Maggie Smith by Michael Coveney

Author:Michael Coveney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-12-04T05:00:00+00:00

The pig is finally slaughtered while Maggie drowns out its squeals with her piano-playing and the pageantry of England is celebrated in a party in the sitting room. Maggie’s Joyce, succulently overdressed in a blue suit, declares, in a line that mocks generations of suburban gentility: ‘I’m going to throw caution to the winds and have a sweet sherry.’ As the film fades on the post-prandial dance, a smooching Denholm Elliott places his hand on Maggie’s bottom, her features pucker into an expression of distaste that just stops short of a reprimand and Palin salivates over another sweet little piggy.

Michael Palin remained in awe of his co-star: ‘Terrifying is too strong a word. But she’s formidable when crossed. There’s an intensity of animosity sometimes, which comes out in her acting and which can be quite chilling. Maggie in a bad mood is clearly a few degrees worse than most people in a bad mood.’ Palin and his wife, Helen, subsequently drove down to visit Maggie and Beverley in Sussex, taking a vase they had bought for her in the Japanese shop in Covent Garden: ‘The vase had lots of flowers with it, and paper blooms. As I gave it to Maggie, I realised the paper blooms were in fact very small price tags and, as we talked, Maggie idly picked off the tags, one by one, without causing any embarrassment. I remember thinking that this was a great actor at work!’

Alan Bennett says that Maggie was in a consistently good temper throughout the filming of A Private Function.

I was there most of the time. I used to go and chat. I was what one of the actors, Jim Carter, called ‘continuity giggles’. One of the things about Maggie is that she is more intelligent than most actresses, much quicker, and so she arrives at what she wants to do very quickly. She easily gets bored and one has to be careful of that. She can’t resist a joke, but I don’t think she’s malevolent. I do find her frightening when I think of her career and the people she’s worked with. The same is true of Judi Dench, but I’m not frightened of Judi Dench, simply because she wouldn’t let you be. Maggie has a reserve which you never penetrate, really.

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