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Home , Alan Bennett, A Private Function, Eileen Atkins, Gosford Park, Joan Plowright, Judi Dench

MondayOctober52009

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‘I’ frightened to work in theatre now’ tells Tim Teeman how breast cancer has changed her life Feature The truth about female paedophilia, page 8 Arts Indian winter: Maharajas at the V&A, page 11 THETIMESMonday October52009 THETIMESMondayOctober52009 62 times2 times2 63 A bad case COVER IMAGE: RICHARD ANSETT / / CAMERA PRESS; BELOW: 20TH CENTURY FOX; ALAN DAVIDSON; REX FEATURES of stage fright

was a nightmare. One doctor told me I had Dame Maggie Smith, been bitten by a wasp. I didn’t think that double Oscar winner sounded right. I was in such pain. I was screaming and doing a lot of crying. They and titan of , give you masses of pills, but nothing touches it.Nowit’sjustitchy.” says that her fight Drily, she adds that “the last couple of years have been kind of a write-off, though with cancer may end I’m beginning to feel like a person now. It Left: Maggie Smith won an Oscar in 1969 for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; right, with her husband in 1994 her theatre career. was a pity to do the film when I was so below par, but my character wasn’t meant 1973. “The moods, medical treatment . . .” do. I don’t think I was respected or loved.” Tim Teeman reports tobefrightfullyvivacious.” she shudders, adding that she coped “with There are no characters Smith wants to The cancer must have made it harder. “It great difficulty. He was a mad person, but play. She’s not really a classical actress, she nce advising was hideous . . . not so good,” she says IknewI’dbe hewasaterrificactor.Hefrightenedalotof accepts, and prefers original roles such as that tightly and looks for some wood to touch. people. When people are out of control it’s ’s , which sarcasm didn’t suit The chemotherapy, she says, “was very with Bev — very scary. The boys were very small and sheperformedin2000,“becausewhenyou him, Dame Mag- peculiar, something that makes you feel ‘‘ that was partly why we went to Canada do parts other people have triumphed in gie Smith de- much worse than the cancer itself, a very it seemed [with second husband, the playwright it’s horrendous. I can’t see why you’d do scribed herself as nastything.Iusedtogototreatmentonmy Beverley Cross, in 1975]. It was good to be The Importance of Being Earnest [she once “the acid queen”. own, and nearly everybody else was with inevitable. away from the whole atmosphere.” Smith playedLadyBracknell].Thatf***inghand- She rarely gives somebody. I wouldn’t have liked that. Why He was great had also been badly knocked by a set of bag is stuck in everyone’s head. I don’t Ointerviews and a would you want to make anybody sit in negative reviews. “I was bloody awful, the think I’ve fulfilled myself. I just would have mysterious, intim- thoseplaces?” criticswereright.Mylifewasamess.Every- liked to have been a lot better. I don’t think idating aura has long surrounded her. You Smith had found a lump on her breast. “I thingwasimpossible.” I’vebeen goodenough.” sense she wouldn’t suffer fools, in fact had been feeling a little rum and didn’t The critics followed her to Canada and She has never considered television. anyone she took agin, gladly or otherwise. know why. I was never nervous, well I was, later to New , where her neighbours “Youkeep seeing the same people. They’ve One theatre insider says that she requires but I didn’t think it was anything serious encouraging as they could be, but they included and Stephen got to stop showing .” She “carefulhandling”. because years ago I felt one before and had didn’t know that my brothers would turn Sondheim. “She [Hepburn] came round laughs wickedly. “He’s on all the time, and It was reported last year that Smith, 74, been hurled into hospital. It was benign ’’out to be architects [Alistair is dead; Ian with a basket of eggs and some marmalade then he’s in the commercials beseeching was receiving chemotherapy and radio- andassumedthisonewould betoo. It wasa lives in America]. It was so far away from one day and I nearly fainted. We’d see her youtobuytea.” therapy for breast cancer, and when we bit unnerving when it wasn’t. But treat- what they knew. I read a lot. My brothers outside shovelling snow and there was a Smith must see some kind of future for meet on the South Bank, in , she ment is so swift you don’t have time to were my biggest influence. They were completely mad fan opposite who would herself? “I don’t think there’s a lot of it, looks tired, a little bloodshot and embarks thinkaboutanything.” creative and went to architecture school. shout‘Helloprincess’toher.” because of my age — there just isn’t. It’s all immediately on an impassioned rant Telling her family (two adult sons and went to the same one, but Smith lived in Hollywood just after the been. I’ve no idea what there will be.” Ill- about the dreadful traffic jam she has just their loved ones) was “awful. It [the illness] didn’tkeepitupobviously.Mydadwasinto Manson murders and “the place was sold ness has changed her,then. “Very muchso. endured in Waterloo. She lives in rural kind of takes the wind out of your sails, and classical music. It drove my mother mad out of dogs, and goldfish, anything I think it’s the age I was when it happened. Sussex. I ask how she is, aware of the I don’t know what the future holds, if any- because he was quite deaf and played it peoplethoughtmightprotectthem.Iloved It knocks you . It takes you longer cancer elephant in the room. She smiles thing.Ireallydon’t know.” loudly.” She laughs. “The whole of the insanity. You’d be driven to filming in to recover, you’re not so resilient, and I am gently. “I’m OK . . . OK . . . OK.” Her voice She says that she has received the all- ChurchillRoadwasforcedto listen.” yourpyjamas.” fearful of the amount of energy one needs is far from grand. She looks frail, but clear from doctors, and goes back for a Smith performed on the Edinburgh Stephens didn’t see his sons for years. tobeinafilmoraplay.Itisuptome,Iought remainspin-sharp,wryandwitty. check-up later this month, adding that Fringe, then in revues, and then “But Toby was eventually in Stratford with to do more exercise, I used to do a lot of Smith is of the same generation as her she’s disposed of the hats and caps she began serious theatre, with Olivier at the him,acting,sowekindofallgottogetherin walking.Butmyenergyiscomingback.I’m good friend “Jude” ( Dench), bought to cover her baldness: “You think OldVic.Washeimpossible?“Fairlyimpos- theend.”Cross,however,washertruelove. goingtoAfricawithfriendssoon.” and . She is famous for they’re going to work and they don’t.” It sible,” she says gently. “He was extraordi- They had met on the steps of the Ash- She pauses. “Ageing isn’t the nicest her first Oscar-winning performance in was“veryweird”to loseherhair.“Soweird. nary.Wewereall scaredofhim.” molean Museum in years before thing. You end up feeling like you couldn’t The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969, and Oh, it’s awful. You really do feel horribly clinking the ice absently in her mineral Acting was “habit-forming and exciting. but he was married “and in those days go to Los Angeles because [she stretches less so for her second for sick. I was staggering around Waitrose and water. It will seem unimaginable to many That’s the sad thing. That huge amount of divorce took alifetime”,and whileactingin theskin of herface]it hasn’t been put in the almost adecade later.She beganher career felt ghastly. I was holding on to railings, thatshe istalking aboutgivingup theatre,I energy and desire goes. God knows where London Smith met Stephens and married rightplace.Theyputoldpeopleawaysome- in theatre at 16, worked with Laurence thinking,‘Ican’tdothis’.” say. “Well, there’s a limit to what you can it goes, but it does, then acting becomes a him.Whata collisionof circumstances. where.” As for love, Smith shakes her head: Olivier, and has appeared in many films She filmed Harry Potter and the Half- do. I’m not into that argument there aren’t frightening thing to do and that’snot good. “I knew I would be with Bev eventually,” “I’d rather be on my own and remember including , A Room with Blood Prince mid-treatment. “I was hair- any parts for older women, though. Any- I think the pressure becomes huge when she says, smiling. “Everyone did. It seemed whatIhad, whichwasprettyspecial.” a View and , for which she less. I had no problem getting the wig on. I way, why should there be? If there’s work you become aware of criticism and the inevitable. He was great . . .” She trails off, She needs to get Alan Bennett to write earned a third Oscar nomination. She has waslikeaboiled egg.” I’ll do it and if there isn’t . . . I’ve still got to importance of getting a good review. Then staresattheiceintheglass,dropshervoice: her a role, I say. “I know. It’s pointless,” she won five BAFTAs. Her imperious charac- Smithsaysthatsheacceptedthepossibil- staggerthroughthelast Potter.” the next thing has to be as good or better “Why do people die? It’s horrible. Let’s not says, laughing. “I’ve already shouted at ters generally echo the “acid queen” ity of dying. “I was relieved to be the age I Growing up, “it never crossed my mind and of course it can’t be, so in the end you go there, it’s too sad. I miss Bev. It’s almost himalot.” persona; even if they are cameos, you was, because by now you feel like it’s all to be anything else”, she says of becoming get very nervous.” Did she? “Yes, horribly 12 years now, I can’t believe it [he died of She has no regrets, she insists. “I don’t know Smith will inevitably scythe the air over anyway. That’s why I hated seeing an actress. “I started after school in rep.” so,”shereplies quickly. heart disease], and Robert’s even longer think you can. Let the cards fall the way withvinegaryasides. young people receiving treatment [at the She was born in , her Geordie father The crunch moment wasn’t winning the [he died of alcohol-related disease in 1995]. they may. Things happen, don’t they? Sh** Playing Professor Minerva McGona- Royal Marsden Hospital, London]. I Nathaniel was a pathologist, her Glas- OscarforBrodie.“Itdidn’t makeanydiffer- But I’m good on my own. What’s tough is happens. I just think I ought to pull myself gall, she’s about to film “the last Harry couldn’t bear that, it didn’t seem fair. To be wegian mother Margaret a secretary. “We ence whatsoever. We were opening a play when you are away from home, then going together a bit.” As Smith smoothes down Potter”(and the Deathly Hallows), but honest, you feel so ghastly you wouldn’t moved to Oxford because of the war. My at the National, so I didn’t go to the Oscars. backandthere’sno onethere.ButIseealot her oatmeal jacket (a present from “Jude” Smith isn’t “forever at it”, as she describes minddyinga lotof thetime.” brothers (six years older than her and I hadn’t thought about films. It was quite of my friends, particularly Joan [Dame when they filmed in Dench’s formidable acting output. Indeed, She struggles for words. “I felt . . . I was twins) were going to be evacuated and my odd and an enormous surprise. A lot of ]. There’s a difference Italy), she apologisesif she has been maud- she will reveal, she is racked with doubt just...Itleavesyousoflattened.I’mnot parents decided, ‘No, let’s all get the hell people win and don’t get much work after- between solitude and loneliness.” She lin. “The worst thing wasn’t losing my hair, about her acting future after being sure I could go back to theatre work, out’. God, it’s so long ago, we can’t go back wards. It didn’t make much of a difference dotes on her four grandchildren, “aged 4 it was it growing back this awful grey col- “knocked sideways”byherillness. although film work is more tiring. I’m there,” and she puts her head in her hands. tome.Iwasalwaysinthetheatre.” and down”, two boys and two girls evenly our,” she says, laughing saltily. “This for a Atthisyear’sTimesBFILondonFilmFes- frightened to work in theatre now. I feel The mists of memory, I say. “Fog is more But it stayed with us, I say: reshowings split between her two sons. “They call me woman who had her hand in the colouring tival,sheplaysthegrandmotherofaboyun- very uncertain. I haven’t done it for a while likeit,”Smithrepliesmordantly. on TV, the iconography of the charac- GrannyMog.Bevused to call meMog.” potforsomanyyears.” covering a ghost story in ’s [her last stage role was in The Lady from At school she remembers “trooping off ter . . . “Iwasincrediblyfortunate,it’safool- The cancer, the loss, the talk of giving up Come on Mr Bennett, get writing: it’s lean and moving film, From Time to Time, Dubuque in 2007]. I’m not quite sure if it’s to Stratford” to see in proof part. It was like a big present.” At the acting, the frailty . . . part of me wants to time for Dame Maggie Smith to return to set just after the end of the Second World like getting back on a horse or a bike. Not . “He was wonderful. There was a time she was married to the actor Robert shake her and activate the feisty Maggie thestage. War. Smith parries beautifully with her thatI’ddoeither,I’dfalloff.It’soneofthose great deal of swooning in the lower fourth, Stephens, with whom she had two sons: Smith evident in those waspish perform- youngco-starAlexEtel. things you ought to keep on doing and I I remember. I wasn’t very academic. Toby,thewell-knownactor,andChris,also ances and commanding public persona. FromTimetoTime showsonOctober 15, “I haven’t seen it,” she says. “I wasn’t well haven’t for a bit. I would love to be able to went to the same anactorwhoseloveofcyclingincongested You are one of the most esteemed and 4pmatVue6,andOctober18,3pm at during filming. I had shingles. On my because I do love it, but I feel a great lack of school, though a long time after me, as she Londonpanicshismother. respected actresses of your generation, I Vue5(VueWestEnd,CranbournStreet, head.” She grips her grey bob dramatically. confidence. Being unwell and having neverceasestopointout.” Their father was a drinker and unstable. say.“Idon’tknowthat,”shesaysdismissive- LondonWC2).TheTimesBFI53rd “Aagghh. I have never known anything so withdrawn . . . I haven’t been in London for It was a happy upbringing. “My parents “It was very, very turbulent,” Smith says of ly. “Idon’t knowwhatotherpeople thinkof LondonFilmFestivalrunsfromOctober painful. I had to wear a wig for the role so it so long, it’s quite scary up here.” Smith is Main image: Maggie Smith in From Time to Time; left, an Oscar for California Suite, 1979; right, with in , 1985 were baffled by all of us. They were as their six-year marriage, which ended in me. 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