• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Dame Maggie Smith’s son opens up about heartbreaking final words with his mother before her death

Home> Entertainment> Celebrity

Published 17:35 17 Feb 2025 GMT

Dame Maggie Smith’s son opens up about heartbreaking final words with his mother before her death

The legend of stage and screen passed away last year

Jess Battison

Jess Battison

Featured Image Credit: Dave Benett/Getty Images

Topics: Celebrity, Harry Potter

Jess Battison
Jess Battison

Jess is a Senior Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include asking everyone in the office what they're having for tea, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021.

X

@jessbattison_

Advert

Advert

Advert

Dame Maggie Smith’s son has opened up about the heartbreaking final moments with her before her death.

The absolute legend of stage and screen passed away on 27 September last year at the age of 89. Smith was perhaps best known to many for playing Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films along with roles in the likes of Downton Abbey, Sister Act, and the Lady in the Van.

With a career spanning eight decades, tributes from co-stars, politicians and royalty flooded in for Dame Maggie upon her death being announced, and her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens said she ‘passed away peacefully’.

“An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” they added in a statement.

Advert

The legend died in September. (Karwai Tang/WireImage)
The legend died in September. (Karwai Tang/WireImage)

After his mum had encouraged him to go away for filming, Toby has now revealed he was sadly unable to make it to the hospital on time to be with her.

Speaking to The Sunday Times over the weekend (16 February), he explained what happened in their final moments together: “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 [again]. 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’.”

The star died just a day before her son finished filming upcoming New Zealand horror film, Marmara. However, her eldest son Chris was able to be with her at the time.

Advert

And Toby admitted he also felt sadness in not being able to be there to support him.

Dame Maggie with Chris and Toby in 1971. (Dove/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Dame Maggie with Chris and Toby in 1971. (Dove/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

“I was so sad not to be with him, I found that very difficult,” he said. “But she was no longer aware – and it allowed me some space to actually get my head round what had happened.”

Toby made his film debut back in 1992 in Orlando and has since appeared as the likes of Bond villain Gustav Graves in 2002’s Die Another Day, Captain Flint in Black Sails, and Poseidon in Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

He added how touched he had been by the response to his mum’s death.

Advert

“The thing that really got me was: it’s very rare that you have actors that everyone likes. And she had spent her life not thinking of herself like that, which is very winning,” he said.

“If she had thought of herself like that it would have been ghastly. But she wasn’t like that at all. She had self-knowledge, self-belief. Like most actors, though, she was riven with self-doubt.”

Choose your content:

9 hours ago
  • 9 hours ago

    Woman who partied with Noel in the 90s reveals what the Oasis brother is really like

    She says things changed around 1997

    Entertainment
  • 9 hours ago

    Lad with Oasis ticket reveals hilarious way he's going to wind up 'proper fans' at the gig

    This will really drive long-time fans wild

    Entertainment
  • 9 hours ago

    Black Sabbath fans shocked as Game of Thrones legend Jason Momoa joins moshing crowd at final gig

    He was specially recruited to be the compère at Villa Park, Birmingham, this weekend

    Entertainment
  • 9 hours ago

    Fans divided over 'terrible' Oasis show as first gig revellers complain 'they just play song after song'

    Probably tweets you wouldn't want to tag Liam in...

    Entertainment
  • Dame Maggie Smith had legendary response to how playing Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter changed her life
  • Physio speaks out about working with Diogo Jota in final hours before tragic death aged 28
  • Tim Roth opens up on heartbreaking loss of his son aged 25
  • Death row inmate addressed Donald Trump in final words before giving cryptic message