Feature: Illtyd Harrington pays tribute to Downton Abbey’s star dowager, Maggie Smith

Published: 13 October, 2011
by ILLTYD HARRINGTON

ONE of the two failures of the Kray twins was an attempt to transfer the allure and glamour of the West End to Ilford High Street where they opened a club called the Starlight Roof.

It was no magnet for the Shaftesbury Avenue set.

Its life was brief as was the outdoor life for Ron and Reg who shortly afterwards heard the clanking of the prison doors for ever.

But Ilford had already been hit by a real star.

For Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, the curtain went up there on December 29, 1934.

Her mother was a Glaswegian secretary and her father had all the obstinacy and tenacity of a skilled Geordie.

They also had twin boys who became architects.

Her mother disapproved of acting for a living and constantly nagged her to take up typing as a secure job.

Maggie was never a scarlet woman.

A star she is and with two Oscars under her belt she enters her diamond jubilee in showbusiness with yet another film due out in 2012.

We have known each other for more than 40 years through my late partner Christopher Downes who was her close confidant.

I was never admitted into that position.

In those days she was a compliant and energising woman.

But this was a girl who had looked after her demanding student brothers when they shared a flat in Swiss Cottage.

She often walked to the West End to save the fare.

Not frugal but prudent.

This side of her character surfaced in our flat one Saturday where after the usual heavy lunch and drinks a group of Labour would-bes went upstairs to watch international rugby on the television.

Loud shouts of “More soup! More wine, Mag!” saw her rushing up and down the stairs.

Suddenly she exclaimed: “I’m a bloody star, you lot.” Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson were not fazed but she certainly outspun them.

In the current, second series of Downton Abbey, she has not only saved ITV but eclipsed the three main soaps.

Her Edwardian superiority, acerbic tone and caustic asides delivered with elegance. Affection is not an emotion the upper classes were taught.

In real life she has trium­phed over a deceiving husband and theatrical politics.

Laur­ence Olivier saw her true grit.

Her marriage to Sir Robert Stephens at first was a profes­sional partner­ship in which some saw the new Olivier and Vivien Leigh.

Robert, a close friend of mine, was a philand­erer and also a manic depres­sive.

He was capable of unpleas­ant and selfish behav­iour, but overpowering charm.

It became an inevitable bust-up when Maggie and Chris Downes arrived at a soirée given by a leading society woman with whom Robert was having a relationship.

He had humiliated her in public. After the divorce she married Beverley Cross the playwright, an old friend.

Her two boys Chris and Toby – both now actors – had found a kind and stable stepfather.

When I once told her she reminded me of Thatcher, I got a dismissive glare.

But one night in the Ivy she engaged in animated conversation with Ted Heath.

It was harder than dredging the bottomless ocean to get a smile out of Heath, but she managed it.

Maggie’s walk down the yellow brick road was not easy and in 1955 she made her debut on Broadway in New Faces. New York City, with its volcanic energy, intimidated her until she bumped into Julie Andrews who, seeing a forlorn fellow actor, worked her Mary Poppins style on her.

Today, the Dame is a part of the Great White Way on Broadway.

All actors outrageously steal body parts.

Her close friend Kenneth Williams gave her many mannerisms.

She admired more than anybody the comic genius of Alastair Sim and watched him perform 14 times in The Magistrate.

Coral Browne – a bawdy Australian – helped her to do Lady Macbeth.

Kay Kendall, swathed in the most fashionable attire, sat down on the pavement outside Sardi’s restaurant and taught her how to play the spoons.

In spite of her regal latter days, she has a robust sense of humour.

Describing a helicopter trip she said: “I looked down and there was Guildford between my legs.”

Our relationship had always been guarded, rather like Cyclops and Ulysses.

Her performance in Brian Moore’s The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne went in to the depths of emotion in a bleak Dublin suburb.

I personally experienced impotent rage at her pain. It was a secret deep intrusion into the heart of despair.

I wrote her my only fan letter but she was cheated out of her third Oscar by a hair’s breadth and lobbying within the Academy.

But don’t expect “frailty thy name is woman”.

She used to walk the long distance pass on the South Downs.

On one occasion we were going for a swim in Guildford.

A member of a film crew brought us to an abrupt halt and unaware of Maggie’s persona said: “Don’t you know the film star Griff Rhys Jones is filming in the next street.”

There was murder in her eyes. I thought he would turn into a pillar of salt.

On another occasion when Chris Downes was ill in St Mary’s Hospital she decided to tidy up the visitors’ tearoom.

A persistent onlooker kept saying: “You’re a dead ringer for Maggie Smith.”
Eventually Maggie’s patience snapped and a voice as powerful as a brass bands said: “I am f***ing Maggie Smith.”

She is the latest in the line of formidable actresses that stretches back to Sarah Siddons, Mrs  Jordan, William IV’s mistress, Mrs Patrick Campbell and Edith Evans.

She is a superb observer and note-taker.

In Alan Bennett’s Lady in a Van, she based her character on a bag lady she’d seen while shopping in Somerfields, Occasionally she would ask me my opinion after a performance.

Once, in Shaftesbury Avenue, I said: “I couldn’t hear a bloody word when you were downstage right, expecting a snarling response. But she said ‘No you’re right. I can’t find the acoustic spot’.”

At her son Christopher’s wedding I was nursing a leg injury, when Joan Plowright, Judi Dench and Maggie Smith gathered around me.

Judi asked if I wanted something to eat and Joan told me to take care of my bad leg. But Maggie, in the manner of Professor Minerva McGonagall, simply said: “Oh he’ll be all right, he always is.”

When she was flying first class to America on Virgin airlines, the journey got off to a bad start when the plane had to turn back three times on take-off.

Her mood was not eased when Sir Richard Branson, the owner, sat behind her and enquired as to how she felt.

He received a blast and a recommendation as to where he might stick his hot-air balloons.

That’s the Maggie Smith that I admire.

• Illtyd Harrington is literary editor of the Camden New Journal