Sylvia Sidney; The Girl with the Big Sad Eyes

To actress Sylvia Sidney (1910 - 1999).

Born in the Bronx, New York into a Russian Jewish family she would come to Hollywood in the 1920s. By the 1930s, Sylvia Sidney was playing dramatic roles and was famous for her large teary eyes. As she once said, "Paramount paid me by the tear". In the course of her career, she co-starred opposite such actors as Henry Fonda, George Raft, Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, and Frederic March.

In the 1930s, she starred in such movies as "City Streets" (1931), "Merrily We go to Hell" (1932), "Madame Butterfly" (1932), "Pick-Up" (1933), "Thirty Day Princess" (1934), and "Fury" (1936).

She worked for eight decades in film and she was a seasoned veteran by the time she starred in such films as "Damien: The Omen II" (1978), "Beetlejuice" (1988), "Used People" (1992), and her final film "Mars Attacks" (1996). In 1998, she made her last apperance in an episode of "Fantasy Island". After years of smoking she died from emphysema in July 1999; two months before what would have been her 89th birthday.

She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 1973 for her role as Joanne Woodward's mother in "Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams" and she recieved a Golden Globe Award for playing Aidan Quinn's grandma in "An Early Frost".

Category:

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• Sylvia Sidney
• actress
• vintage glamour
• 1930s

[poglad]

What a beauty she was. I had never heard of her before, thank you.

[GraciousGreer]

@poglad Your welcome!

[realmagiclover]

big, sad AND BEAUTIFUL eyes she had.

Thanks for this nice video

[GraciousGreer]

@realmagiclover Your welcome, I'm really beginning to rediscover her more now since I saw her in "Thirty-Day Princess" with Cary Grant here in parts on YouTube. She really was a wonderful actress,

[altobiotero]

Absolute lovely !!

[bduhe219]

BOY! i never realized how beautiful she was. seeing her in later performances, one forgets what a beautiful woman she was.

[Nonpeon]

The picture at 1:30 is so lovely. :-)

[Nonpeon]

Bella!! A far cry from what she looked like in Omen 2, 1978. :-)

[wigbomb]

@Cybele1986 Budd Schulberg wanted to kill Sidney because his dad, B.P., the head of Paramount, was openly infatuated and made little effort to conceal his affair with her. She was a kid at the time, brand new to Hollywood, Budd should have wanted to kill his father, not Sylvia. ;)

[Cybele1986]

She looks so angelic. It's hard to believe Budd Schulberg wanted to kill her