Dame Maggie Smith, known for her roles in Harry Potter and Downton Abbey, has died at the age of 89, her sons have said.

The actress died in hospital, her children Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens said.

In a statement, they said: “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.

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days.

“We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time.”

Born in Essex in 1934, Dame Maggie became an internationally recognised actress – one of the most versatile, accomplished and meticulous actresses of her generation.

Her first significant accolade came after playing the fanatical teacher in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969, which won her a best actress Oscar and BAFTA.

Her second Oscar came for her role in California Suite in 1978 which won her a best supporting actress trophy, as well as a Golden Globe.

More recently she won a new generation of fans as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, in Downton Abbey and playing Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter movies.

Although she was a tour de force in leading roles on the West End stage, she was equally happy – even during the years of her mega-stardom – to accept supporting roles, particularly in films.

The Downton Abbey TV series won her a series of awards – three Emmys, a Golden Globe, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.

TV presenter Gyles Brandreth has led the tributes, describing her as “wise, witty, waspish, wonderful” and “one of a kind in every way”.

Sir Keir Starmer posted on X that Dame Maggie was a “true national treasure whose work will be cherished for generations to come” while former prime minister Rishi Sunak described her as “an icon of the stage and screen”.

Meanwhile a message posted by BAFTA said: “Dame Maggie was a legend of British stage and screen, winning five BAFTAs as well as a BAFTA Special Award and BAFTA Fellowship during her highly acclaimed career.”

She took Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was active in the theatre. She was 18 when she first appeared on stage, in Twelfth Night.

Laurence Olivier spotted her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of Othello.

Some of her best-known movies included: Young Cassidy in 1966, Death On The Nile in 1979, Quartet in 1982, The Secret Garden in 1994, Tea With Mussolini in 2000, Gosford Park in 2002, and The Lady In The Van in 2016.

She married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons and divorced in 1975. The same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998. She was made a Dame in 1990.

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The actor who plays one of the Menendez brothers in a Netflix drama about the real-life murder of Jose and Kitty Menendez in 1989 says he “stands with” and “supports” the brothers in their call for a new trial.

Cooper Koch, who plays Erik Menendez in Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story told Sky News: “I totally stand with them, and I support them, and I can only hope that the justice system makes the right decision.”

The brothers were convicted of shooting their father and mother Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez multiple times at close range in the family mansion in Beverly Hills, California, on 20 August 1989. They were 21 and 18 at the time.

During their trial, the defence claimed the brothers committed the murders in self-defence after many years of alleged physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

The prosecution argued the murders were motivated by greed, and said the brothers killed their parents to avoid disinheritance.

While an initial trial of each brother separately ended in a mistrial, a second joint trial saw them convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The day after the Netflix drama aired, Erik Menendez put out a scathing statement about the show via his wife Tammi, calling it “dishonest” and “inaccurate”.

Responding to his criticism, Koch, who recently visited the brothers with Kim Kardashian, said: “I understand where he’s coming from. It’s very difficult to have your life dramatized and retold in a Hollywood retelling of the biggest trauma of your life. One that has, in a sense, defined you.

“I can only sympathise and empathise with him and stand with him. You know, I get it.”

No ‘battle’ with ethical issues

In drawing a line between fact and fiction, the 28-year-old actor said: “I definitely think there’s an ethical thing there for sure. Nothing that I battled with.

“I just made it my priority every day to make sure that I was being authentic to [Erik] and the story and to just work with integrity and make sure that I was always studying and watching testimony and just digging deeper and deeper into, him and his story.”

He said having Erik’s own words from court made his job as an actor easier: “I don’t really have to use a tonne of my imagination. It’s like he’s telling me, and all I have to do is visualise what happened and the stories that he recounts on the stand.

“In that sense, it kind of makes the job… It’s like you have this blueprint already. You don’t have to create from a blank canvas.”

Erik’s ‘still in prison sadly’

He said one thing that made the job “a little bit more difficult”.

“There is the pressure that he is a real person, and he is still alive. And he is still in prison, sadly. That’s why I made sure that every day I was thinking about him and I made it my utmost priority to just be as authentic as possible.”

Actor Nicholas Alexander Chavez, who plays older brother Lyle in the show, told Sky News there was “an enormous weight involved with playing a real person”.

Chavez said after “extensive research”, and in collaboration with the creative vision of the directors and showrunners, “what ends up on screen is art”.

As for the accuracy of the portrayal, Chavez said: “We all want it to be as respectful as possible.”

Visiting jail with Kim Kardashian

Koch recently visited the brothers at San Diego County’s Richard J Donovan Correctional Facility, where both brothers are being held, alongside Kim Kardashian.

He called the visit “a very rewarding experience,” and that Kardashian, who has been training to be a lawyer since 2019, was “super passionate” about criminal reform.

Koch said their visit was inspired by Lyle and Erik’s spearheading of a green space project – Greenspace – which aims to improve the appearance of prison yards to assist with rehabilitation.

He explained they hope to “make it feel less grey and cold… and help these incarcerated individuals feel like they can have a purpose and meaning in their life in prison”.

Koch said the experience of working on the Ryan Murphy show had “definitely changed my life”.

Possibility of a retrial?

The original trial of the Menendez brothers in 1993 was a media sensation, televised for Court TV, and a talking point across America.

The joint trial two years later, at which evidence of the brothers’ alleged sexual abuse at the hands of their father was ruled inadmissible.

After their sentencing in 1996, the brothers did not see each other for 22 years, serving time in different jails until 2018 when Erik was moved to same facility as Lyle. They are now aged 53 and 56 respectively.

Over the last few years interest in the case has spiked, with a growing TikTok movement to free the brothers.

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The Netflix drama, and a forthcoming documentary coming to the streamer in October, has only added to growing speculation over the case.

Now, recent new evidence, which surfaced in the 2023 documentary Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed has led to calls for a retrial.

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The film featured claims from former Puerto Rican boyband member Roy Rossello, who alleged Jose Menendez sexually assaulted him when he was a teenager.

The brothers’ defence team also say they’ve uncovered a letter that Erik Menendez had written to his cousin that was dated months before the murders, where he talked about what he said was abuse from his father and being afraid of him.

The defence team say this should warrant a new trial because it’s information they didn’t have when the case was first presented to a jury.

The LA county’s district attorney’s office told Sky News’ US partner NBC News they are investigating the claims and will have a response by 26 September.

An unassuming field next to a housing estate in Stoke-on-Trent is taking centre stage in the latest alien blockbuster – and it’s inspired by true events.

The new stage production, Bright Lights Over Bentilee, focuses on the event in which dozens of people on an estate in the town claimed to have witnessed bright lights in the sky and a UFO landing in the field next to their homes.

Sky News went to meet playwright and former Coronation Street star Deborah McAndrew, to discuss what happened on the 2nd of September 1967 and why she felt compelled to bring the story to life.

“What they saw was a large red saucer-shaped object about the size of a car,” she explained.

On that night, just after 9pm there were eight separate sightings from people claiming to have seen a mysterious “glowing craft” which silently flew over the heads of residents.

Housewives, children, even a police officer said they saw it, that it changed colour and then dropped down into scrubland.

They claimed, as they set about searching through the fields for it, it then “took off and was bright white like a car headlight… and then just disappeared”.

McAndrew found herself delving into what happened after coming across some old news footage of interviews with residents at the time.

Fascinated by how locals seemingly went back to work the next day and carried on as normal, she started doing her own digging which included speaking with one of the young kids who’d chased it.

“When nothing happens it just gradually fades into myth… until some random playwright phones you up 50 years later and says ‘do you want to tell me about that UFO you saw?'” McAndrew explained.

While she admits “there’s no way of knowing now what it was” the writer says “when people tell me they’ve seen things, I believe them”.

While doubters might speculate that, coming at the time of the space race, locals perhaps might have confused a UFO with a satellite, McAndrew points out: “It was a landing, it didn’t just fly in the sky, it came down and then took off again.”

Could TV shows be partly to blame? As sci-fi related culture took off, the MoD saw a gradual increase in reports of UFO sightings.

Actress Polly Lister, who plays a housewife called Beverley in the play, says: “It would be very hard to completely write it off because every single one of those people, I believe, is telling the truth of what they saw.”

Eddy Westbury, who also stars in the drama, says: “You hear a lot of things people have seen in America… this one is particularly interesting purely because of all the accounts… completely different people, in different places… it wasn’t like [they] saw a green man jumping out of a vehicle, literally what they saw, what they experienced, they all seem to line up.”

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Did locals see something ‘out of this world?’

No doubt the truth is out there somewhere, but until then, they’ll have to make-do with the dramatised version which follows the community fall-out from that night.

Claybody Theatre’s Bright Lights Over Bentilee runs until 12 October at The Dipping House, Stoke.