Maggie Smith

Smith started on stage at Oxford in 1952 and reached Broadway four years later. By 1969 she'd claimed her first Academy Award for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, playing a charismatic Scottish schoolteacher with surgical precision. A second Oscar followed in 1978 for California Suite. She split the decades between classical theatre — National Theatre, RSC, a Tony win for Lettice and Lovage in 1990 — and a film career that ranged from Gosford Park to the entirety of Harry Potter, where she played Minerva McGonagall with clipped severity. Then came Downton Abbey in 2010, and Violet Crawley's acid…