Maggie Smith: The deafening void of being left a widow
HER redoubtable character in Downton Abbey may be about to rekindle an old love but Maggie Smith has opened up about the loneliness she feels in real life.
The 79-year-old actress says she has still not been able to fill the ‘awful’ and ‘deafening’
‘They say the pain goes away. It doesn’t’
void left by the death of her second husband, playwright and librettist Beverley Cross, in 1998.
Ms Smith, who plays Violet, dowager countess of Grantham in the hit ITV drama, said: ‘They say it [the pain] goes away but it doesn’t. It just gets different.
‘It’s awful but what do you do? After the busy-ness you are more alone, much more. A day that is absolutely crowded keeps your mind away from why you are alone but when it stops, that is the deafening silence.’
The double Oscar winner married Cross in 1975 and they were together until he died.
The actress was previously married to actor Robert Stephens, the father of her two sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens. In a candid interview, Ms Smith, who has won a new fanbase thanks to her leading roles in Downton and the Harry Potter films, said her new-found fame could be frightening and for the first time in her life she could not go out for fear of being mobbed.
‘It’s very difficult when you’re on your own because you have no escape,’ she said. The star of movies such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel said being rude to people didn’t help. ‘That doesn’t get you very far, although I think I am s o met i mes , because it can be quite scary if a lot of them come at you. I make a beeline and go, go, go. It is hard. I don’t know how people cope with it.
‘What do they do, these huge movie stars? What the hell do they do? Perhaps they never go out. I don’t think they walk around on their own.’ Ms Smith said she loved her scenes with Downton co-star Penelope Wilton, who plays friend and confidante Isobel Crawley.
‘Penelope and I have a great time. We play endless Bananagrams [a word game]. She makes me laugh a lot and we talk about the books we read.’
The actress, who is set to start work on a film version of Alan Bennett’s The Lady In The Van, said she regarded her role as Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter as ‘her pension’ and was delighted to have been able to help pay for the education of her five grandchildren.