Maggie Smith’s beloved characters have spanned 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, Emmy and Tony in acting categories.

She has 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 embraced comedic, dramatic and eccentric roles.

As fans mourn the late actor, many are rewatching their favorite movies or shows featuring the lady.

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

Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films

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

Professor McGonagall, the head of Gryffindor House, is known for her witch hat and strict way with the young witches and wizards at Hogwarts.

Her famous lines included, “Why, when something happens, is it always between the three of you?” and “I don’t want you, in the course of one evening… to tarnish that name by acting like a chattering, bumbling bunch of baboons!”

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

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

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

In an interview with Graham Norton, she said she had a whole new fan base after Harry Potter was released.

For the first time, she was stopped on the street by ‘little people’ who only knew her from her role in Harry Potter.

“They were very 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 hit BBC drama Downton Abbey.

The Dowager Countess was a scene-stealer known for her lipstick and evil cracks that provided audiences with some light relief at more tense and dramatic points in the story.

She earned a Golden Globe nomination for the role.

In an interview about her role in Downton Abbey, she said: “What I think is so brilliant is that this isn’t an adaptation of anything. It’s amazing to have these original ideas.”

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

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

The film follows Jean Brodie, a teacher who tends to deviate from the school curriculum, but who gets into trouble for her unorthodox teaching methods and outlook on life.

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

Her most famous line from the film is: “Little girls, I’m putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my students are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she’s mine for the to live.”

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 comedic 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, hoping that a nomination will revive her dwindling career.

Smith’s marital bliss with her on-screen husband, played by Michael Caine, was hailed by critics as stealing the show.

The critics’ consensus on film review website Rotten Tomatoes says that Maggie Smith’s “acid turn is the standout in this stacked ensemble.”

“I would love for Michael Caine to be here because believe me, he was the most supportive actor there is and the award should fall right in the middle,” she said in her Oscars acceptance speech.

Sister Act

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

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

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

“I still can’t believe I was lucky enough to work with this one-of-a-kind.

“My sincere condolences go out to the family.”

Traveling with my aunt

Maggie Smith’s third Oscar nomination, and second for Best Actress, came in an adaptation of Graham Greene’s story Travels with my Aunt in 1972.

The story follows August Bertram, an eccentric widow who, by her own admission, recruits her bank manager cousin to accompany her on a multi-country journey that involves ransoms and other nefarious activities.

Best exotic marigold hotel

Leading a star-studded ensemble cast, 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, by the end of the film, learns to embrace her situation and her new life in India.

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

Speaking about her role in the 2015 sequel, she spoke about working with the same group of actors again.

“The weirdest thing is to get this group of actors back together three years later. That’s something extraordinary because everyone is very spread out and doing different things, so it’s something very extraordinary.”

Lady in a van

In the 2015 film The Lady in Van, Smith plays Miss Shepherd, a grumpy older lady who lives in an old van and forms an unlikely friendship with a man whose driveway she finds herself 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 driveway in North London for fifteen years.

The film is an adaptation of a 2000 play in which Smith also played the lead role.

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

The film received an 89 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and received mostly favorable 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 iconic early roles was as 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. Two years later she reprized the role when it was made into a film.

She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Years later, Dame Maggie told the Guardian that she played the role “with great discomfort and was terrified the whole time”.

The film is also known for being controversial, 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 frequently 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 iconic actresses Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins and Joan Plowright.

Their banter and self-deprecation show her humility despite her iconic career and ladyship for her services to drama.

On becoming a lady, Smith said, “I was so glad my father was still alive. It’s the people who helped that got you where you are, it’s not really you.”

She was also a sofa favorite on the Graham Norton Show, giving fans moments like this.