Dame Margaret Natalie Smith CH DBE (born 28 December 1934) is a British actress. She is better known as Maggie Smith. She made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 60 years. She has won many awards for acting, both for the stage and for movies, including seven BAFTA Awards (five competitive awards and two special awards including the Bafta Fellowship in 1996), two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, two Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, two SAG Awards and a Tony Award.
Her award winning movies include Othello (1965), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), Travels with My Aunt (1972), California Suite (1978), Clash of the Titans (1981), A Room with a View (1985) and Gosford Park (2001). She has also been in a number of widely-popular movies, including Hook (1991), Sister Act (1992) and as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter movie series. She currently stars in the drama Downton Abbey as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, for which she has won an Emmy.
Smith was born in Ilford, Essex. She moved to Oxford at age four and went to Oxford High School.