Sylvia Miles (née Scheinwald; September 9, 1924 – June 12, 2019) was an American actress. She was twice nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 9th Academy Awards to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performanc ...
for her performances in ''
Midnight Cowboy
''Midnight Cowboy'' is a 1969 American drama film directed by John Schlesinger, adapted by Waldo Salt from the 1965 novel by James Leo Herlihy. The film stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, with supporting roles played by Sylvia Miles, J ...
'' (1969) and ''
Farewell, My Lovely'' (1975).
Miles was a fixture in New York City society, having lived there her entire life. She performed in many
Off-Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
shows, including starring in a one-woman musical based on her life, titled ''It's Me, Sylvia!'' in 1981.
A documentary about her life titled ''I Was Always Sylvia'' aired on New York City public television channel
WNET
WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as Thirteen (stylized as THIRTEEN), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the Educ ...
as part of ''
The 51st State
''The 51st State'' (also known as ''Formula 51'') is a 2001 action comedy film directed by Ronny Yu, written by Stel Pavlou, and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Carlyle, Emily Mortimer, Ricky Tomlinson, Sean Pertwee, Rhys Ifans, Step ...
'' series.
Early life
Miles was born and raised in
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...
, New York City. She was the second daughter of Jewish parents, Belle (née Feldman) and Reuben Scheinwald, a furniture maker.
She was educated at
Washington Irving High School and the
Actors Studio
The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights located on West 44th Street in Hell's Kitchen in New York City.
The studio is best known for its work refining and teaching method actin ...
.
Career
Miles began her career on stage in 1947, and on television and film in 1954.
In the early 1960s, she played the role of Sally Rogers in the pilot episode of what would become ''
The Dick Van Dyke Show'', which was later taken by
Rose Marie for the series.
Her early television work included appearances in three episodes of ''
Naked City (TV series)
''Naked City'' is an American police procedural television series from Screen Gems that aired on ABC from 1958 to 1963. It was inspired by the 1948 motion picture '' The Naked City'' and mimics its dramatic "semi-documentary" format. As in the ...
'' and two episodes of ''
Route 66 (TV series)'' (cf. as Red in "The Thin White Line," ''
Route 66'', S2E11). She appeared Off-Broadway in “Ruthless!” The Musical (1992) at the Players Theatre, NYC, playing Sylvia St. Croix (originally played by Joel Vig in drag); she was one of the few females to play the role. She appeared on Broadway in two productions, most notably the 1976 revival of ''
The Night of the Iguana''.
Miles was cast in the film ''
Midnight Cowboy
''Midnight Cowboy'' is a 1969 American drama film directed by John Schlesinger, adapted by Waldo Salt from the 1965 novel by James Leo Herlihy. The film stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, with supporting roles played by Sylvia Miles, J ...
'' (1969) as an aging
Park Avenue
Park Avenue is a boulevard in New York City that carries north and southbound traffic in the borough (New York City), boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the wes ...
kept-woman, who invites Joe Buck (
Jon Voight
Jonathan Vincent Voight (; born December 29, 1938) is an American actor. Throughout his career, he has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and four Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations ...
) up to her penthouse apartment for sex—another role in which Miles showed off her voluptuous figure.
The role earned her an
Academy Award nomination for
Best Supporting Actress, although she appeared on-screen for about six minutes.
She received a second Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her slightly larger role (eight minutes) in ''
Farewell, My Lovely'' (1975).

Miles starred in Andy Warhol's underground feature film ''
Heat
In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings by such mechanisms as thermal conduction, electromagnetic radiation, and friction, which are microscopic in nature, involving sub-atomic, ato ...
'' (1972), appearing in a lingering nude scene with
Joe Dallesandro
Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro III (born December 31, 1948) is an American actor and Warhol superstar. He was a sex symbol of gay subculture in the 1960s and 1970s, and of several American underground films before going mainstream.
Dallesandro star ...
. She had a role in the Indian suspense film ''
Shalimar'' (1978). She appeared in ''
Evil Under the Sun
''Evil Under the Sun'' is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in June 1941Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. ''Collins Crime Club – A checklist of F ...
'' (1982), the film version of
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English people, English author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving ...
's
novel of the same name, portraying a
Broadway producer. She played real-estate agent Dolores in the
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone (born ) is an American filmmaker. Stone is an acclaimed director, tackling subjects ranging from the Vietnam War and American politics to musical film, musical Biographical film, biopics and Crime film, crime dramas. He has ...
film ''
Wall Street
Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...
'' (1987), a role she reprised in ''
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'' (2010).
Miles was also featured in the mainstream films ''
92 in the Shade'', ''
Critical Condition'', ''
The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday'', ''
Crossing Delancey'', and the 1989 comedy ''
She-Devil'', in which she played the mother of
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Known for her versatility and adept accent work, she has been described as "the best actress of her generation". She has received numerous accolades throughout her career ...
's character.
In her final years, Miles appeared in a few roles on television such as ''
Sex and the City
''Sex and the City'' is an American romantic comedy, romantic comedy-drama television series created by Darren Star for HBO, based on Sex and the City (newspaper column), the newspaper column and 1996 book by Candace Bushnell. It premiered in th ...
'' and ''
One Life to Live
''One Life to Live'' (often abbreviated as ''OLTL'') is an American soap opera broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC television network for more than 43 years, from July 15, 1968, to January 13, 2012, and then on the internet as ...
'', and in the films ''
Go Go Tales'' and ''Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps''.
In 1975, Miles complained about being typecast as a prostitute in almost all of her then 14 movies and 26 off-Broadway plays to date. "Do I look like a prostitute? What does a hooker look like, anyway? Me?"
In a New York restaurant in 1973, Miles publicly dumped a plate of food onto critic
John Simon's head for his negative comments about her in a review of a play she starred in.
[NPR website referencing John Simon-Sylvia Miles altercation](_blank)
NPR; retrieved October 8, 2014.
Wayland Flowers
Wayland Parrott Flowers Jr. (November 26, 1939 – October 11, 1988) was an American actor, comedian and puppeteer. Flowers was best known for the comedy act he created with his puppet Madame. His performances as "Wayland Flowers and Madam ...
and his puppet Madame first uttered the widely quoted line, "Sylvia Miles and Andy Warhol would attend the opening of an envelope".
In 1976, ''
People
The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...
'' magazine repeated the joke in the article "What Would a Manhattan Party Be Without the Ubiquitous Sylvia Miles?" without citing a source.
[Judy Kessler]
"What Would a Manhattan Party Be Without the Ubiquitous Sylvia Miles?"
''People Magazine'', October 18, 1976, Vol. 6 No. 16
Personal life
In 1948, Miles married William Myers, but the couple divorced two years later.
From 1952 to 1958, she was married to Gerald Price.
From 1963 to 1970, she was married to radio disc jockey
Ted Brown.
Brown cited Miles' lack of desire to have children as the main cause for their divorce.
Miles dated Rudolf Martinus, a model more than 20 years her junior, in the 1970s.
In the 1960s and the 1970s she often played chess at a competitive level and was a member of the
Manhattan Chess Club.
Death
Miles died on June 12, 2019, while en route to
Mount Sinai Hospital in
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
at the age of 94.
She had been in declining health in recent years and was in nursing home care in her final months.
During Miles' final years she was suffering from
anemia
Anemia (also spelt anaemia in British English) is a blood disorder in which the blood has a reduced ability to carry oxygen. This can be due to a lower than normal number of red blood cells, a reduction in the amount of hemoglobin availabl ...
and respiratory issues.
Filmography
Film
Television
::''Sources:''
References
External links
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Sylvia Milesat the
University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...
'
Actors Studio audio collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miles, Sylvia
1924 births
2019 deaths
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Actresses from Manhattan
American film actresses
American stage actresses
American television actresses
Jewish American actresses
People from Greenwich Village
Washington Irving High School (New York City) alumni
20th-century American Jews
21st-century American Jews