Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Cross on December 28th, 1934, in Ilford, Essex. Smith’s family moved to Oxford in 1939, where from 1947 she attended the Oxford High School for Girls. A student at the Oxford Playhouse School, she made her stage debut as Viola in Twelfth Night with the Oxford University Dramatic Society in 1952. Four years later she was on Broadway, performing in Leonard Sillman's New Faces Revue. She joined the Old Vic Company in 1959. Gaining increasing critical esteem for her notable performances, Smith joined the National Theatre, where she played in Othello (1963), Hay Fever (1966), and The Three Sisters (1970), among others.