Oscar Profile #296: Sylvia Sidney

Born Sophia Kosow on August 8, 1910 in the Bronx, N.Y. to a clothing salesman and his wife, she was adopted by her stepfather in 1915 at which time her last name became Sidney. An actress since the age of 15, Sidney attended the Theater Guild’s School for Acting. She made her Broadway debut at the age of 16 as Sylvia Sidney.

The actress with the saddest eyes in movies made her film debut in 1929. By 1931 she had become a major star with her deeply felt performances in City Streets opposite Gary Cooper, An American Tragedy opposite Phillips Holmes and Street Scene opposite William Collier Jr. More successes quickly followed with such films as Merrily We Go to Hell opposite Fredric March and both Madame Buttterfly and Thirty Day Princess opposite Cary Grant. In late 1935 she married publisher Bennett Cerf, later renown as the acerbic panelist on TV’s What’s My Line. The marriage would end in early 1936.

In 1936 alone, Sidney starred opposite Fred MacMurray and Henry Fonda in Henry Hathaway’s The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, Spencer Tracy in Fritz Lang’s Fury and Oscar Homolka and John Loder in Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage. In 1937 she starred opposite Fonda in Lang’s You Only Live Once and Joel McCrea in William Wyler’s Dead End. In 1938 she married actor Luther Adler. The marriage would last just seven and a half years during which she would only make three films, 1939’s One Third of a Nation opposite Leif Erickson and a teenage Sidney Lumet, 1941’s The Wagons Roll at Night opposite Humphrey Bogart and 1945’s Blood on the Sun opposite James Cagney. In 1947 she married third husband, Carlton Alsop, a marriage that would last only four years.

From 1952 on, Sidney mainly alternated between the theater and TV, making just three theatrical films during the remainder of the decade beginning with Lewis Milestone 1952 version of Les Misérables in which she played the tragic Fantine. She had a minor role in 1955’s Violent Saturday and starred opposite Tom Tully in the low budget 1956 film, Behind the High Wall. She made no films during the 1960s. The hit 1971 TV movie, Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate brought her new acclaim and was followed by her big screen return in 1973’s Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams for which she received her one and only Oscar nomination. Several TV appearances later, she was back on screen in 1976’s God Told Me To, 1977’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and 1978’s Damien: Omen II. In 1980 she won plaudits for Paul Newman’s TV movie, The Shadow Box and five years later won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of the supportive grandmother of the young man dying of AIDS in the landmark TV movie, An Early Frost.

Sidney made only two more big screen films, both directed by Tim Burton, 1988’s Beetlejuice and 1996’s Mars Atttacks! . She died om July 1, 1999 at the age of 88.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY (1931), directed by Josef von Sternberg

This first version of Theodore Dreiser’s novel is not as well-known as the 1951 Oscar winning remake, A Place in Sun, but the story is just as powerful, especially the first part with Sidney as the factory girl played in the remake by Shelley Winters. Phillips is the protagonist who plots to kill the pregnant Sidney after falling in love with well-to-do Frances Dee, changes his mind but accidentally kills her anyway. It was one of three strong performances Sidney gave within a few months of one another. She was equally moving in City Streets and Street Scene.

BLOOD ON THE SUN (1945), directed by Frank Lloyd

At this point in her career, Sidney was no longer the major screen star she was in the 1930s. She was now making one film every two years and no longer playing strong female leads. Her roles at this time were basically as leading lady to the film’s star, in this case the iconic James Cagney who plays a newspaper editor in 1930s Japan in the years leading up to World War II. In another five years, her career would take another turn as she returned to the stage and became a regular contributor to TV dramas of the 1950s. She would, in fact, make only three films in the next decade and none between 1956 and 1973.

SUMMER WISHES, WINTER DREAMS (1973), directed by Gilbert Cates

Sidney’s return to the big screen as Joanne Woodward’s sharp-tongues mother met with strong notices and started out awards season well. She won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress, but then lost the New York Film Critics award to Valentina Cortese in Day for Night. Both she and Cortese lost to child actress Linda Blair in The Exorcist. It looked like she might get a break at the Oscars where Cortese was ineligible until 1974, but both she and Blair lost to Tatum O’Neal, who had been considered a lead actress at the Globes but supporting at the Oscars, in Paper Moon.

AN EARLY FROST (1985), directed by John Erman

Sidney’s neighbor, Eve Le Gallienne had been the original choice to play Aidan Quinn’s compassionate grandmother in the ground-breaking TV AIDS movie, but Le Gallienne suddenly became ill and Sidney jumped at the chance to dig her teeth into a meaty role. The result was an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe win for the woman who had been a professional actress for sixty years now. Quinn, Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara as his parents and D.B. Sweeney as his lover were all terrific, but Sidney as the old lady who couldn’t understand why her brilliant, beloved grandson would die before her, is especially moving.

BEETLEJUICE (1988), directed by Tim Burton

Despite starring roles in such stage successes as Auntie Mame and Butterflies Are Free, Sidney was still remembered as the woman with the saddest eyes in the movies, the one who wept her way through countless films of the 1930s. Tim Burton’s comedy classic about a young couple (Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin) who wake up dead will forever be remembered for Michael Keaton’s performance as the titled character, but Sidney’s surprising turn as the harried case worker in the afterlife isn’t far behind. She would make one more film, Burton’s less successful Mars Attacks!, twelve years later.