” Give me a girl of an impressive age and she will be mine for life.”

California Suite

Maggie Smith won her second Oscar, this time for Best Supporting Actress, for her role as Diana Barrie in the 1978 film California Suite.

The comedy anthology film focuses on the dilemmas of guests staying in a suite at a luxury hotel.

Ironically, Maggie Smith plays a British actress who is in town for the Oscars and hopes a nomination will revive her fading career.

Smith’s marital banter with her husband, played by Michael Caine, was praised by reviewers as a show-stealer.

Critics agree on film review website Rotten Tomatoes that Maggie Smith’s “sour turn is the standout in this stacked ensemble.”

“I would be very happy if Michael Caine was here because believe me, he was the best supporting actor ever and the award should be right in the middle,” she said in her Oscar acceptance speech.

Sister law

Before donning her Hogwarts robe, Smith donned a nun’s habit and played the Reverend Mother in the 1992 musical comedy Sister Act.

She returned alongside star Whoopi Goldberg in 1993 for the sequel Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.

“Maggie Smith was a great woman and a brilliant actress,” Goldberg wrote on Instagram, sharing a photo of the couple dressed as nuns.

“I still can’t believe I was lucky enough to work with the ‘One of a Kind’.

“My deepest condolences go out to the family.”

Traveling with my aunt

Maggie Smith’s third Oscar nomination and her second in the Best Actress category came in 1972 for an adaptation of Graham Greene’s story “Traveling with My Aunt.”

The story revolves around August Bertram, an eccentric widow who recruits her supposed bank manager nephew to accompany her on a multi-country trip involving ransoms and other nefarious activities.

Best exotic Marigold Hotel

Leading a star-studded ensemble, Smith plays retired housekeeper Muriel Donelly, who moves to India for a hip replacement, in the 2011 film “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”

Along with Judie Dench, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton and Dev Patel, Smith delivers perfect comedic timing in her role as a bitter (and sometimes bigoted) woman who, towards the end of the film, learns to accept her situation and her new life in India.

With her trademark one-liners, she is the perfect complement to a sweet story full of experienced British actors.

When she starred in the sequel in 2015, she talked about working with the same group of actors again.

“The strangest thing is bringing this group of actors back together three years later. This is an extraordinary thing because everyone is very scattered and doing different things. So it’s a very extraordinary thing.”

Lady in a van

In the 2015 film The Lady in Van, Smith plays Miss Shepherd, a cantankerous older woman who lives in an old van and forms an unlikely friendship with a man whose driveway she is parked in.

Written by Alan Bennett, it loosely tells the true story of his interactions with Mary Shepherd, an elderly woman who lived in a dilapidated van in his north London driveway for 15 years.

The film is an adaptation of a 2000 play in which Smith also starred.

Smith said filming was difficult because she spent most of the time in a van.

The film received 89 percent of the vote on Rotten Tomatoes and received mostly positive reviews, praising Smith’s acting.

While promoting the film at a press conference at the BFI London Film Festival, she said she was “very lucky” to play the role.

“It’s hard at this age and I can’t say it’s easy,” she said of playing the role at 80.

She said she drew energy from director Nicholas Hytner.

Othello

One of Dame Maggie’s most famous early roles was that of Desdemona in the film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello.

Sir Laurence Olivier, who played the title role, offered her the role at the National Theater in 1963. She reprized the role two years later when it was made into a film.

She was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Years later, Dame Maggie told the Guardian that she played the role “with great discomfort and constant fear.”

The film is also known for its controversy, as Olivier played Othello in blackface, a choice he defended in his 1995 memoir “Confessions of an Actor.”

In a 2018 documentary called Tea with Dames, Smith recalled her shock when she first saw Olivier in his makeup and revealed that she regularly clashed with the actor.

Interview moments

This isn’t a role, but Maggie Smith’s one-liners in the interview are definitely worth mentioning.

In Smith’s 2018 documentary “Tea with the Dames,” she sits down for tea with fellow famous actresses Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins and Joan Plowright.

Her banter and self-deprecating humor show her modesty despite her iconic career and her ladyship for contributions to drama.

When Smith became a woman, he said, “I was just so thrilled that my father was still alive. It’s the people who helped, who got you where you are, not really you.”

She was also a couch darling on The Graham Norton Show, giving fans moments like this.