Sylvia Sidney rose to prominence in dozens of leading roles in the 1930s.
19 Facts About Sylvia Sidney
2.
Sylvia Sidney was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams in 1973.
3.
Sylvia Sidney later gained attention for her role as Juno, a case worker in the afterlife, in Tim Burton's 1988 film Beetlejuice, for which she won a Saturn Award as Best Supporting Actress.
4.
Sylvia Sidney's parents divorced by 1915, and she was adopted by her stepfather Sigmund Sidney, a dentist.
5.
Sylvia Sidney's mother became a dressmaker and renamed herself Beatrice Sidney.
6.
Now using the surname Sidney, Sylvia became an actress at the age of 15 as a way of overcoming shyness.
7.
In 1952, she played the role of Fantine in Les Miserables, and although the film itself did not meet the studio's expectations, Sylvia Sidney received critical praise for her performance.
8.
Four months later, Sylvia Sidney rejoined her former co-star Bergen on the premiere of the short-lived The Polly Bergen Show.
9.
Sylvia Sidney worked in television during the 1960s on such programs as Route 66, The Defenders, and My Three Sons.
10.
In 1973, Sylvia Sidney received an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams.
11.
Sylvia Sidney was the formidable Miss Coral in the film version of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and later was cast as Aidan Quinn's grandmother in the television production of An Early Frost for which she won a Golden Globe Award.
12.
Sylvia Sidney played Aunt Marion in Damien: Omen II and had key roles in Beetlejuice, for which she won a Saturn Award, and Used People.
13.
Sylvia Sidney appeared at the beginning of each episode as the crotchety travel clerk on the short-lived late-1990s revival of Fantasy Island.
14.
In 1982, Sylvia Sidney was awarded the George Eastman Award by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.
15.
Sylvia Sidney first married publisher Bennett Cerf on October 1,1935, but the couple divorced six months later on April 9,1936.
16.
Sylvia Sidney later married actor and acting teacher Luther Adler in 1938, by whom she had her only child, a son Jacob, who died of Lou Gehrig's disease while his mother was still alive.
17.
Sylvia Sidney published two books on the art of needlepoint, and raised and showed pug dogs.
18.
Sylvia Sidney died on July 1,1999, from esophageal cancer at the Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.
19.
Sylvia Sidney underwent chemotherapy, which proved unsuccessful, and died a month before her 89th birthday.