Sylvia Sidney: Movies & Box Office

Sylvia Sidney (born Sophia Kosow on August 8, 1910, in the Bronx, New York) was an American stage, screen, and television actress whose career spanned more than seven decades, making her one of the most enduring figures of 20th‑century Hollywood. She entered the world of performance at the age of fifteen, studying at the Theater Guild’s School for Acting and quickly gaining praise for her natural intensity, which led to a debut as an extra in D.W. Griffith’s The Sorrows of Satan in 1926. Throughout the 1930s Sidney became a marquee leading lady, delivering memorable turns in films such as An American Tragedy, City Streets, Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage and Fritz Lang’s Fury, often portraying gritty working‑class heroines or the vulnerable sister of a gangster, and she earned a reputation for both brilliance and a demanding temperament on set. By the late 1930s she was among the highest‑paid actresses, reportedly earning $10,000 a week for Sabotage, a testament to her box‑office draw. Although the 1940s saw a decline in her star power—she was even labeled “box‑office poison” in 1949—Sidney continued to work steadily, appearing in Les Misérables (1952) and transitioning to television with notable appearances on Playhouse 90, Route 66, and The Defenders. A career renaissance arrived in the 1970s when she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973) and later won a Golden Globe for her role in the TV movie An Early Frost. In the 1980s and 1990s she became a beloved character actor, delighting audiences as Juno in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice (1988), delivering a Saturn Award‑winning performance, and reprising Burton’s quirky world in Mars Attacks! (1996). Her husky, cigarette‑smoked voice and fierce screen presence made her a lasting icon, and she remained active in film and stage until her final screen appearance in 1998, two years before her death from esophageal cancer on July 1 1999.