DECEMBER 7 - MAGGIE SMITH

Dame Margaret Nathalie “Maggie” Smith is a British actress. She made her stage debut in 1952 and has had an extensive, varied career in stage, film and television spanning over sixty years. Smith has appeared in over 50 films and is one of Britain’s most recognisable actresses. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1990 New Year Honours for services to the performing arts, and Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to drama.

Smith began her career on stage at the Oxford Playhouse in 1952 and made her Broadway debut in New Faces of ‘56. For her work on the London stage, she has won a record five Best Actress Evening Standard Awards for The Private Ear and The Public Eye,Hedda Gabler,Virginia,The Way of the WorldandThree Tall Women. In New York, she received Tony Award nominations for Private Lives,Night and DayandLettice and Lovage. For the latter, she won the 1990 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. Other stage roles include Stratford Shakespeare Festival productions of Antony And CleopatraandMacbeth, and West End productions of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance and David Hare’s The Breath of Life, both at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

On screen, she first drew praise for the crime film Nowhere to Go, for which she received her first BAFTA Award nomination. Her 1965 film role as Desdemona, in William Shakespeare’s Othello, earned her an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe nomination. Since then, Smith has worked consistently in film, television and stage.

Smith has won two Academy Awards, winning Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Best Supporting Actress for California Suite opposite Michael Caine. She is one of only six actresses to win the Academy Award in both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories. A six-time nominee, her other Academy Award nominations were for Travels with My Aunt,A Room with a View, and Gosford Park. She has also won a record four Best Actress BAFTA Awards: for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,A Private Function,A Room with a ViewandThe Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. She would add a fifth competitive BAFTA for the 1999 film Tea with Mussolini, this time as Best Supporting Actress.

Other notable films include Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing,Death on the Nile,Clash of the Titans,Evil Under the Sun,Hook,Sister Act,The First Wives Club,The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and a recurring role as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the highly successful Harry Potter film series. She currently stars as Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, on Downton Abbey, for which she has won a Golden Globe, two Screen Actors Guild awards and two consecutive Emmy awards. She previously won an Emmy for the 2003 TV film My House in Umbria. In 2015, she received critical acclaim for her portrayal of Miss Mary Shepherd in The Lady in the Van.

As well as her numerous competitive awards for acting in theatre, film and television, including two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, three Golden Globes, four Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Tony Award, Smith has also received several honorary awards, including two more BAFTAs, the Special Award in 1993 and the BAFTA Fellowship in 1996. She also received the Honorary Olivier Award in 2011. Smith is one of the few actresses to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting. In September 2012, she was awarded the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s Legacy Award, which she accepted from Christopher Plummer, who presented it to her in a ceremony at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Canada.

Text for today’s post was taken from Wikipedia. Please consider donating a few minutes to make a submission to Celebrate Women before the year is over.

Her (2013)

Cinematography: Hoyte van Hoytema

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix (Theodore Twombly), Scarlett Johansson (Samantha), Amy Adams (Amy), Rooney Mara (Catherine Klausen), Chris Pratt (Paul), Olivia Wilde (Blind Date), Spike Jonze (Alien Child)

Written and directed by: Spike Jonze

Christopher Plummer, Actor From Shakespeare to ‘The Sound of Music,’ Dies at 91

His performance as Captain von Trapp in one of the most popular movies of all time propelled a steady half-century parade of television and film roles.

Christopher Plummer, the prolific and versatile Canadian-born actor who rose to celebrity as the romantic lead in perhaps the most popular movie musical of all time, was critically lionized as among the pre-eminent Shakespeareans of the past century and won an Oscar, two Tonys and two Emmys, died on Friday at his home in Weston, Conn. He was 91.

His wife, Elaine Taylor, said the cause was a blow to the head as a result of a fall.

Lupita Nyong’o

© Ruxandra Cavescu - https://www.behance.net/ruxandracavescu