[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=top+ten+dowager+moments+on+Downton+Abbey&oq=top+ten+dowager+moments+on+Downton+Abbey&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=21690l35276l0l37919l33l31l0l0l0l0l210l4228l14.12.5l31l0[/youtube]Will 'Downton Abbey' have to go on without the Dowager Countess?
Masterpiece Classic via PBS
Will Maggie Smith leave 'Downton Abbey' after the show's third season?
By Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
"Downton Abbey" will have at least three more seasons -- the third is now in production in the U.K. But some of the stars have not yet agreed to return for seasons four and five, and one of them is a true fan favorite.
Dame Maggie Smith, 77, who plays the Dowager Countess on the hit "Masterpiece Classic" show, has not yet signed on for those seasons, the U.K. Telegraph reports.
Smith plays the tart-tongued mother of Robert, Earl of Grantham, and has offered up some of the most quotable lines on the show. (Struggling with a swivel chair, she learns from Matthew that it was invented by Thomas Jefferson. "Why does every day involve a fight with an American?" she moans.)
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Other major actors who hadn't yet signed on, according to the Telegraph, include Dan Stevens (Matthew Crawley), Siobhan Finneran (O’Brien) and Jessica Brown Findlay (Lady Sybil Crawley).
There's some good news for fans. Actors Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary Crawley), Elizabeth McGovern (Cora, Countess of Grantham), Hugh Bonneville (Robert, Earl of Grantham), Joanne Froggatt (Anna) and Brendan Coyle (Bates) are all signed through season five.
And it's already been announced that actress Shirley MacLaine will join the cast as Cora's American mother in season three (see her in costume, in photos leaked from the set).
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