LEILA FADEL, HOST:
We learn this morning about the loss of a titan of an actor. She was beloved for her roles, from the dowager countess on "Downton Abbey"...
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DOWNTON ABBEY")
MAGGIE SMITH: (As Violet Crawley) You're a woman with a brain and reasonable ability. Stop whining and find something to do.
FADEL: ...To "Harry Potter's" Professor McGonagall.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2")
SMITH: (As Professor Minerva McGonagall) His name is Voldemort. So, yes, you might as well use it.
FADEL: Maggie Smith has died. She started on the professional stage in her teens before moving on to Britain's National Theatre, the West End and then Broadway in roles like George Bernard Shaw's "The Millionairess."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PLAY OF THE MONTH: THE MILLIONAIRESS")
SMITH: (As Epifania) If I questioned your solvency, that would be a libel. If I suggested that you are unfaithful to your wife, that would be a libel. But if I say that you are a rhinoceros - which you are - a most unmitigated rhinoceros - that is only vulgar abuse.
FADEL: She won her first major screen award, a best actress Oscar, in 1970 for the title role in "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE")
SMITH: (As Jean Brodie) Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life. You girls are my vocation. I am dedicated to you in my prime.
FADEL: And she was in her prime for seven decades, with stage and TV and movie performances ranging from "The Carol Burnett Show" to "Peter Pan" to "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL")
SMITH: (As Muriel Donnelly) That flight made my ankles swell.
DEV PATEL: (As Sonny Kapoor) Sunaina.
TINA DESAI: (As Sunaina) Sonny.
SMITH: (As Muriel Donnelly) You know what? Don't mind me. I'm just standing here on my ankles.
FADEL: Maggie Smith - leaving audiences craving more at her death at the age of 89. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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