Maggie Smith's son reveals her final moments
Dame Maggie Smith's son Toby Stephens has shared details of the last few weeks of his mother's life, and how he wasn't by her side when she passed away.
Toby and his brother Chris Larkin announced the death of their famous mother, revealing she died peacefully in hospital in September 2024 at the age of 89.
Stephens, who is also an actor, has now opened up about Maggie's last weeks, telling The Times that he was filming a movie in New Zealand when his mother died.
Despite her health troubles, Smith encouraged her son to take the role in the horror movie Marama, as he explained, “She was in hospital. She was supposed to be coming out, but the last two years of her life had been a decline: she would get worse, then she would get better, then she would get worse.”
“So I said, ‘Look I’ve got this film,’ and before I could even ask her, she said, ‘Go do it. God, you don’t want to hang round here, I’m fine.’”
However, when Stephens arrived in New Zealand, he was informed by hospital staff that his mother’s condition would not improve, as he said, "But it could take two months, two weeks, they didn’t know."
Soon afterwards he started filming the movie, his mother stopped being able to communicate.
“I’d spent hours and days sitting with her at home and in hospital over the course of two years, and there was nothing I had left unsaid,” Stephens said.
Maggie Smith died on September 27th, the day before Stephens finished filming.
His wife, actress Anna-Louise Plowman, and their three teenage children were all with her at the hospital the day before she died.
Maggie's other son Chris Larkin was at Smith’s bedside for her final moments, as Stephens said, “I was so sad not to be with him.”
“I found that very difficult, but she was no longer aware. And it allowed me some space to actually get my head round what had happened.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Stephens said he had been touched by the response to his mother’s death and the number of people who remembered her for her earlier roles.
He added, “The thing that really got me was: it’s very rare that you have actors that everyone likes."
Image credits: Colorsport/ITV/Shutterstock Editorial