‘I guarantee you she is no broad! She’s a model of generosity, virtue, and love!’ …… Maggie Smith -Reverend Mother – Sister Act

I was watching a rerun of the Graham Norton show last night and it featured Dame Judi Dench. I was watching her quote Shakespeare and I thought, oh what a sad day it will be when she leaves us. She is divine, as are the other British Dames of stage and screen: Julie Walters, Julie Andrews, Helen Mirren, Joan Plowright, Emma Thompson, Eileen Atkins and of course, the delightful Maggie Smith. They have shown the world that just because you’ve been on many trips around the sun, doesn’t mean you should sit in a chair and rust. They still get some of the best roles ever written for women, regardless of the fact that their faces are lined with years of experience and their bodies are no longer perky, as is expected of women in this day and age.

Then just before I went to bed last night, I looked on Facebook and saw that the inimitable Dame Maggie Smith had taken her final curtain call and I’ll be honest, I was devastated. Yes, I know she was an old lady, but it felt like she’d been an old lady all her life. I sort of felt that she would live forever as it seemed she already had.

I think the first movie I ever saw her in was Travels with my Aunt. She played an eccentric elderly aunt in it.. She was in her 30’s in that movie. A young woman playing an older woman. It sort of set the tone for her career I think.. I next saw her in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie when I was in my early teens. She was 35 when she played that role, but to my teen self, she seemed so old as I associated her with the elderly aunt. So you see, she was always old. She had lived forever and would continue to do so.

Last night she destroyed that myth and passed away. Today, an outpouring of grief fills the news and social media. Oh I can hear people say, how do you grieve someone you don’t know? But she has been in my line of sight since I was a young child. Someone to aspire to, especially as I have aged. She is in some of my favourite movies of all time. Yes, someone else could have played those roles but she brought those characters to life in a way that I don’t believe anyone else could have done. Her lines were always delivered with a dry, brittle wit and that raised eyebrow that could cut a grown man down in a second. But she could also suddenly change to absolute vulnerability and dignified pathos in a heartbeat that would reach into the very depths of your soul as you watched her. She didn’t have to vocalise to say anything. Those huge, soulful eyes spoke volumes

I couldn’t choose one movie of hers above another, as she was in so many of my favourites. My house in Umbria, Ladies in Lavender, Tea with Mussolini, My old Lady, The Lady in the Van, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies, Sister Act, Hook, The Secret Garden, The Miracle Club and of course, the brilliant Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood. She had a small role in The First Wives Club and just about stole the movie. The list goes on and on but these are my ‘go to’ favourites that I watch over and over again when I just want to smile. Of course she was known globally as Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter franchise (which I’ve only seen once) and as the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downtown Abbey, (which I’m ashamed to admit I’ve only ever seen one or two episodes of).

But the stage and screen legacy she has left behind is enormous. I haven’t seen half of the things she has been in so I might try to remedy that this week in her honor. She has won many awards including two Academy Awards, five BAFTA’s, four Emmys, three Golden Globes, and a Tony Award. She also had six nominations for the Laurence Olivier Awards, one of which was for her portrayal of Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Ernest. Oh what I would have given to have seen that version of the play.

She was always cast as, and indeed played, the curmudgeonly old upper class dame with great aplomb. She played brittle and brutal, vital and vulnerable, angry and adorable like no one else could. She knew how to switch from one mood to another and tear your heart out in the process. To quote another favourite movie that she WASN’T in, Steel Magnolias, “Laughter through tears is my favourite emotion”. That’s what Maggie knew how to do in a way that very few others could have ever achieved.

So I will grieve her loss today. Not in a weeping and wailing kind of way, but with the dignity befitting an actress, lady and dame of her calibre. I will watch a lot of her movies this next week and admire her acting abilities and her brilliance on screen. I will probably re-watch some of her interviews and admire the person behind the roles. And I will smile when she delivers those brilliant lines that she has made famous. There is indeed, nothing like a dame.. and certainly there will never again be one like Dame Maggie Smith. Take a bow Maggie. You’ve earned your ovation.

Happy being a curmudgeon… Livvy xxx