SYLVIA’S STRONG VOICE
SHE’S BEEN ACTING FOR 60 YEARS – AND SHE’S NOT STOPPING YET
How she’s still got it together
Ask 84-year-old actress Sylvia Syms what she does when she’s not acting and you’ll get a very direct answer. “I sit on my a*** a lot of the time, darling!” she says. “I look at the garden, I watch the telly, I talk to the dogs and, oh, my children are wonderful to me.”
On the phone from her home in Chiswick, London, Sylvia is full of energy and has the most delicious throaty laugh, which she lets loose often during our interview.
We’re talking about her strong performance in the movie Together, alongside actor Peter Bowles ( To the Manor Born), which has just opened in New Zealand cinemas. The film is about an elderly
couple who, after 60 years of marriage, get separated into different care homes against their will. It was inspired by real stories of older couples caught up in the social services system in England.
“Sometimes people assume that because you’re over a certain age, you must be a bit gaga,” she says. “Most old people are looked after fairly well, but they really do need to assert themselves and refuse to be talked down to.”
Sylvia speaks from experience. “I won’t allow it. I’ve got a big, powerful voice and I’ve become very good at talking to young people in shops. If I need a bit of help, I’ll turn to them and say, ‘Would you pick that up for me?’ and they always do.”
Sylvia signed up for Together after reading the script and knowing immediately that she would do it, even though both she and Peter had just two weeks to shoot it, and for very little money. “We both felt very strongly that if you’ve got your marbles
and you
love somebody, you should never be parted. And Peter and I got on so well, we didn’t seem to be acting. We were just being, if you know what I mean.”
Sylvia is a member of Age Concern and often visits rest homes to give talks. She says she was recently struck by meeting a couple who have been married since WWI– .
“He came back from the war and he wasn’t very well, but they married. I think they had hard times together, but they loved one another and it was so lovely to see them being so sweet to one another, so in love.”
Sylvia’s acting career started with the film My Teenage Daughter in 1957, and she has been acting ever since, which makes her well placed to talk about the #MeToo movement and whether she experienced sexual harassment herself as a beautiful young star.
“Occasionally someone would be a bit fresh, but I was always quite good at speaking up and I certainly didn’t have any parts that I wouldn’t have got if I hadn’t screwed somebody,” she declares.
“I married very young at 22 so I probably just told them that my husband did judo or something like that!
“And the men I was working with, like Anthony Quayle and Johnny Mills, were grown up men who had been to war – they’d seen enough in their lives to not be bothered by silly things like screwing the leading lady.”
Sylvia says that she believes the problems with sexual harassment in the film industry were worse in the US than
England because of an emphasis on power.
“You’ve got multimillionaires there who like to exert their power, but in the UK, there was not so much power in the hands of so few people. But I’m so glad those women have spoken up because I think some of the girls had a tough time.”
Sylvia has two children. Beatie Edney is also an actor, starring in the popular Poldark series as Prudie the housekeeper. Meanwhile, her son Benjamin Edney is a teacher.
“My son is marvellous and looks after me, and my daughter is wonderful too – she’s always acting, but she often tells me to get out of my chair and walk more,” tells Sylvia.
“I’m so proud of her because she does so many other things as well as act. She writes and works for charities, she’s amazing.
“I’m very lucky because my first home in London sold for quite a lot and so I’ve got enough to live on. I don’t live extravagantly, mind you – I’m not out at the nightclubs.”
Sylvia has just returned from north Yorkshire, where she was filming an upcoming BBC historical drama series called Gentleman Jack, starring Suranne Jones. “The Yorkshire dales were so beautiful and we’ve had the most amazing summer there.”
Then Sylvia tells us with some excitement about the theatre company Intermission Youth Theatre that she is an ambassador for, which works with troubled youth and young people from deprived areas. “It’s amazing what they’ve achieved. I’m so very proud of them.”
So it would seem that Sylvia is actually a very busy woman who possibly doesn’t have much time to sit on her backside.
“Darling, do give my love to your readers,“she says at the end of the interview. “I’m enormously flattered to know the film is going to get a good showing over there and I’m honoured to be spoken to by somebody so far away. Alright, my dear, God bless.”