With her sunken mouth, deep-set, sad eyes and small frame, Smith has excelled at playing dispirited, down-trodden women. She made her screen debut in Mike Leigh's "Bleak Moments" (1971) as a cantankerous, bed-ridden old woman who proudly displays her false teeth by her bedside, and was memorable as a worn-out cleaning lady in Leigh's harrowing drama, "Hard Labour" (1973). Smith has appeared in several period dramas (as Mrs. Heep in the BBC production of "David Copperfield" and the fortune teller in Ridley Scott's "The Duellists" 1977); gave an indelible comic performance as Maggie Smith's dotty mother in "A Private Function" (1984); and was outstanding as the mother of convict Gary Oldman in "We Think the World of You" (1988).