Having watched Run Wild Run Free for the first time in a long time, I was reminded of how good an actress Sylvia Syms was and still is. I was just thinking, she might not have had the Hollywood career that fellow Brit Julie Christie had, but her contribution to the British Film Industry in the 50s and 60s is huge and that's not forgetting her impressive tv work which continues to this day. There was also The Queen where she played Helen Mirren's Queen Mother.
In the 50s she played married Anthony Quayle's lover in Lady In A Yellow Dressing Gown. She was also a heroine for George Baker to rescue in English civil war swasbuckler The Moonraker, but her most famous role was as Nurse Diana in the war-time classic Ice Cold In Alex with John Mills, Anthony Quayle and Harry Andrews, which is now a cult classic.
In the 60s Sylvia made 2 hugely important films. Flame In The Streets was made about 6 yrs before Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, but it tackles the race issue with a gritty realism that perhaps the more famous GWCD lacks, even thought it's a great film. Here Sylvia plays a school teacher who falls in love and wants to marry a black teacher. Her dad John Mills, like Spencer Tracy, is liberal minded, but has to question his beliefs when confronted with his daughter's relationship. On the other hand, unlike Kate Hepburn in GWCTD, the mother Brenda De Banzie is downright bigoted. The other film is Victim, where she plays the wife of Barrister with homosexual leanings, Dirk Bogarde who's being blackmailed for his friendship with a man.
The Punch And Judy Man was a failure and helped nail the coffin for Tony Hancock, who was the UKs top tv comedy actor in the 50s and who top billed over George Sanders in his decent debut film The Rebel. Sadly he committed suicide. Sylvia played leading lady to Sid James in the comedy film The Big Job. She also played a serious love interest for Steve Forrest's John Mannering in an episode of The Baron, she had to die in the end. Sylvia and Justine Lord shared the female honors in the Saint movie spoof The Fiction Makers with Roger Moore. It's a pity that those 2 talented actresses weren't in the far better Saint movie Vendetta For The Saint with the less gifted Amy McDonald and Rosemarry Dexter partnering Moore.
Then of course was Run Wild Run Free as the mother of troubled child Mark Lester with a star studded cast of John Mills, Bernard Miles, Gordon Jackson and as a child actress and future Bond girl Fiona Fullerton. On tv Sylvia did My Good Woman with Leslie Crowther, where she was for ever doing good works for vicar Richard Wilson. There was Peak Practice, where she played the best friend of G.P Amanda Burton, before the show degenerated into a soap opera. She was also in At Home With The Braithwaites with Amanda Redman, Peter Davison and Lynda Bellingham.
She was I think the first actress to play Margaret Thatcher, Patrica Hodge and Lindsay Duncan have also played The Iron Lady with the possiblity of Meryl Streep also playing her.
Sylvia Syms
Re: Sylvia Syms
I was amused by the fact Sylvia appeared with child actress Fiona Fullerton in Run Wild Run Free. Around the same time she made the film, Sylvia played leading lady to Roger Moore in The Saint movie The Fiction Makers. 20-years later Fiona shared a bath with Roger Moore in the Bond movie View To A Kill, it's a pity her part wasn't bigger, because IMHO she was a better actress than both Tanya Roberts and Grace Jones who were the female leads in the film.
Also in RWRF was John Mills, who was Sylvia's love interest in Ice Cold In Alex and her dad in Flame In The Streets
Also in RWRF was John Mills, who was Sylvia's love interest in Ice Cold In Alex and her dad in Flame In The Streets