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Maggie Smith, the Oscar-, Emmy- and Tony-winning actor known for her roles in “Downton Abbey,” the “Harry Potter” film franchise and “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” has died at 89.
In a statement, Smith’s sons confirmed she died on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024.
How did Maggie Smith die?
Smith died in a London hospital. No cause of death was shared.
“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” Smith’s sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs.
While her cause of death is unknown, throughout her 60-year career, Smith revealed details about her health including diagnoses of breast cancer and Graves’ disease. Here’s what she’s shared.
Maggie Smith was diagnosed with Graves’ disease
When Smith had just begun her run in the Tony-nominated play “Lettice and Lovage” in 1988, she was diagnosed with Grave’s disease, a disorder in which the immune system attacks the thyroid gland for unknown reasons, per the Cleveland Clinic. It’s the most common cause of hyperthyroidism, a condition in which the thyroid gland overproduces the thyroid hormone.
Symptoms include irritability, tremors, fatigue, heart palpitations, skin discoloration and a change in eye shape — a symptom Smith experienced at 54 years old. “Medication, and determination enabled her to play out her yearlong contract (missing only one performance), but the facial disfigurement that resulted — protrusion of the eyeballs and puffiness around the eyes, in particular — was not getting better,” The New York Times reported in 1990.
The diagnosis came just after Smith broke her arm and fractured her shoulder falling off a bicycle in November 1988 while on a trip to the British Virgin Islands. After the play’s run, Smith went on to isolate for a year during which time she underwent radiation, surgery to address the shape of and swelling around her eyes and rehabbed her arm with swimming.
“It’s been kind of like a fog of despair, really,” Smith told The New York Times. “It was ghastly having a broken arm; ghastly with the play, letting everybody down; and on top of that, I looked absolutely frightening, and didn’t know which way to turn.”
She was diagnosed with breast cancer
While Smith was filming “Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince,” the franchise’s sixth installment, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She felt a lump in her breast but didn’t worry at first. “I had been feeling a little rum. I didn’t think it was anything serious because years ago I felt a lump and it was benign. I assumed this would be too,” Smith told British paper The Times.
“It kind of takes the wind out of your sails, and I don’t know what the future holds, if anything. I don’t think there’s a lot of it, because of my age — there just isn’t. It’s all been. I’ve no idea what there will be.”
For two years, Smith underwent treatment, including chemotherapy and radiation. She called treatment “hideous,” saying it felt worse than cancer. “You feel horribly sick. I was holding on to railings, thinking, ‘I can’t do this,’” she added.
On set as Professor Minerva McGonagall in “Harry Potter,” she wore a wig. “I was hairless. I had no problem getting the wig on. I was like a boiled egg,” she recalled. For the next two and final films in the franchise, Smith said she planned to “stagger through.”
When it came to her return to theater, however, she felt differently. “(Cancer) leaves you so flattened. I’m not sure I could go back to theatre work, although film work is more tiring. I’m frightened to work in theatre now. I feel very uncertain. I haven’t done it for a while,” she said.
She was candid, too, about the ways her diagnosis and treatment rattled her. “I think it’s the age I was when it happened. It knocks you sideways. It takes you longer to recover, you are not so resilient. I am fearful of the amount of energy one needs to be in a film or a play.”
After two years of treatment, she was declared cancer free, the BBC reported.
She underwent hip replacement surgery
In 2016, Smith missed the Golden Globes Awards where she was nominated for her work in “The Lady in the Van,” because she was recovering from hip replacement surgery, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“I feel so much better, but you can’t sit that long in the airplane,” Smith said.
She had glaucoma in one eye
While Smith hadn’t shared when she developed glaucoma, she confirmed her vision was impaired in a 2016 interview with The Telegraph. “Forgive me for looking at you like this. It’s because I’m blind in one eye, not being furtive,” she said to the interviewer.
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