Dukes Avenue Resident Sylvia Syms Dies Aged 89

Actress had career in stage, film and TV spanning six decades


Sylvia Syms in Ice Cold in Alex. Picture: John Keogh

January 28, 2023

Sylvia Syms, the actress whose career spanned six decades, has died aged 89. The Dukes Avenue resident had spent her last year in a care home and she died peacefully on Friday morning (27 January).

Perhaps best remembered by many for one of her earlier appearances as a nurse in the fifties war film Ice Cold in Alex, she subsequently received BAFTA nominations for her film roles but passed on the chance of Hollywood stardom to care for her family.

Her children, Beatie and Ben Edney, issued a statement saying "Our mother, Sylvia, died peacefully this morning.

"She has lived an amazing life and gave us joy and laughter right up to the end. Just yesterday we were reminiscing together about all our adventures. She will be so very missed."

They also thanked the staff at Denville Hall, a care home in London for those in the entertainment industry, for "the truly excellent care they have taken of our Mum over the past year".

Born in 1934 in Woolwich to Edwin Syms, a trade unionist and Daisy, she was evacuated to Wales during the war. Her mother died when she was aged twelve and that, combined with the trauma of evacuation, resulted in her suffering from depression for most of her life. She then went to RADA at the same time Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Peter O’Toole were studying there graduating in 1954. Her first film role was in 1956 in My Teenage Daughter.

In 1961 she appeared in the film Victim as the wife of Dirk Bogarde who confessed to her his attraction for other men and had several scenes filmed in the Chiswick area including on Chiswick Mall and around St Nicholas Church.

Her acting career during what was a golden age for British film saw her appear with an eclectic range of actors including Sid James, Herbert Lom and Tony Hancock although for much of this period she was tied to an unfair contract she signed when she was younger which meant she was paid only £30 a week.

As film production declined in this country, she declined the opportunity to move to Hollywood to stay with her husband and children and started to do more theatre and TV work including a number of productions of Shakespeare plays. She portrayed Margaret Thatcher several times including in the Tricycle Theatre’s production of Half in the Picture about the Scott inquiry into the arms for Iraq scandal as well as in Ugly Rumours, a political satire on New Labour and Thatcher: The Final Days that was broadcast on ITV.

Sylvia Syms receives her OBE from the Queen in 2007

More recently she has featured in the Ruth Rendell Mysteries, At Home With the Braithwaites, Eastenders and Gentleman Jack.

Her talents never dwindled and she gained critical acclaim for her portrayal of the Queen Mother in Stephen Frears’s film The Queen in 2006. She was awarded an OBE for her charity work the following year.