Tributes continue to pour in for Dame Maggie Smith, the legendary actor who died on Friday morning at the age of 89.

While we're going to bring our live coverage to an end now, you can continue to follow those tributes and more in our news story.

A look back at the career of this formidable star of the stage and screen is in our obituary piece here, external.

And from Shakespeare to Harry Potter, our culture colleagues have written about six of her greatest roles.

You can watch a brief highlight reel of Dame Maggie's decades-long career in our video below, thanks for joining us.

Jacqueline Howard
Live page editor

Image source, Reuters

Earlier today Dame Maggie Smith's sons announced the death of their mother, after she passed away peacefully in hospital, with friends and family by her side.

With a career spanning some 70 years, she has been hailed as one of the greatest actors of our time.

Stars from the entertainment world, King Charles and the PM joined the legions of fans paying tribute, including Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe who recalled Dame Maggie's "fierce intellect" and "gloriously sharp tongue".

Hugh Bonneville, who played her son in Downton Abbey, said she was a "true legend of her generation", while her Sister Act co-star Whoopi Goldberg described her as "one-of-a-kind".

King Charles and Queen Camilla were also among those reflecting on the cultural impact of Dame Maggie, describing her as "a national treasure".

It feels impossible to adequately describe the legacy of Dame Maggie, but I think Radcliffe put it best:

Image source, PA Media

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has just posted her tribute to Dame Maggie on social media.

"Somehow I thought she'd live forever. RIP Dame Maggie Smith," she wrote.

Rowling reportedly specifically asked for Dame Maggie to star in the film adaptations of her books, connecting the actor to a new generation of devoted fans.

We've been looking back at some of our archival footage of Dame Maggie Smith and have unearthed some gems.

In 1970, Dame Maggie told the BBC's Michael Aspel that an Oscar award is "nice to have", but being in Los Angeles when nominations are announced is "hysterical enough".

"I dread to think what happens on the actual occasion," she said.

Earlier, in 1967, she spoke of her parents thwarting her first steps into the acting world. She had gotten a role in the Oxford Playhouse after finishing school, but "this was immediately trodden on and I wasn’t allowed to do it," she says.

Clearly she was not deterred, telling Barry Norman more than 25 years later about being typecast as "rather sour" and "faded women" in her contemporary roles, always in corsets.

David Yates, who directed the last four of eight Harry Potter movies, has described Dame Maggie Smith as "acting royalty" and "a true force of nature on set".

Paying tribute, he says she was "formidable often intimidating - gigantically talented - and always precisely prepared".

"She also had a wicked sense of humour and a good heart," he adds.

"At one point, half way through a marathon schedule of relentless production, I’d been shooting four of the Potter movies back to back, she pulled Yvonne (my wife) to one side and chastised her for not looking after me properly through a particularly heavy run of night shoots.

"Maggie was, very simply, acting royalty, and the presence and power of her work never faltered or dimmed - even when she was struggling with some health related issues on one of the films - her personality and her talent lit up which ever set she graced.

"I’ve been very lucky to work with a huge number of talented actors, but Maggie hovers somewhere above them all.”

Noor Nanji
Culture reporter

It’s hard to think back to a time when Dame Maggie Smith wasn’t a household name.

But before the fame and stardom, Dame Maggie started out as a prompt girl and understudy at the Oxford Repertory.

She struggled to get on stage while she was there - she once claimed that she never got a break, because no-one in the company ever fell ill.

Her fortunes turned when her company moved to a small theatre in London in 1955. It’s where she attracted the attention of an American producer, Leonard Stillman, who cast her in New Faces, a revue that opened on Broadway in June 1956.

On her return to London, was offered a stint in the revue Share My Lettuce, while her first film role was in the 1956 production Child in the House.

Two years later, she was nominated for a Bafta as best newcomer in the 1958 melodrama Nowhere to Go.

By the mid-1960s she was an established stage actress.

In 2015, Dame Maggie appeared on the BBC's Graham Norton show and spoke about the plethora of new fans she gained from working on the Harry Potter franchise.

She tells Norton of the challenges in interacting with very young fans, including one who asked if she was "really a cat", referencing her character's ability to transfigure herself in the films.

Take a look at how she responded below:

Image source, PA Media

British-Australian actress Miriam Margolyes says she hopes people cherish Dame Maggie's memory by watching all of her work.

Margolyes worked alongside her when she played Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter series.

"She was the wizard in Harry Potter," Margolyes tells the BBC.

"Only after working with her, I saw what a kind person she could be, as well as absolutely terrifying."

The pair went to the same school but didn't know each other, being a few years apart.

Margolyes describes herself as an acolyte of Dame Maggie's rather than a friend.

She says she burst into tears upon hearing the news, "because we've lost something irreplaceable".

"The innate gift, her brilliant diction, her natural wit and intelligence, hard work and just that sense of language and courage.

Image source, EPA

Dame Maggie's career spanned eight decades, with her first performances coming on stage in the 1950s.

Her last screen role was just a year ago, when she starred in The Miracle Club.

Picking out her best performances is incredibly difficult, but our culture reporters Yasmin Rufo and Noor Nanji have had a go:

• Desdemona - Othello
• Jean Brodie - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
• Betsey Trotwood - David Copperfield
• Professor McGonagall - Harry Potter
• Violet Crawley - Downton Abbey
• Mary Shepherd - The Lady in the Van

Read their assessment of her six greatest roles here.

In paying tribute to Dame Maggie, which you can find in this post, Daniel Radcliffe has also shared an anecdote about his first time working with her.

"The first time I met Maggie Smith I was nine years old and we were reading through scenes for David Copperfield, which was my first job. I knew virtually nothing about her other than that my parents were awestruck at the fact that I would be working with her," he says.

"The other thing I knew about her was that she was a Dame, so the first thing I asked her when we met was “would you like me to call you Dame?” at which she laughed and said something to the effect of “don’t be ridiculous!"

"I remember feeling nervous to meet her and then her putting me immediately at ease. She was incredibly kind to me on that shoot, and then I was lucky enough to go on working with her for another 10 years on the Harry Potter films."

Image source, PA Media

King Charles III says he and Queen Camilla are "deeply saddened" to learn of the death of Dame Maggie Smith.

"As the curtain comes down on a national treasure, we join all those around the world in remembering with the fondest admiration and affection her many great performances," Buckingham Palace says in a statement.

He also pays tribute to "her warmth and wit that shone through both on and off stage".

Image source, Alamy

In the last few moments Daniel Radcliffe, who starred in the Harry Potter film series alongside Dame Maggie, has paid tribute to her as a "fierce intellect" with a "gloriously sharp tongue".

She "could intimidate and charm in the same instant and was, as everyone will tell you, extremely funny," Radcliffe says.

"I will always consider myself amazingly lucky to have been able to work with her, and to spend time around her on set. The word legend is overused but if it applies to anyone in our industry then it applies to her. Thank you Maggie."

Image source, Reuters

Away from the wizarding world, for some it was Dame Maggie's role as Lady Violet Crawley - the sharp-witted matriarch of Downton Abbey - which was the stand-out in last years of her career.

Tributes are starting to come in from stars from the hit ITV period drama.

Michelle Dockery, who played Dame Maggie's on-screen granddaughter, Lady Mary Crawley, tells the BBC: “There was no one quite like Maggie.

"I feel tremendously lucky to have known such a maverick. She will be deeply missed and my thoughts are with her family.”

Meanwhile Lesley Nicol, who played Downton Abbey’s cook, tells BBC Radio Ulster that just hearing clips of Dame Maggie made her “weepy”.

“We were part of the Downton family for 14 years,” she says.

“It’s a very close group of people so we’re all devastated to think she’s not around anymore.”

Nicol says she was “terrified” when she first heard she would be working with Dame Maggie as she had never before worked with anyone “of that calibre”.

But she says Dame Maggie made it clear from the start she was going to be part of the team.

“She was not looking for anyone to be scared of her, or in awe of her, she just wanted to be in the gang," she says.

Downton Abbey creator and writer Julian Fellowes has told Variety magazine: “Maggie Smith was a truly great actress and we were more than fortunate to be part of the last act in her stellar career."

“She was a joy to write for, subtle, many-layered, intelligent, funny and heart-breaking. Working with her has been the greatest privilege of my career, and I will never forget her."

Graham Satchell
Reporting from London's West End

Theatre goers outside Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in London's West End have been giving me reaction to the news of Dame Maggie Smith’s death.

One woman describes her as “the face of television” and says she will be greatly missed.

Another says they loved her performance as Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, saying she was strict and sometimes scary but was the “mother of us all”.

Some had not heard the news and were deeply saddened.

"We have lost the perfect English actress," one person says to me.

Image source, Everett Collection Inc / Alamy Stock Photo

In the 1990s, Dame Maggie starred in hit films Sister Act and The Secret Garden, as well as the BBC drama David Copperfield alongside a young Daniel Radcliffe - in his debut role before the launch of the Harry Potter film franchise.

And it is perhaps Dame Maggie's own role in this film series which she is most well-known for, particularly among younger audiences.

In 2001, she made her debut in the Philosopher's Stone as the iconic Professor McGonagall, the transfiguration professor and head of Gryffindor house.

Known for her iconic quotes, such as "for sheer dumb luck", both actor and character became household names across generations.

"The appeal was that [don't] often get to play wizards and things like that - it's great," she once said of the role.

"Jobs aren't like that on the whole. You usually get to walk around in ordinary clothes. This one you just get [to] wear wizard's things and... it's magic.

And it's one she'd stay in all the way to 2011, when the last film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two was released.

Whoopi Goldberg, who acted alongside Dame Maggie Smith in Sister Act in 1992, has paid tribute to the "one-of-a-kind" actress.

Their characters - Goldberg, a singer placed in a convent during witness protection, and Dame Maggie, the convent's Mother Superior - were often at odds with each other.

"Maggie Smith was a great woman and a brilliant actress. I still can't believe I was lucky enough to work with the 'one-of-a-kind'. My heartfelt condolences go out to the family...RIP," Goldberg wrote on social media.

Dame Maggie Smith's career spanned over seven decades, with countless roles on stage and on the screen - take a look at some of her best moments:

The 1980s saw a number of memorable cinema performances from Dame Maggie Smith - and more awards.

There were Baftas for A Private Function and A Room With A View, the latter garnering her a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination.

There were also Baftas for her roles in The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne and in Bed Among the Lentils, one of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series for the BBC.

It was back to the stage in 1987 in Lettice and Lovage at the Globe Theatre in London before the production transferred to New York.

But her run was interrupted after she suffered a bicycle accident and then learned she would need eye surgery.

When she finally resumed work on Lettice and Lovage, after a 12-month break, her New York performance won her a Tony.

• Obituary: Maggie Smith

The National Theatre, where Dame Maggie worked in its first season in 1963, says it is "reeling" from the news.

"She will forever be remembered as one of the greatest actors this country has had the inestimable pleasure of witnessing," it says in a statement.

"Her deep intelligence, effortless dexterity, sublime craft and sharp wit were simply legendary."

Image source, Getty Images

The role which brought Dame Maggie Smith international fame came in 1969 when she played the determinedly non-conformist teacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

The part won her a best actress Oscar. She also married her co-star, Robert Stephens.

The actress continued with the National Theatre for another two years including a performance as Mrs Sullen in the Restoration comedy The Beaux' Stratagem in Los Angeles.

She received another Oscar nomination for best actress after playing Aunt Augusta in the George Cukor film, Travels With My Aunt, in 1972.

She and Stephens divorced in 1975, and a year later she was married to the playwright, Beverley Cross, and also moved to Canada, spending four years in a repertory company where she took on weightier roles in Macbeth and Richard III.

One critic, writing of her performance as Lady Macbeth, decided she had "merged her own vivid personality with that of her charismatic subject".

Despite her success, she was modest about her achievements, stating simply that "one went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, and one's still acting."

She continued to work in the cinema playing opposite Peter Ustinov in the 1978 film, Death on the Nile and, in the same year, the part of Diana Barrie in Neil Simon's California Suite.

• Obituary: Maggie Smith