Dowager Countess to outlive Downton Abbey... even though character played by Dame Maggie Smith must be 110 by now

DAILY MAIL
By CHRIS HASTINGS FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
PUBLISHED: 18:59 EST, 2 May 2015 | UPDATED: 09:05 EST, 3 May 2015

She is as much a part of Downton Abbey as its Bath Stone walls – and just as imposing. So it is only right that the redoubtable Dowager Countess of Grantham will remain a constant of the ITV show right until the very end.

By some reckoning the formidable Crawley family matriarch, played by Dame Maggie Smith, would be 110 at the time the final series is set. But it seems that even the Grim Reaper is so intimidated by the prospect of her withering putdowns that the character will not be killed off.

Lord Fellowes, the Oscar winning creator of the show confirmed the news, saying: ‘Maggie will never die!’

The disclosure that Violet will survive to the end of the final episode – to air on Christmas Day – will be welcomed by the show’s 120 million fans worldwide.

The Dowager Countess is by far the most popular character and has remained stubbornly alive even though pundits have been predicting her demise ever since the show launched in 2010.

And it has been suggested that the Dowager Countess’s death would be the obvious way of bringing the curtain down on the global franchise.

It would certainly be her time. Downton Abbey’s first series was set in 1912, when the character was already in her dotage. The forthcoming sixth series is set more than a decade later.

And he revealed: ‘All the cast we said goodbye to in series five are all popping up in the final series.
‘It will end on Christmas Day. It will be a two-hour special on Christmas night. I am pleased with the way the whole series is coming on actually.’

He declined to be drawn on specifics about the plots, although fans are hoping that butler Carson and housekeeper Mrs Hughes will finally tie the knot following his proposal in last year’s Christmas Day episode.

Fellowes said he wouldn’t write his new American television series The Gilded Age, set among the high- society families of New York in the late 19th Century, until he had finally completed work on the last scripts for Downton.



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Happy Birthday, Maggie Smith: The Dowager's Best Downton Zingers

PEOPLE MAGAZINE
By ERIN CLEMENTS
12/28/2013 at 12:10 PM EST

What better way to celebrate Smith's birthday than with a look back at some of her funniest zingers? There's sure to be plenty more to come when Downton Abbey's fourth season premieres on PBS Jan. 5. 

And again, with the pesky Americans...

READ MORE HERE: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20769936,00.html

Killing off Maggie Smith is not in the 'Downton Abbey' script By Diane Bell 6:42 P.M.MAY 3, 2013

Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess Grantham, is shown in a scene from the second season on "Downton Abbey." She told “60 Minutes” that she hasn't watched the drama because doing so would only make her agonize over her performance. She said she may watch it someday. (AP Photo/PBS, Carnival Film & Television Limited 2011 for MASTERPIECE, Nick Briggs)

Rest assured, "Downton Abbey" fans, the matriarch dowager played by Maggie Smith will not be killed off the highly rated PBS Masterpiece TV series.

That assurance came Thursday from Rebecca Eaton, Masterpiece executive producer.

Unlike the untimely death in the Season 3 finale of the popular Matthew, cut from the cast when Dan Stevens’ acting career called him elsewhere, if Smith must take a hiatus, her character will go on an extended seaside vacation.

“Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes will never “run over her with a car” or close the door on her return, Eaton told a San Diego Rotary gathering. Speculation was fueled by Smith herself on a recent Today show interview when she said of Lady Grantham, “She’s gotta drop down dead at some point.”

Filming is beginning on Season 4 in England. Although it will be broadcast there this fall, Eaton said, it won’t air here until January, both so the actors will be free to promote it and due to PBS scheduling demands.

READ MORE: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/may/03/downton-abbey-maggie-smith-pbs-masterpiece-eaton/

'Quartet' Star Tom Courtenay Refused To Watch Dame Maggie Smith As The Dowager In 'Downton Abbey' (huffington post)

Veteran British actor Tom Courtenay deliberately avoided watching Dame Maggie Smith in 'Downton Abbey' before playing her love interest onscreen because he didn't want to be "put off".

Courtenay puckers up to kiss Smith in their movie 'Quartet', about a group of retired opera singers, and admits he didn't want to see her as feisty character the Dowager Countess of Grantham in the hit TV show before their big moment.

READ MORE: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/12/24/quartet-star-tom-courtenay-dowger-downton-abbey-maggie-smith_n_2357746.html