If you happen to run into actress and beautiful spirit Dame Maggie Smith at the gas station or where ever it is you two hang out, don't try to gossip with her about her hit show Downton Abbey because she hasn't ever seen it.

Maggie Smith is 78 today!

It's being reported today that Maggie Smith is done with her reign of clever terror as the matriarch of Downton Abbey. While it's tempting to start weeping and saying an endless "Noooooooo…" We must do as the Dowager Countess herself would do and simply say a curt, "Well, isn't that a shame."

Downton Abbey is a place rooted in tradition and we have come to depend on its stick-in-the-mud ways, but today we have word of something that threatens to shake our favorite British estate to its very core: We might have to face a season four with no Dame Maggie Smith and no Dan Stevens. A show without the Dowager…

Over the weekend, Hortense wrote about the inevitable backlash that takes place when a female star gets big. Which got us wondering: which women are backlash-proof? And why?

• Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are engaged, according to a source, who also reports, "They tried to keep it very private and quiet" (and apparently aren't succeeding). Some suspect this rumored engagement may be related to her rumored pregnancy.

• Madonna purchased a $40 million Upper East Side townhouse equipped with 13 bedrooms, nine fireplaces, and an elevator. She'll stay in her other NYC residence while she renovates her new fixer-upper. [New York Magazine]