Sylvia Sidney

Sylvia Sidney (1910-1999) was an American stage, screen, and film actress whose career spanned over 70 years. She rose to prominence in dozens of leading roles in the 1930s, such as An American Tragedy (1931), City Streets (1931), Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936), and Fritz Lang's Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937). She later gained attention for her role as Juno, a caseworker in the afterlife, in Tim Burton's film Beetlejuice (1988), and she was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7216/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Paramount.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 168/1. Photo: Paramount. Sylvia Sidney and Cary Grant in Madame Butterfly (Marion Gering, 1932).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9244/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Paramount. Sylvia Sidney and Gene Raymond in Behold My Wife! (Mitchell Leisen, 1934).


British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 193. Photo: Paramount. Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (Henry Hathaway, 1936).


British Real Photograph postcard by Art Photo, no. 27. Photo: Paramount Pictures Inc.

A reputation for being difficult to work with

Sylvia Sidney was born Sophia Kosow in 1910 in the Bronx, New York. She was the daughter of Rebecca (née Saperstein), a Romanian Jew, and Victor Kosow, a Russian Jewish immigrant who worked as a clothing salesman. Her parents divorced by 1915, and she was adopted by her stepfather Sigmund Sidney, a dentist. Her mother became a dressmaker and renamed herself, Beatrice Sidney.

Now using the surname Sidney, Sylvia became an actress at the age of 15 as a way of overcoming shyness. She became a student of the Theater Guild's School for Acting. One school production was held at a Broadway theatre and in the audience, there was a critic from the New York Times who had nothing but rave reviews for the young Miss Sidney.

On the strength of her performance in New York, Sylvia appeared in a play at the famed Poli Theater in Washington, D.C. More stage productions followed. In 1926, she was seen by a Hollywood talent scout in the production 'Crime' and made her first film appearance later that year in Broadway Nights (Joseph Boyle, 1927).

During the Depression, she appeared in a string of films, often playing the girlfriend or sister of a gangster. 1931 saw her appear in five films, of which, City Streets (Rouben Mamoulian, 1931), made her a star. The sad-eyed Sylvia made a tremendous impact and her screen career was off a running.

Among her other films, that year were: An American Tragedy (Josef von Sternberg, 1931), and Street Scene (King Vidor, 1931). She co-starred with Fredric March in Merrilly We Go To Hell (Dorothy Arzner, 1932). Her other films included Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936), Fritz Lang's Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937), Dead End (William Wyler, 1937), and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (Henry Hathaway, 1936), an early three-strip Technicolor film.

She appeared with Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Joel McCrea, Fredric March, George Raft, and Cary Grant. During this period, she developed a reputation for being difficult to work with. At the time of making Sabotage (1936) with Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney was one of the highest-paid actresses in the industry, earning $10,000 per week —earning a total of $80,000 for Sabotage.


Belgian postcard by P.E. (Photo Edition), no. 414.


British postcard in the "Filmshots" series by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Sylvia Sidney and Edward Arnold in Jennie Gerhardt (Marion Gering, 1933).


British postcard in the "Filmshots" series by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Sylvia Sidney and Greta Meyer in Jennie Gerhardt (Marion Gering, 1933).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Sylvia Sidney and George Raft in Pick-up (Marion Gering, 1933).


British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 134. Photo: Paramount. Sylvia Sidney and Gene Raymond in Behold My Wife! (Mitchell Leisen, 1934).

Box-office Poison

During the 1940s, the career of Sylvia Sidney diminished somewhat. In The Searching Wind (William Dieterle, 1946), Sidney played a newspaper reporter with convictions who was the alter ego of playwright Lillian Hellman. The film was based on a Broadway play but it just didn't transfer well onto the big screen. The film was widely considered to be too serious and flopped.

The following year, she appeared in another flop, Love From A Stranger (Richard Whorf, 1947). In 1949, exhibitors voted her "box-office poison".

In 1952, she played the role of Fantine in Les Misérables (Lewis Milestone, 1952), and her performance was praised and allowed her opportunities to develop as a character actress. Only three more films followed that decade. There were no films throughout the 1960s.

On TV, she appeared three times on the anthology drama series Playhouse 90 (1956-1960). In 1957, she appeared as Lulu Morgan, mother of singer Helen Morgan in the episode The Helen Morgan Story (George Roy Hill, 1957) featuring Polly Bergen. Four months later, Sidney rejoined her former co-star Bergen on the premiere of the short-lived The Polly Bergen Show (1957-1958).

She also worked in television during the 1960s on such programs as Route 66 (1961-1964), The Defenders (1962), and My Three Sons (1969).

In 1973, Sylvia returned to the big screen in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (Gilbert Cates, 1973), starring Joanne Woodward. She received an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role. As an elderly woman, Sidney continued to play supporting screen roles and was identifiable by her husky voice, the result of cigarette smoking.

She was the formidable Miss Coral in the film version of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (Anthony Page, 1977) and later was cast as Aidan Quinn's grandmother in the television production of An Early Frost (John Erman, 1985) for which she won a Golden Globe Award. She played Aunt Marion in Damien: Omen II (Don Taylor, 1978) opposite William Holden and Lee Grant.

Sylvia Sidney also had key roles as Juno in the mega-hit Beetlejuice (1988) directed by longtime Sidney fan Tim Burton, and in Used People (Beeban Kidron, 1992). Her final role was in Mars Attacks! (1996), another film by Tim Burton, in which she played an elderly woman whose beloved records by Slim Whitman help stop an alien invasion from Mars.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 572. Photo: Paramount.


French postcard by Editions Chantal, Paris, no. 12. Photo: Paramount.


Dutch postcard, no. 126. Photo: Paramount.


Dutch postcard, no. 560. Photo: Paramount.


British postcard.


British postcard by Art Photo, no. 173. Sylvia Sidney and George Raft in You and Me (Fritz Lang, 1938).

A Broadway career spanning five decades

On television, Sylvia Sidney appeared in the pilot episode of WKRP in Cincinnati (1978) as the imperious owner of the radio station, and she appeared in a memorable episode of Thirtysomething (1989) as Melissa's tough grandmother, who wanted to leave her granddaughter the family dress business, though Melissa (Melanie Mayron) wanted a career as a photographer.

She also was featured on Starsky & Hutch (1976), The Love Boat (1981), Magnum, P.I. (1983), and Trapper John, M.D.(1984).

Her Broadway career spanned five decades, from her debut performance as a graduate of the Theatre Guild School in 1926 at age 15, in the three-act fantasy 'Prunella' to the Tennessee Williams play 'Vieux Carré' in 1977.

In 1982, Sidney was awarded the George Eastman Award by George Eastman House for a distinguished contribution to the art of film. In 1998 she appeared as the crotchety travel clerk Clia at the beginning of each episode in the short-lived revival of the classic TV series Fantasy Island.

Sylvia Sidney died in 1999, from esophageal cancer at the Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, a month before her 89th birthday. Her remains were cremated.

Sidney was married three times. She first married publisher Bennett Cerf in 1935, but the couple divorced six months later in 1936. She later married actor and acting teacher Luther Adler in 1938, by whom she had her only child, a son Jacob (1939–1987), who died of Lou Gehrig's disease while his mother was still alive. Adler and Sidney divorced in 1946. In 1947, she married radio producer and announcer Carlton Alsop. They divorced in 1951.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7392/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Paramount. Sylvia Sidney in Madame Butterfly (Marion Gering, 1932).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8795/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Paramount.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1715/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Paramount.


Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.


French postcard, no. 686. Photo: Paramount.


French postcard by Editions E.C., Paris.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Five Filmshots by Film Weekly

The British magazine Film Weekly published an interesting postcard series: Filmshots. Four cards with scenes of a recent film. The series must have existed between ca. 1932 and 1934 and presents known and unknown American and British films of the early 1930s. An interesting period: Hollywood was still 'pre-code'. The Filmshots cards are simple: the pictures are in black and white and some basic credits are added: the (British) film title, the two main actors and the studio. At the backside, only the series title was printed: 'Filmshots by Film Weekly'. Recently I acquired five Filmshots that together show the range of the series.

By Candlelight (1933)

British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Universal. Paul Lukas and Elissa Landi in By Candlelight (James Whale, 1933).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Universal. Nils Asther and Esther Ralston in By Candlelight (James Whale, 1933).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Universal. Nils Asther, Paul Lukas and Esther Ralston in By Candlelight (James Whale, 1933).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Universal. Paul Lukas and Elissa Landi in By Candlelight (James Whale, 1933).

By Candlelight (James Whale, 1933) is one of the sophisticated pre-code films revolving around a series of mistaken identities and misrepresentations. It is an adaptation of the Austrian play, 'Bei Kerzenlicht', by writers Siegfried Geyer and Karl Farkas. Josef (Paul Lukas) is the valet for Count von Rommer (Nils Asther) and well trained in the philandering ways of his master. Mistaken for the Count by a maid, Marie (Elissa Landi), whom he thinks is an aristocrat, Josef shows her a merry time in the Count's Monte Carlo villa. Meanwhile, the Count escapes a situation with Countess von Rischenheim (Dorothy Revier), when her husband Count von Rischenheim (Lawrence Grant) makes an unscheduled appearance, by posing as the butler.

Director Robert Wyler had failed to make a satisfactory start with By Candlelight so Universal asked James Whale to continue the film. Whale took Ted Kent, his favourite cutter, and John Mescall as the camera director. Whale started the film over from the beginning. He filmed the script as it was for the most part, but he also made a game of it, putting in his own special tricks of the trade. Producer Carl Laemmle was very happy with the result. He liked the film himself, and it brought in good money just in the nick of time to help save the studio once more, adding some good revenue to the spectacular revenues from Whale's The Invisible Man which were then really piling up. Mark Waltz at IMDb: "this art-deco gem, a fast-moving, well-acted comedy of manners (or lack of...). Lukas, who up to that point was known in Hollywood as the leading man of many women's films, proves himself to be much more debonair than presented in the past. With Landi, he shares some great scenes on a train ride where they mingle with common folk at a town fair. Landi is good in a drunk scene, but its Lukas and Asther who get acting honors here. Whale does a great job with every single detail from the sets, photography, and unmannered performances that remain fresh today as they were in 1933." Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "By Candlelight is chock full of delightfully double-entendre pre-Code dialogue and dextrous directorial touches".

Man of Two Worlds (1934)

British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Radio (RKO). Steffi Duna and Francis Lederer in Man of Two Worlds (J. Walter Ruben, 1934).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Radio (RKO). Steffi Duna and Francis Lederer in Man of Two Worlds (J. Walter Ruben, 1934).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Radio (RKO). Francis Lederer in Man of Two Worlds (J. Walter Ruben, 1934).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Radio (RKO). Elissa Landi, Henry Stephenson and Francis Lederer in Man of Two Worlds (J. Walter Ruben, 1934). In the background J. Farrell MacDonald.

With the success of Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922), Hollywood tried to replicate the box office by using Eskimo themes. In Man of Two Worlds (J. Walter Ruben, 1934) a British explorer (Henry Stephenson) in the Arctic hires a local Eskimo as an assistant. The earnest but unsophisticated young man called Aigo (Francis Lederer) happens to see a photograph of the explorer's beautiful daughter and falls in love with her. Soon afterward a medical emergency results in his being flown to London for treatment, where he finally meets the girl he has longed for. Once in Britain, Aigo is treated as a curiosity--like some sort of simple-minded thing instead of a person. He likes what he sees--particularly Sir Basil's daughter. In his mind, he's envisioned that she is destined to be his--and, of course, he's setting himself up for disappointment. No one seems to believe, including the girl, that Aigo has normal human desires and urges. The film was a box office disappointment for RKO.

Martin Hafer at IMDb: "Man of Two Worlds is the sort of film that no one would make today. It's very much a relic of the early 20th century and influenced by the real-life story of Minik, a native of Greenland brought back to Europe as a cultural curiosity--and who ended up wasting away and dying away from his native land. (...) Throughout this film, Aigo is treated in an amazingly patronizing fashion. He is some silly, childish savage--sort of like Tarzan but with even less intellect. Offensive? Yes, but also pretty dumb, as ANYONE with even average intelligence would recognize that he is a man and not a thing!" Bob Lipton at IMDb: "Modern attitudes towards different cultures may have changed in the seventy-five years since this movie came out, but it still is a good story and the modern viewer can, if he chooses, look upon it as an anthropological record of its own, a record of how the culture of Hollywood viewed other cultures back in its heyday." Danny at Pre-code.com: "You can tell Man of Two Worlds had a nice budget, though. The film makes use of a real polar bear for its animal scenes, and though on a sound stage, the sets are expansive and good looking. The scenes that take place in England are also less confined to interiors, making it feel freer and more visceral, something that Aigo himself is surely feeling as well. But really, the central performance in this film is so utterly awful and irredeemable, it’s a pain to even try and scrounge up compliments for it. Lacking a pulpy tone or a trace of nuance, Man of Two Worlds is creaky and laughable, an ‘important’ picture whose moral and central performances are now offensive and outdated. It’s a rare movie to find, and here’s my suggestion: don’t find it."

Luxury Liner (1933)

British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Alice White and Henry Wadsworth in Luxury Liner (Lothar Mendes, 1933).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Verree Teasdale and Frank Morgan in Luxury Liner (Lothar Mendes, 1933). On the card, the first name of Teasdale is written wrong.


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Zita Johann and George Brent in Luxury Liner (Lothar Mendes, 1933).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Alice White in Luxury Liner (Lothar Mendes, 1933).

Luxury Liner (Lothar Mendes, 1933) is a kind of Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding, 1932), a multi-story drama but now on the high seas. Based on a 1932 novel by Gina Kaus, it is an entertaining and multifaceted look into the various classes of cruise liner society with a very talented cast. The pre-code drama includes birth and death, lots of sexual innuendoes and a combination of comedy that drives the plot and drama that is often poignant. As the film begins the German-American cruise ship Germania is setting sail from Bremen to New York, with a stop in Cherbourg. Dr. Thomas Bernard (George Brent) begs a friend to find him a place aboard the ship, as his wife (Vivienne Osborne) has just left him and is supposed to be aboard. The Captain makes Bernard the ship's doctor and he will have to attend to 1001 different problems as they arise. Miss Morgan (Zita Johann) is the ship's nurse who never dates. Milli Stern (Alice White) is a third-class passenger who desperately wants to be in first class. Edward Thorndyke (C. Aubrey Smith) is a former millionaire who's just been released from jail, and millionaire Alex Stevenson (Frank Morgan) has Dr. Bernard's ex with him but wants to romance an opera singer. While Dr. Bernard fights to get his wife back, Milli comes up with a scheme to make money in the stock market. Of course, there is a lot of drama and fighting and a little romance.

Some of the IMDb reviewers liked the film: "The Paramount gloss is at its peak here." and "Alice White gives a delightful funny performance as a gold-digger and the film is worth watching just to see her." However, Mordaunt Hall, critic for The New York Times in 1933, was unimpressed, writing, "neither the story nor the dialogue live up to expectations. ... Mr. Mendes was evidently not inspired by the script furnished him and he fails to give more than a haphazard conception of the movement of the vessel, after the first quarter of the film. The attempt at levity is feeble and the clock-work-like manipulation of the happenings is often rather wearying." Hall felt there were "one or two competent performances by the principals" (C. Aubrey Smith, Zita Johann and Vivienne Osborne), but thought that Frank Morgan was miscast and George Brent was "not at his best."

Pick-up (1933)

British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Sylvia Sidney and George Raft in Pick-up (Marion Gering, 1933).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Sylvia Sidney and George Raft in Pick-up (Marion Gering, 1933).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Sylvia Sidney and George Raft in Pick-up (Marion Gering, 1933).


British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Sylvia Sidney and George Raft in Pick-up (Marion Gering, 1933).

At one stage Pick-up (Marion Gering, 1933) was going to star Carole Lombard and Gary Cooper. Eventually, Sylvia Sidney and George Raft were cast, Raft replacing Cooper, who had been held up making a film at MGM. In the script by Viña Delmar, based on her own magazine serial, the scheme of a pair of married con artists (Sylvia Sidney and William Harrigan) goes awry when their victim dies, and they are both caught and imprisoned. When she gets out of prison after a two-year sentence, she tries to put her life back together. Harrigan still has three years to go. On a rainy night, Sidney bumps into George Raft, who plays an underachieving cab driver who is 'satisfied' with his low-rent life. He first thinks she's a prostitute, but after some hesitation, he invites her home. John Howard Reid at IMDb: "At this point, the movie should have stopped (...) between the noirish start and emotive conclusion of this film, we are treated to an irrelevant sub-plot about a depraved but super-lovely and filthy rich temptress (scorchingly played by Lillian Bond) who sinks her fangs into Raft who, it turns out, is a sucker for rich and ritzy playgirls. Of course, this story allows Sidney to go through her patented pained and injured shtick (...) It seems to take forever for Harrigan to escape from jail and the main plot to start moving again. But when it does, it's a wow and certainly well worth waiting for!"

Bob Lipton at IMDb: "Sylvia Sidney was Paramount's low-class weeper star in this period, with a lower-class accent and a beautiful face that could suffer stoically or break out in helpless tears just when the plot demanded it. In this one, she has just gotten out of prison because she and her husband were involved in a badger game and one of their victims killed himself. Her husband is still in jail and she falls in with George Raft, whose hair is always perfect. They encounter various problems that keep getting worse and worse until they reach the point where you're ready to laugh - except that Miss Sidney is so perfect in these roles, that you simply want to hug her. George Raft is adequate and for those of you who like such thing, Charles Middleton, best known as Emperor Ming of Mongo is on hand." The film was a box office hit.

The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933)

British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: London Films. Merle Oberon in The Private Life of Henry VIII. (Alexander Korda, 1933).


British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: London Films. Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester in The Private Life of Henry VIII. (Alexander Korda, 1933).


British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: London Films. Charles Laughton and Binnie Barnes in The Private Life of Henry VIII. (Alexander Korda, 1933).


British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: London Films. Charles Laughton and Everley Gregg in The Private Life of Henry VIII. (Alexander Korda, 1933).

The Private Life of Henry VIII. (Alexander Korda, 1933) is a rollicking historical biopic of the notorious love-life of Britain's most married monarch, Henry VIII. As the opening credits explain: "Henry VIII had six wives. Catherine of Aragon was the first; but her story is of no particular interest - she was a respectable woman-so Henry divorced her. He then married Anne Boleyn. This marriage also was a failure-but not for the same reason." Hungarian-born director Alexander Korda directed this British classic, based on a script and story by Lajos Biró (also from Hungary) and Arthur Wimperis, written for London Film Productions, Korda's production company. The film features a bravura performance by the young Charles Laughton as Henry. Of course, some historical cuts needed to be made for the 96-minute long film. So the film begins in May 1536, 20 years into King Henry's reign. His first wife Katherine Of Aragon is sidestepped completely and we only see her successor, the interesting and charismatic Anne Boleyn (Merle Oberon), as she readies herself for her beheading. Lejink at IMDb: "There's much ribald humour, quite racy for the time, in the utterings of the hoi-polloi at the queens' executions and amongst the King's serving staff, while the encounter with the exceeding ugly Anne Of Cleves (Elsa Lanchester) is played for laughs pretty much from the start." The direction is fast-moving and while telescoping a lot of history into its short running time, does so with wit and flair.

The Private Life of Henry VIII. (Alexander Korda, 1933) was the first British production to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, but it did not win this Oscar. However, it was still the first non-Hollywood film to win an Academy Award, as Charles Laughton won the 1933 Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance. The Private Life of Henry VIII. was a major international success, establishing Korda as a leading filmmaker and Laughton as a box office star. And Charles Laughton is indeed terrific in the title role. He portrays Henry during nearly twelve years - first as a virile, charming but dangerous man when he's young and as a crouching, old fool in his latest years when he fights to retain youth and yet ages badly due to ill-health. Laughton deservedly was awarded an Oscar for his role. Another highlight is Elsa Lanchester's memorably eccentric performance as Anne of Cleves. Lanchester, Laughton's real-life wife, plays Anne with a kind of flakey caginess that is funny, fascinating and original. Lanchester actually was lovely, but Anne figures her only way to avoid Henry's attentions is to push out her jaw and act dense when he talks about what her wifely duties entail. She and Laughton have a wonderful comic chemistry as they spend their wedding night playing cards, and it is especially fun to watch Laughton as his character gets some of his own back for all his serial marrying.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Mark Waltz (IMDb), Martin Hafer (IMDb), Bob Lipton (IMDb), Danny (Pre-code.com), John Howard Reid (IMDb), Lejink (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Next week: five Filmshots by Film Weekly from the collection of Ivo Blom.