Oscar-nominated ‘Midnight Cowboy’ Sylvia Miles dies
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Sylvia Miles, an actress and Manhattan socialite whose brief, scene-stealing appearances in the films “Midnight Cowboy” and “Farewell, My Lovely” earned her two Academy Award nominations, died Wednesday.
Miles died in an ambulance in New York on the way to a hospital after complaining to a home health care worker that she wasn’t feeling well, her friend, fashion-industry publicist Mauricio Padilha, told The Associated Press. The cause is not yet clear.
Accounts of Miles’ age vary widely. Padilha and other sources say she was 94. Past reporting from the AP puts her age at 86.
Miles was a veteran actress but not a widely known name when she appeared onscreen for about six minutes in 1969′s “Midnight Cowboy.” In her sole scene, she plays a brassy Manhattan woman who invites an aspiring male prostitute from Texas, played by Jon Voight, up to her penthouse for sex, but ends up taking money from him instead.
“You were going to ask me for money?” Miles’ character, Cass, says as she breaks into increasingly angry mock-tears. “Who the hell do you think you’re dealing with? ... In case you didn’t happen to notice it, you big Texas longhorn bull, I’m one hell of a gorgeous chick!”
In 1975′s “Farewell, My Lovely,” which starred Robert Mitchum as detective Philip Marlowe, her screen time is only slightly longer as a down-on-her-luck entertainer who swaps information for a bottle of booze.
The fleetingly brief roles both got her Oscar nominations.
Her appearances in real life were just as memorable for those who came across her. “She was pretty much the same person off screen as she was on screen,” Padilha said. “She was quite a character.”