When Maggie Smith met the love of her life

The veteran star was the recipient of many prestigious accolades including five BAFTA awards, three Golden Globes, two Academy Awards, four Emmy Awards and a Tony Award for her work in theatre, films and television.

As one of only 24 actors to attain the honour, she also received the highly sought after Triple Crown of Acting, which is reserved for performers who have won Academy, Emmy and Tony awards for acting in US film, TV and theatre roles respectively.

Smith and her husband, screenwriter and playwright Beverley Cross, both held lofty positions of significance in the arts, remaining at the peak of their professions for the whole of their adult lives.

Early career

Born in Ilford, Essex, in December 1934, Smith was the youngest of three children. On leaving school at 16 to pursue an acting career at Oxford Playhouse, she made her stage debut aged 17 in 1952 as Viola in Oxford University Dramatic Society’s Twelfth Night.

Starring in several productions at Oxford Playhouse over the next two years, Smith first appeared on television in 1954 in producer Ned Sherrin’s series, Oxford Accents. This was followed by her Broadway debut in 1956 in the stage show, New Faces of ’56, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and her West End debut in 1957 in the musical, Share My Lettuce, starring opposite Kenneth Williams.

Maggie Smith and Beverly Cross

Beverley Cross was born into a theatrical family in London in April 1931 and attended the Nautical College, Pangbourne, before beginning his career as a playwright during the 1950s.

He came to prominence in the arts when his thriller, One More River, set on board a freighter in Africa during a mutiny, premiered at Liverpool’s New Shakespeare Theatre in 1958.

In an interview in 2004, Smith spoke of her first meeting with her future husband in 1952, on the steps of the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford. At the time, she was playing Viola in Twelfth Night at Oxford Playhouse. Recalling their meeting, the late actress said she was only 18 and he was “a bit older” at 21, but was “lovely”. However, despite the initial attraction, romance didn’t blossom straight away and it was an incredible 23 years before they finally married.

Cross encouraged her to join the Royal National Theatre, even though she had already turned down their offer. Later, she joked it was his fault she had married her first husband, Robert Stephens, a fellow actor, as she met him there.

Meanwhile, Cross married Elizabeth Clunies-Ross in 1955, when he was 24. He and Smith stayed in touch and she starred in his famous play in 1960, Strip the Willow, which is a black comedy about the survivors of a nuclear war, which many critics say launched her on the road to stardom.

Smith worked extensively at the Royal National Theatre with Laurence Olivier during the 1960s and they became fiercely competitive. The timing was never right for Smith and Cross to get together. During divorce proceedings from his first wife, Cross reportedly proposed to Smith, but she was already in a relationship with Stephens.

Cross rose to fame for his screenplays, including the mythological adventure, Jason and the Argonauts, in 1963. In 1965, he married his second wife, Gayden Collins, later enjoying huge professional success after adapting the theatrical musical, Half a Sixpence, for the 1967 film version.

Smith and Stephens tied the knot in 1967 and had two children, but divorced in 1975, reportedly due to his infidelity. Cross’s second marriage also ended in divorce and finally, on 23rd June 1975, he married Smith at Guildford Register Office. They enjoyed 23 years of wedded bliss until his death in March 1998.

They collaborated on some of the biggest films of the era including Clash of the Titans in 1981, when his screenplay made the mythological drama into a cult film, with Smith widely praised for her role as the goddess Thetis.

Maggie Smith films

Smith made more than 60 films and TV series, with her first notable film appearance being in Othello with Olivier in 1965, when she starred as Desdemona. She won her first Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969 for her portrayal of a 1930s teacher with unorthodox teaching methods. In 1978, she starred with Jane Fonda and Michael Caine in California Suite.

Smith also starred in the British romantic comedy, A Room with a View, in 1985. After appearing in the 1992 comedy, Sister Act, as Mother Superior of a convent, she played housekeeper Mrs Medlock in the 1993 classic film, The Secret Garden. She went on to star as Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter film franchise from 2001 to 2011.

Her most famous television role in recent years was in the ITV drama series Downton Abbey, in which she played the Dowager Countess of Grantham over six series from 2010 to 2015 and the spinoff film in 2019.

In 2023, Smith made her final film, The Miracle Club. The drama tells the story of a group of women from Dublin who embark on a pilgrimage to the holy destination of Lourdes in France.

Maggie Smith sons

Beverly Cross and Maggie Smith were married until his untimely death, aged 66, from an aneurysm on 20th March 1998. He had been the love of her life and stepfather to her two sons from her first marriage, actors Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, now aged 57 and 55 respectively.

Quoted as saying she felt “remarkably fortunate” to have “met again someone you should have married in the first place”, Smith described their story as being “like a script” and adding, “That kind of luck is too good to be true.”

When asked if she felt lonely in 2013, Smith, who had never remarried, replied it seemed “a bit pointless” being alone in life and “not having someone to share it with”. The actress told ES Magazine in 2016 there was no-one else who “could come anywhere near Bev”.

Following the legendary actress’s recent passing, Maggie Smith will forever be remembered as one of the most iconic stars of her generation.