We were lucky enough to see her in Alan Bennet’s play ‘The Lady In The Van’ and she was simply mesmerising (noting it took three actors to play Bennet in order to keep up! 😉)
Richard Burton complained that in Anthony Asquith’s 1963 film The VIPs, she didn’t merely steal a big scene with him, “she committed grand larceny”.
After making the 1978 Neil Simon film California Suite with her (for which Smith won her second Academy Award), Michael Caine is reported to have phoned Michael Palin, who was to be her co-star in the 1982 film The Missionary.
“Watch her,” Caine reportedly warned. “She’ll have that scene from under your feet.”