Birthplace: Ilford, Essex, England, United Kingdom
biography
One of the most revered and rewarded actresses on both sides of the Atlantic, Maggie Smith has created a gallery of characters who run the gamut from repressed spinsters to comical eccentrics. The attractive redhead with the distinctly adenoidal voice, the youngest daughter of a pathologist with ties to Oxford, decided to pursue an acting career while still in her teens. She got her start as an assistant stage manager and performer at the Oxford Playhouse where she made her debut in a 1952 production of "Twelfth Night". Four years later, Smith was improbably singing and dancing on Broadway in
