The news of Dame Maggie Smith’s death was fresh in my mind last weekend when I went to see The Substance, a film about a “fading” movie star, played by Demi Moore, who turns to a black-market drug that promises to create a “younger, better version of herself.” I talked my mom, 72, into coming with me without telling her much, other than that it was part horror, part sci-fi.
“What’s the gist?” my mom asked.
“Well,” I started, “Demi Moore plays an aging actress—”
“Oh, that is horror!” my mom said grimly.
The contrast between Moore’s character, violently desperate to create a “newer, better version of herself,” and Maggie Smith—the real life actress who passed away on Friday at 89—could not be more stark.
Of course Smith’s face changed through the years, but it always contained the essence we knew: that ferocious intelligence and humor glinting in her enormous eyes. When we think of the Maggie Smith we love, most of us think of an older woman who seemed so completely comfortable in her own skin.
By Smith’s own admission, her looks weren’t her superpower—she made plenty of self-effacing jokes over the years. During the Downton Abbey era, the British actor good-naturedly told Vanity Fair, “I play 93 quite often. When you’ve done it more than once, you take the hint!” Then she implied that she might consider plastic surgery if she’d started sooner, and joked about why she rarely attended award shows: “I truly think if I went to Los Angeles, for example, I think I’d frighten people. They don’t see older people.”
What made Smith stunning never faded; at 29 and at 89, there was power in her face. Enough to collect two Academy Awards, five BAFTAs, four Emmys, three Golden Globes, and a Tony Award. Enough to find herself gracing what will forever remain one of the best fashion campaigns ever, as the 88-year-old face of Loewe. Last fall, I looked up in delight to see her visage taking up the side of a building near Trafalgar Square in London. There she was, perched on a zig-zagged couch, clutching a burgundy Loewe Paseo bag, her fabulous face seemingly makeup-free. I thought, I want to feel this power, this freedom!