Do we like Dame Maggie Smith?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean record with no harmful words or company found, but little on record about her causes, so we stop short of the top end.
Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford in 1934 and moved to Oxford as a kid. She made her stage debut with the Oxford University Drama Society in 1952, then went on to play opposite Laurence Olivier. She became one of Britain's great performers over about seven decades.
The screen CV is ridiculous: two Oscars (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and California Suite), a string of BAFTAs, Emmys for Downton Abbey and a 1990 Tony. She was made a Dame the same year. Later generations knew her as Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Dowager Countess in Downton.
On the harm test, the record is clean but quiet. We found no campaigning against anyone's rights, no conspiracy rabbit holes, and no work with people pushing that sort of thing. Her last films were Downton Abbey: A New Era and The Miracle Club. She was intensely private, so there's not much on causes either way, and we won't claim more than the record shows.
She had a reputation as formidable. Her own line was that she doesn't tolerate fools and so is “so I am spiky”. Director Peter Hall said she wasn't difficult unless she was among idiots. We found no misconduct claims, lawsuits or complaints about how she treated crew or co-stars. That's a spiky mate, not a bully.
She was unfussy about the fame, too. Her take on the Potter gig was “Harry Potter is my pension”, which is the most honest line any franchise star has delivered. King Charles called her a national treasure with “warmth and wit” on and off stage.
Nothing new on her lately beyond tributes and retrospectives since she died in 2024. The good stuff is the work itself and a long career of making people laugh. We found little documented about charity work in the pages we could open, so the verdict leans on the clean record and the affection colleagues showed her.