Maggie Smith has passed.
I loved her. By the time she was older, she was a favorite character in Downton Abbey and Harry Potter series. And she was good.
But she will always be Miss Jean Brodie to me. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was the first time I saw her. I saw it on TV in a rerun after I was older (it came out in 1969). Her warmth and sexuality mesmerized me. And then as her self-assurance was torn down in the later parts of the movie, she broke my heart. It was shocking to a kid that had only seen uplifting endings by that time.
My other favorite roles of hers were often comedic character parts where you could not take your eyes off her. My favs:
"Bowers" with Bette Davis in Death on the Nile. "Daphne Castle" in Evil Under The Sun. And "Dora Charleston" with David Niven and a Wire-Haired Terrier in Murder by Death (she and David Niven played a parody of Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man series).
I watch reruns of these movies a lot, so she will be here for a long time for me.
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