Maggie Smith's Contentious Relationship With Laurence Olivier, Explained

With the heartbreaking death of Dame Maggie Smith just short of her 90th birthday, the entertainment world lost one of its true greats. Even King Charles III took a moment from his busy schedule to share his and Queen Camilla's sorrow on the official royal family's Instagram Stories, calling her "a national treasure" and praising "her many great performances and her warmth and wit that shone through both on and off the stage." (His mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, would agree. Maggie Smith had close ties to the royal family; the queen not only gave Smith her Dame title, but also made her a member of the elite Royal Order of the Companions of Honour in 2014.)

Best known for her roles in the "Harry Potter" film series and as the Dowager Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey," Smith was also an accomplished stage actor who appeared over the years with Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi, Anthony Hopkins, Ian McKellen, Lynn Redgrave, and other distinguished performers. But her most memorable pairing was with another theatrical legend, Sir Laurence Olivier, who was her sparring partner as well as her co-star. In 1963, Olivier invited Smith to play Desdemona to his Othello in an acclaimed production of the Shakespeare drama at the National Theatre. It was a brilliant piece of casting, but working with Olivier was, to say the least, challenging. To start, Olivier insisted on wearing blackface for the role, which was considered controversial even then. Both Smith and the actor playing Iago were put off by having to see their colleague in the dark makeup.

In "Othello," the relationship between the title character and his wife Desdemona is complicated (spoiler alert: he kills her). Behind the scenes, Maggie Smith and Laurence Olivier's rivalry didn't quite go that far, but it was dramatic nonetheless. In the 2018 documentary "Tea With the Dames," via Vanity Fair, Smith recalled how she used to get revenge on her co-star for slamming her acting technique. When Olivier criticized her vowel pronunciation, she got in a jab at both the critique and his makeup choice the next day. Asked to help apply his false eyelashes, Smith went to his dressing room and drawled, "How now, brown cow?" After another performance, Olivier told Smith her delivery was slow and dull. For the next show, "I went so fast he didn't know if it was Wednesday or Christmas . . . I got him really rattled," she quipped.

When actors have to play fight scenes, the moves are carefully choreographed to keep them safe. Still, accidents do happen. During one show, Olivier smacked Smith across the face, leaving it smudged from his makeup. "He did knock me out," Smith recalled. "I did say it was the only time I saw stars at the National Theatre."

Maggie Smith and Laurence Olivier reprised their dazzling "Othello" roles in the 1965 film version, which earned Smith her first Academy Award nomination. But things took a sour turn not long afterward. Smith had left the company after marrying fellow National Theatre actor Robert Stephens, and by 1968, she was expecting her first child. That same year, according to The Guardian, Olivier staged a production of the comedy "The Way of the World" — a show he had often promised to cast her in — with another actress in the role she had been "perfect" for. 

Olivier wrote an extensive apology to Smith for not giving her the part, but it wasn't enough. Her reply to him was worthy of Violet Crawley herself: "Well, what's the point of trying to tell you my feelings," she wrote. "They obviously count for so very little. It was nice of you to say you will devote your energies to my return but really I do not think it would be wise of me to believe that either. Margaret."

Still, the two remained friendly enough to stay in touch over the years, particularly since Smith was good friends with Olivier's wife, Joan Plowright. In the "Tea With the Dames" documentary (which also starred their mutual friends Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins), Plowright recalled times when she was working out of town and Smith came to their home to help Olivier with the chores. Smith replied, "This hand held the hand!"