1967: Dame Maggie Smith on her first acting steps
Speaking in 1967 actress Dame Maggie Smith told the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ that her parents thwarted her first steps into the acting world while she was at Oxford High School for Girls.
"When you had finished the general school certificate, you usually had about two weeks at the end of term which was kind of dead time.
"And immediately I went to the Oxford Playhouse, where indeed I got a job which was for two weeks to be in The Happiest Days of Your Life to play the Scots girl," she told interviewer Clive Goodwin.
βAnd this was immediately trodden on and I wasnβt allowed to do it.β
But she was not deterred, she told the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ she had already decided to go to drama school while still a child. Dame Maggie started out in the theatre as a prompt girl and understudy at the Oxford Repertory.
She would go on to become a legend of British stage and screen, winning two Oscars for her performances The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1970 and California Suite in 1979.
Aspects of this programme reflect the time when it was made.