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Dame Maggie Smith, known for her work in Downton Abbey and the Harry Potter films, died at the age of 89. According to the BBC, Smith’s sons, actors Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin, announced the news in a statement released to the media on Friday morning. A cause of death has not yet been announced.

“It is with great sadness that we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital this morning, Friday, September 27,” they wrote. “She was an intensely private person and was ultimately with friends and family. She is survived by two sons and five loving grandchildren, who are devastated by the loss of their special mother and grandmother.”

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and continued kindness during her final days,” the statement continued. “We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time.”

A two-time Academy Award winner, Smith was revered for her career roles in theater, film and television, including her Oscar-winning roles in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie And California suite. Smith spent the better part of six decades on London’s West End and Broadway, playing Oscar Wilde’s Lady Bracknell and Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth and later finding favor with a new generation when she stepped into the witch shoes of Professor Minerva McGonagall – a role she would play. occupied for a decade.

“There are times when I’m not even sure I have a real life,” Smith once said To live magazine, according to the Washington After. “I know that only on stage do I really feel alive. For a certain period of time, I have to become a person I fully believe in. I would like to be someone who is really beautiful.”

To pay tribute to the late actress, we’ve rounded up some of Dame Maggie Smith’s most loved on and off-screen moments.