Mark Waltz said: "There's a key scene in "Downton Abbey" with Maggie Smith that deals with the topic of immortality
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and that moment is key into what many people of an advanced age are prepared for and even welcoming of. We will never be without her films or cast albums, or thankfully, a video released professionally of "Sweeney Todd", so her legacy will live forever. I am glad to have seen her in "Deuce", "A Little Night Music", "Blithe Spirit" and "The Best Man", and will certainly be sad on that inevitable day. But I'll go home and hiss at her in "Gaslight", "The Harvey Girls" and "The Manchurian Candidate", and sob for her in "The Picture of Dorian Gray". I'll applaud her in "The Pirates of Penzance" and root her on in episodes of "Murder By Death". I'll also do the same for the works of Dame Maggie Smith, Olivia de Havilland, Janis Paige, Kirk Douglas and other veteran actors still with us."
You had me until Janis Paige, a dubious inclusion in the company of mega-stars / legends. Doesn't quite fit. Have to admit that I was never a fan...think she is the worst thing about The Pajama Game OCR, which I love to this day.
Couple of things to add, though.
-- I think he performance in TMC is the single best performance by a supporting actress in a film EVER. She was incredible. If you have never seen 'Something for Everyone', try to search it out. It was a well-reviewed flop movie, a black comedy, directed by Harold Prince(!). It may be the most outrageous role she ever had.
-- As much as I loved her, I was never a big fan of Murder, She Wrote. It wasn't good enough for her, even if it made her a wealthy woman and more famous than she had ever been. I guess it was of its time, but I stopped watching after the second or third season. Love for a performer only goes so far.
-- I am probably a lot older than you. I have seen her in every show she has done since Mame. That includes Prettybelle, which closed in Boston; A Small Family Business (Little?), which lasted a week after it opened, but was still thoroughly enjoyable because of her; and The King and I, probably my least favorite live performance of hers. She sang in her throat voice, and I just couldn't get used to it, although it was fine.
-- I think she gave three of the five best performances I have seen by an actress in a musical, in Mame, Gypsy, and Sweeney Todd (along with Barbara Harris in The Apple Tree and Glenn Close in Sunset Blvd).