Maggie Smith : a biography / Michael Coveney.

Includes index.

Machine generated contents note: 1.The Flight from Ilford -- 2.Schooling in Oxford Accents -- 3.Clown of Town and Gown -- 4.New Revue and Old Vic -- 5.West End Calling, Screen Testing -- 6.Surprises with Olivier at the National -- 7.Romance with the New hunts -- 8.The Prime of Miss Maggie Smith -- 9.Prickly Pain in Private Lives -- 10.Canada Home and Dry -- 11.Salvation in Stratford, Stoppard and Virginia Woolf -- 12.Best of British Pork and Palin -- 13.Millamant, Poliakoff and Poppy Cocteau -- 14.A Toast to the Bard with Levin and Lettice -- 15.Alone without God -- 16.Tales of Ageing, Innocence and Experience -- 17.Secrets and Lies in Yorkshire and Italy -- 18.Onstage with Albee, Bennett and Hare -- 19.TV Specials for the Lady from Dubuque -- 20.Goodbye Hollywood, Hello British Comedy -- 21.Harry Potter and Downton Abbey -- 22.Late Flowering of Marigolds around the Van.

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 work of a truly remarkable performer, one whose 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 her success in Hollywood, inaugurated by her first Oscar for her signature film, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, as well as her subsequent departure to Canada for a prolific four-season run of leading theatre roles. 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.