It is a testament to the long, varied and celebrated career that Dame Maggie Smith enjoyed that it would be insulting to refer to any particular role. In fact, it is limiting to consider even one particular medium.

For filmgoers, there’s her Oscar-winning performance The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969). For those who grew up in the 2000s Harry PotterSmith, who has died aged 89, will always be Professor Minerva McGonagall.

She continued to look at the small screen Downton Abbey as the indomitable grandmother of a thousand memes, Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham.

But many would argue that the theater’s most versatile performer demonstrated a complete mastery that captivated critics and audiences, playwrights creating their work specifically for her, and male counterparts cowering in the wings.

This versatility led to her winning a small mountain of acting awards, including two Oscars, four Emmys and a Tony – the so-called Triple Crown – as well as Golden Globes and Baftas.

She was born in Ilford, Essex in 1934 and grew up in Oxford, where she made her stage debut at the age of 17 playing the viola in Twelfth night and her professional debut on Broadway four years later, in 1956.

As Smith himself succinctly put it: “Someone went to school, someone wanted to act, someone started acting, and someone is still acting.” She showed a particular talent for comedy, appearing in revues and farces, before attracting the attention of Sir Laurence Olivier, who recruited her to the National Theatre, where she quickly established herself as his colleague, if not his rival.

Her family saw her triumph in plays by Noël Coward, while she also won critical acclaim for the title role in a production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler directed by Ingmar Bergman. When her Desdemona moved to the big screen, she received the first of several Academy Award nominations.

After early screen appearances in The Pumpkin Eater (1964) And The Honeypot (1967)in 1970 she won her first Oscar, Best Actress The Bloom of Miss Jean Brodie, and another in 1979 for Best Supporting Actress in California suite.

Over the next decades she collaborated on film with Merchant Ivory, Alan Bennett, Steven Spielberg and Agnieszka Holland, and also appeared in plays by Oscar Wilde, William Congreve and Edward Albee. Peter Shaffer wrote 1987 Lettice and lovage especially for her.

She was married twice, to actor Sir Robert Stephens for eight years – with whom she had two sons, actors Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens – and to playwright Beverley Cross from 1975 until his death in 1998.

In her later years, she never lost touch with her comedic roots, appearing in crowd-pleasers such as Sister Act (1992) with Whoopi Goldberg and The best exotic marigold hotel (2011), alongside her close contemporary Dame Judi Dench.

After an 11-year break from the stage, she returned to Sir Christopher Hampton’s one-woman show in 2019 A German lifein which she played a woman who looks back on her youth, when she worked as secretary to Joseph Goebbels.

Offstage, Smith provided an entertaining raconteur on talk shows, whether reciting Sir John Betjeman to Sir Michael Parkinson with her regular stagemate Kenneth Williams, or belittling her latest manifestation of fame to Graham Norton. When the latter asked if she had ever looked Downton Abbeyshe pursed her lips and replied facetiously, “I have the box set.”

She might have a wit and wit that Dowager Violet would have enjoyed if she once said of Glenn Close, “That’s not an actress, that’s an address.” Her irreverence was proof that no matter how many titles she received – she was made a Dame and a member of the Order of the Companions of Honor in 1990, only the third female actor to receive such an honor in 2014 – her character and freedom was just as immune to praise and respectability as to criticism.

Tributes have been received from King Charles III and British political leaders of all parties, as well as co-stars and directors.

Sir Kenneth Branagh called her “without doubt one of the greats” and added: “It was an honor to work with Maggie Smith. A privilege to watch her. In tragedy, she made you catch your breath while breaking your heart. In comedy, she could laugh at a look or a line at any time. She was sharp and prepared on the job, and made for exciting company outside of it.”