Daisy Syms, a trade unionist, and civil servant gave birth to Syms in Woolwich, London, England.
She grew up in Well Hall, Eltham, and attended The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she later served on its council. Beatie Edney, her daughter, is also an actress, and she is the aunt of musicians Nick and Alex Webb.
Syms was a long-time supporter of the Stars Foundation for Cerebral Palsy, serving as an officer on their board for sixteen years until 2020, alongside singer Vera Lynn.
Syms spent the last year of her life at Denville Hall, a London retirement home for actors. She died on January 27, 2023, at the age of 89.
She played Anna Neagle’s troubled daughter in her second film, My Teenage Daughter (1956). She co-starred in the 1958 film Ice Cold in Alex with John Mills, Anthony Quayle, and Harry Andrews, and the following year in the English Civil War film The Moonraker. She appeared in Expresso Bongo with Cliff Richard in 1959. In 1961, she co-starred with Dirk Bogarde in the film Victim as the wife of a barrister who is a secret homosexual.
The film was thought to have broadened the debate that led to the decriminalization of private homosexual acts. In 1962, she played the wife of a condemned man opposite Patrick McGoohan in The Quare Fellow, and in 1963, she played Tony Hancock’s wife in The Punch and Judy Man.
Is the British actress Sylvia Syms still alive?
27 January 2023, 12:13 p.m. LONDON, England (AP) — Sylvia Syms, who appeared in classic British films such as “Ice Cold in Alex” and “Victim,” has died, according to her family. She was 89 years old.
