Sarah Miles
Last updatedSarah Miles | |
|---|---|
 Miles in 1980 | |
| Born | 31 December 1941 Ingatestone, Essex, England |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1961–2004 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 1 |
| Relatives | Christopher Miles (brother) |
Sarah Miles (born 31 December 1941) is a retired English actress. She is known for her roles in films The Servant (1963), Blowup (1966), Ryan's Daughter (1970), The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973), White Mischief (1987) and Hope and Glory (1987). For her performance in Ryan's Daughter, Miles received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Contents
Early life
Sarah Miles was born in Ingatestone, Essex, in south east England; her brother was film director, producer, and screenwriter Christopher Miles. Miles's parents were Clarice Vera Remnant and John Miles, of a family of engineers; her father's inability to secure a divorce from his first wife meant Miles and her siblings were illegitimate. [1] Per Miles's own account, her maternal grandfather, Frank Remnant, was the illegitimate son of Prince Francis of Teck (1870–1910), which would make Miles a second cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II. [2] [3] Unable to speak until the age of nine because of a stammer [4] and dyslexia, [5] she attended Roedean and three other schools but was expelled from all of them. [4] Miles enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), graduating in 1960 with an Acting (RADA Diploma). [6]
Career
Early career
Shortly after finishing at RADA, Miles performed in an episode of the TV series Deadline Midnight titled "Manhunt". Her film debut was as Shirley Taylor, a "husky wide-eyed nymphet" [7] in Term of Trial (1962), which featured Laurence Olivier; she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer.
Miles appeared in The Rehearsal (1963) for TV and then played Vera from Manchester in Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963), and "thrust sexual appetite into British films" according to David Thomson. [7]
Miles was in a short directed by her brother, The Six-Sided Triangle (1963) and a feature film directed by and starring Laurence Harvey, The Ceremony (1963). She did Ring Round the Moon (1964) for TV.
16 June 1965 saw the release of Ken Annakin's Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, a British period comedy film revolving around the craze of early aviation circa 1910. A pompous newspaper magnate (Robert Morley) is convinced, by his daughter (Miles) and her fiancé (James Fox), to organise an air race from London to Paris. A large sum of money is offered to the winner, hence it attracts a variety of characters who participate. The film received positive reviews, described as funny, colourful and clever, capturing the early enthusiasm for aviation. [8] [9] [10]
She was in Time Lost and Time Remembered (1966), directed by Desmond Davis.
In 1966, Miles gained another BAFTA nomination, this time as Best Actress. She had a "peripheral" part in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup . [7] At Antonioni's death in 2007, she referred to him as "a rogue and a tyrant and a brilliant man". [11]
Robert Bolt
After acting in several plays from 1966 to 1969, Miles was cast as Rosy in the leading title role of David Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970). It was critically savaged, which discouraged Lean from making a film for some years, despite Miles's performance gaining her an Oscar nomination and an Oscar win for John Mills, and the film making a substantial profit. In Terence Pettigrew's biography of Trevor Howard, Miles describes the filming of Ryan's Daughter in Ireland in 1969. She recalls, "My main memory is of sitting on a hilltop in a caravan at six in the morning in the rain. There was no other actor or member of the crew around me. I would sit there getting mad, waiting for either the rain to stop or someone to arrive. Film-acting is so horrifically belittling." [12]
Miles would marry the film's screenwriter, Robert Bolt. He wrote and directed Lady Caroline Lamb (1972) starring Miles in the title role. [13] She then appeared in The Hireling (1973).
On 11 February 1973, while filming The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing , aspiring screenwriter David Whiting, briefly one of her lovers, [14] was found dead in her motel room. She was acquitted of culpability in his death. [4] [15] Miles later commented: "It went on for six months. Murder? Suicide? Murder! Suicide! Murder! Suicide! And, gradually, the truth came out, which I'm not going to speak about, but it certainly wasn't me. I had actually saved the man from three suicide attempts, so why would I want to murder him? I really can't imagine." [4] This led to the end of her first marriage to Bolt.
Television
Miles starred in some TV movies: Great Expectations (1974), Requiem for a Nun (1975), and Dynasty (1976) as well as the Spanish film Bride to Be (1975).
Her performance as Anne Osborne in The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976) was nominated for a Golden Globe.
Miles appeared in The Big Sleep (1978), Venom (1981), Walter and June (1983), Ordeal by Innocence (1984), Steaming (1985), Harem (1986) and Queenie (1987).
She received great acclaim for Hope and Glory. Interviewer Lynn Barber wrote of Miles' appearances in Hope and Glory , White Mischief , and her two earliest films that she "has that Vanessa Redgrave quality of seeming to have one skin fewer than normal people, so that the emotion comes over unmuffled and bare." [5]
Filming White Mischief on location in Kenya in 1987, Miles worked for the second and last time with Trevor Howard, who had a supporting role, but was by then seriously ill from alcoholism. The company wanted to fire him, but Miles was determined that Howard's distinguished film career would not end that way. In an interview with Terence Pettigrew for his biography of Howard, she describes how she gave an ultimatum to the executives, threatening to quit the production if they got rid of him. The gamble worked. Howard was kept on. It was his last major film; he died the following January.
Later career
She appeared in A Ghost in Monte Carlo (1990), The Touch (1992), Dandelion Dead (1994), Jurij (2001) and The Accidental Detective (2004).
She most recently (2008) appeared in Well at the Trafalgar Studios and the Apollo Theatre opposite Natalie Casey.[ citation needed ]
Personal life
Miles was married twice to the British playwright Robert Bolt, 1967–1975 and 1988–1995. [16] He wrote and directed the film Lady Caroline Lamb , in which Miles played the eponymous heroine, and wrote Ryan's Daughter , as well. After his stroke, the couple reunited and Miles cared for him. "I would be dead without her", Bolt said in 1987, "When she's away, my life takes a nosedive. When she returns, my life soars." [17] The couple had a son. [18] Miles stated, in 2007, that she had been drinking her own urine for 30 years for health reasons. [4] In 2016, she reported that she had written a sequel to Ryan's Daughter. [19]
Filmography
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Deadline Midnight | Vi Vernon | |
| 1965 | Sunday Night At The London Palladium | Herself | |
| 1974 | Great Expectations | Estella | |
| 1976 | Dynasty | Jennifer Blackwood | |
| 1983 | Walter and June | June | |
| 1987 | Queenie | Lady Sybil | |
| 1990 | A Ghost in Monte Carlo | Emilie/Mme. Bluet | |
| 1994 | Dandelion Dead | Catherine Armstrong | TV mini-series |
| 2004 | Poirot: The Hollow | Lady Angkatell |
Books
Sarah Miles has written the following books:
- A Right Royal Bastard. Pan Book. 1994. p. 368. ISBN 0-330-33142-6.
1st part of memoirs
- Serves Me Right. Macmillan. 1994. p. 384. ISBN 0-333-60141-6.
2nd part of memoirs
- Bolt from the Blue. Phoenix. 1997. p. 272. ISBN 0-7538-0229-5.
- Beautiful Mourning. Orion. 1998. p. 352. ISBN 0-7528-0140-6.
Other work
In 1995, Miles was one of the readers of Edward Lear poems on a specially made spoken word audio CD bringing together a collection of Lear's nonsense songs. [21]
Related Research Articles
Dame Vanessa Redgrave is an English actress. Throughout her career spanning over six decades, Redgrave has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards, making her one of the few performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. She has also received various honorary awards, including the BAFTA Fellowship Award, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and an induction into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Robert Oxton Bolt was an English playwright and a two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter, known for writing the screenplays for Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and A Man for All Seasons, the latter two of which won him the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith was an English stage, film, and television actor. After varied work in the theatre, he achieved star status with his role in the film Brief Encounter (1945), followed by The Third Man (1949).
Susannah Yolande Fletcher, known professionally as Susannah York, was an English actress. Her appearances in various films of the 1960s, including Tom Jones (1963) and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), formed the basis of her international reputation. An obituary in The Telegraph characterised her as "the blue-eyed English rose with the china-white skin and cupid lips who epitomised the sensuality of the swinging sixties", who later "proved that she was a real actor of extraordinary emotional range".
Ryan's Daughter is a 1970 British epic romantic drama film directed by David Lean, written by Robert Bolt and starring Robert Mitchum and Sarah Miles. The film, set between August 1917 and January 1918, tells the story of a married Irish woman who has an affair with a British officer during World War I, despite moral and political opposition from her nationalist neighbours. The supporting cast features John Mills, Christopher Jones, Trevor Howard and Leo McKern. The film is a re-telling of the plot of Gustave Flaubert's 1857 novel Madame Bovary.
Fiona Shaw is an Irish film and theatre actress. Known for extensive work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, as well as in film and television, in 2020, she was listed at No. 29 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors. She was made an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2001.
Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE was an English actor who enjoyed a lengthy career in both Britain and the United States. He was frequently cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment, often in supporting roles. In 1939 he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of King Louis XVI in Marie Antoinette.
David Edward Leslie Hemmings was an English actor and director. He is best remembered for his roles in British films and television programmes of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, particularly his lead role as a trendy fashion photographer in the hugely successful avant-garde mystery film Blowup (1966), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Early in his career, Hemmings was a boy soprano appearing in operatic roles. In 1967, he co-founded the Hemdale Film Corporation. From the mid-1970s on, he worked mainly as a character actor and occasionally as director.
Blow-Up is a 1966 mystery thriller film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and produced by Carlo Ponti. It is Antonioni's first entirely English-language film and stars David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave and Sarah Miles. Also featured was 1960s model Veruschka. The plot was inspired by Julio Cortázar's 1959 short story "Las babas del diablo".
Joan Bogle Hickson, OBE was an English actress of theatre, film and television. She was known for her role as Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in the television series Miss Marple. She also narrated a number of Miss Marple stories on audiobooks.
Piers Inigo Haggard, OBE was a British director who worked in film, television, and theatre.
William Maurice Denham OBE was an English character actor who appeared in over 100 films and television programmes in his long career.
White Mischief is a 1987 British drama film starring Greta Scacchi, Charles Dance and Joss Ackland. It was directed by Michael Radford. The film was based upon the non-fiction book White Mischief: The Murder of Lord Erroll (1982), by James Fox, which originated from a newspaper article published in 1969.
Patricia Lawlor Hayes was an English character actress.
Monica Vitti was an Italian actress who starred in several award-winning films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni during the 1960s. She appeared with Marcello Mastroianni, Alain Delon, Richard Harris, Terence Stamp, and Dirk Bogarde. On her death, Italian culture minister Dario Franceschini called her "the Queen of Italian cinema".
John Michael Frederick Castle is an English actor. He is best known for his film and television work, most notably playing Bill in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup (1966) and Geoffrey in The Lion in Winter (1968). Other significant credits include Man of La Mancha (1972), I, Claudius (1976) and RoboCop 3 (1993).
"Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams" (also known as "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (and Dream Your Troubles Away)") is a popular song written by Harry Barris with lyrics by Ted Koehler and Billy Moll, published in 1931.
Gillian Hills is a British actress and singer. She first came to notice as a teenager in the 1960s in the British films Beat Girl (1960) and Blowup (1966). She also spent a number of years living in France, where she embarked on a singing career as well as starring in a number of French films.
Sarah Woodward is a British actress. Olivier Award winner 1998 for ‘Tom & Clem’ & Tony Nominated in 2000 for ‘The Real Thing’. Sarah is the daughter of actor Edward Woodward and his first wife, actress Venetia Barrett, sister of actor Tim Woodward, and actor, voice artist, and screenwriter Peter Woodward, and sister to actress Emily Woodward, whose mother is actress Michele Dotrice.
The Countess Alice is a 1992 BBC made for television drama film directed by Moira Armstrong and features Wendy Hiller, Zoë Wanamaker and Duncan Bell. This was Wendy Hiller's last film role. It was made with the support of WGBH-Boston and shown on the American PBS network in 1993. It was written by Allan Cubitt as part of the BBC ScreenPlay anthology TV series.
References
- ↑ A Right Royal Bastard, Sarah Miles, Macmillan, 1993, p. 26
- ↑ Sarah Miles, A Right Royal Bastard (1993), p. 20: "Clarice... the eldest child of Francis (Frank) Remnant, bastard son of Prince Francis of Teck, Queen Mary's brother. Sexy old Frank, as he was known, came over when Mary married Prince George, who became George V, and had a cuddle with the seamstress in the White Lodge at Richmond."
- ↑ Rhoda Koenig, BOOK REVIEW Confessions of a wilful Pusscat: 'A Right Royal Bastard' dated Sunday 12 December 1993 at independent.co.uk. Retrieved 2 December 2011
- 1 2 3 4 5 Barry Egan "I can't wait to get off this planet", The Independent (Ireland), 16 September 2007 archived 13 April 2010
- 1 2 Lynn Barber "Interview: Out to lunch with Sarah", The Independent, 12 July 1992
- ↑ "RADA Student & graduate profiles - Sarah Miles" . Retrieved 1 July 2023.
- 1 2 3 David Thomson A New Biographical Dictionary of Film, London: Little Brown, 2002, p.594
- ↑ Crowther, Bosley (17 June 1965). "Movie Review: Those Magnificent Men In their Flying Machines (1965)". The New York Times .
- ↑ "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines – Or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes". Variety. 1 January 1965. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
- ↑ "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines –Or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes: TV Guide Review". TV Guide.com. Retrieved 18 February 2010.
- ↑ "Blow-Up director Antonioni dies", BBC News, 31 July 2007
- ↑ Terence Pettigrew Trevor Howard: A Personal Biography, London: Peter Owen, 2001, p.149
- ↑ Movies: Bolt of lighting hits the screen... Martin, James. Chicago Tribune 4 Mar 1973: e10.
- ↑ Christopher Hastings "Sarah Miles: Sex, Spooks and Steven Spielberg", The Sunday Telegraph, 7 September 2008
- ↑ Ron Rosenbaum, "The Corpse as Big as the Ritz", The Secret Parts of Fortune (reprinted from Esquire)
- ↑ Calder, John (23 February 1995). "Obituary: Robert Bolt". The Independent . Retrieved 6 February 2012.
- ↑ John Stark "Sarah Miles Stars in An Incredible Story of Scandal and Love—and No, It's Not Her New Film, Hope and Glory, It's Her Life", People, 28:21, 23 November 1987, archive-url, archived 15 October 2017
- ↑ "Case Study". Caroline Phillips. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
- ↑ O'Sullivan, Majella (19 March 2016). "'I was so innocent in the 60s, but Robert Mitchum corrupted me'". The Independent. Independent Newspapers (Ireland) Limited. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
- ↑ VHS Tape – 1992 R&G VIDEO L.P. Sherman Oaks, CA 91403. ISBN 1-56068-536-0
- ↑ Nonsense songs (Audiobook on CD, 1995) [WorldCat.org]. Libcat.calacademy.org. 4 January 2019. ISBN 9781898608219. Archived from the original on 15 February 2022. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
External links
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.