Maggie Smith: A Biography

Written by Michael Coveney

Narrated by Sian Thomas

No one does glamour, severity, girlish charm or tight-lipped witticism better than Dame Maggie Smith, one of Britain's best-loved actors. This new biography shines the stage-lights on the life and career of a truly remarkable performer, one whose stage and screen career spans six decades.

From her days as a West End star of comedy and revue, Dame Maggie's path would cross with those of the greatest actors, playwrights and directors of the era. Whether stealing scenes from Richard Burton (by his own admission), answering back to Laurence Olivier, or impressing Ingmar Bergman, her career can be seen as a 'Who's Who' of British theatre in the twentieth century. This book also covers the little-known period in Canada, a prolific five-season run of leading roles that took place during the height of her success in Hollywood, soon after she won her first Oscar for her signature film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Recently Dame Maggie has been prominent on our screens as ever, with high-profile roles as Violet Crawley, the formidable Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the phenomenally successful television series Downton Abbey, and as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film franchise: what she herself describes as 'Miss Jean Brodie in a wizard's hat'. Yet paradoxically she remains an enigmatic figure, rarely appearing in public and carefully guarding her considerable talent. Michael Coveney's absorbing biography, written with the actress's blessing and drawing on personal archives, as well as interviews with immediate family and close friends, is therefore as close as it gets to seeing the real Maggie Smith.

Read by Sian Thomas

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette UK Audio
• Release date: Sep 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781409162476

Michael Coveney

Michael Coveney was born in Whitechapel, London and educated at St Ignatius College, Stamford Hill, and Worcester College, Oxford. He has written about theatre as editor of Plays and Players magazine and was staff critic, successively, on the Financial Times, the Observer and the Daily Mail. His books include Master of the House: The Theatres of Cameron Mackintosh (Unicorn, 2022); The Citz; The Aisle is Full of Noises; Questors, Jesters and Renegades and critical biographies of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Mike Leigh, Ken Campbell and Maggie Smith.

Reviews for Maggie Smith

[kbmom-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very dry reading; couldn't finish but did enjoy the pictures.

[meredy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Six-word review: Complex star shaped by fraught history.Extended review:If any one thing comes through clearly in this 2015 biography of one of the most accomplished, admired, and enduring of contemporary British actors, it's that being Maggie Smith is difficult and complicated.From her early stage days in Oxford in the 1950s to her recently concluded role as the dowager countess Lady Grantham in Downton Abbey, Dame Maggie has practiced the fine art of turning personal experience into drama or comedy or, more often, a riveting blend of both. The book tracks the development of her career from her first appearance at the age of 17 in a leading Shakespeare role to an anchoring role in the wildly popular television series, still running at the time of publication. The actress comes across as perfectionistic, tormented, driven, and brilliant.I wish it had delved more into her longtime friendship with the perennially popular Judi Dench, who seems in so many ways to be an opposite personality: easygoing, light-hearted, and a little bit scattered, prone to giggling ("corpsing") in performance, and always radiating an endearing warmth, even, somehow, when playing Lady Macbeth. One thing I love about them, both of them, is that neither has apparently feared to age in public; another is that their well-seasoned talent and skill seem never to falter or fade.The book is pretty hardcore, aimed at followers of theatre, especially British. Unlike some stars' bios (of which I've read maybe half a dozen all told), it's not pitched at an audience that reads celebrity profiles in popular magazines. Rather, it assumes more than a little knowledge of the personalities, the professional alliances and rivalries, and the milieu of theatre and film of the past six decades. Some of this I knew, and more I had to guess at; but the substance came across all the same.Descriptions of Dame Maggie in her various roles are often stunningly evocative, quoted from many sources and particularly from reviews; she seems to inspire in others a rendition in language that strives to be as apt as what she achieves in performance. Here's one quote that's especially vivid. Unfortunately my notes don't credit a source, though of course the book does: "Maggie's Susan [in Bed Among the Lentils] was suspended between seething resentment and a sort of bursting sexual anger. She glared and vibrated like a terribly cross stick insect." (page 216)I read this biography not so much to learn what makes Maggie tick--I don't think that's for any of us to know--but simply to glimpse the process by which she came to the top of her profession and remains there still, so many years later. Given the author's apparent thoroughness and care as a researcher, compiler, and presenter of historical data, I find two errors toward the end very surprising. Both pertain to Downton Abbey, a topic on which I warrant there are far more qualified amateur fact-checkers than there are when it comes to, say, revues of the 1950s or stage dramas of the 1970s. One is a reference to the Earl of Carnavon, who owns Highclere, the property where most of the series was filmed. The name is actually Carnarvon. It's not a typo. One instance is a typo; twice on one page (290), it's a misspelling.The second is a mention of Lady Sybil as the Earl of Grantham's second daughter (page 291) and Lady Edith as the third (page 292). I don't honestly see how anyone who watched the series could make that mistake. Sybil is the third and youngest, and Edith ("poor Edith") the perennially hapless middle child.

[st5croixsue · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The biography of a true theatrical genius. One learns the details of her early years in British theatre and Hollywood. Her grace, beauty, talent, and total dedication to the craft shines through.