Actress. Her career spanned more than 70 years on stage, film, and television, and became popular in the 1930s appearing in numerous crime films. Born Sophia Kosow of Russian and Romanian Jewish immigrant parents, her father was a clothing salesman. Her parents divorced when she was five years old and she was adopted by her stepfather, Sigmund Sidney, who was a dentist. At the age of 15, she took up acting as a way of overcoming shyness. She appeared in several productions during the 1920s, earning praise from theater critics. She was spotted by a Hollywood talent scout and made her first film appearance in 1926. During the 1930s, she appeared in a string of films, often playing the girlfriend or the sister of a gangster. She appeared in over 40 films during her career, opposite such heavyweight screen idols as Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, James Cagney, Joel McCrea, Fredric March, George Raft (a frequent screen partner), and Cary Grant. Among her films from this period were "An American Tragedy," "City Streets," and "Street Scene" (all 1931), Alfred Hitchcock's "Sabotage" and Fritz Lang's "Fury" (both 1936), "You Only Live Once," "Dead End" (both 1937) and "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" (1936), an early three-strip Technicolor film. It was during this period that she developed a reputation for being difficult to work with. In the 1940s, except for her appearance in "The Wagons Roll at Night" (1941), "Blood on the Sun" (1945), "The Searching Wind," "Mr. Ace" (both 1946), and "Love from a Stranger" (1947), her film career started to diminish. In 1949 exhibitors voted her "box office poison." In 1952 she played the role of 'Fantine' in "Les Misérables," and her performance was widely praised and allowed her opportunities to develop as a character actress. She appeared three times on CBS's "Playhouse 90" anthology series. In 1957 she appeared as 'Lulu Morgan', mother of singer Helen Morgan in "The Helen Morgan Story." The same year, she joined Polly Bergen on the premiere of the short-lived NBC variety show, "The Polly Bergen Show." She then gave up acting by her own decision until 1973, in which she made a comeback in the film "Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams," receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. As an elderly woman, she continued to play supporting screen roles, and was identifiable by her husky voice, the result of a lifetime cigarette smoking habit. She was the formidable 'Miss Coral' in the film version of "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" (1977) and later was cast as Aidan Quinn's grandmother in the television production of "An Early Frost" (1985) for which she won a Golden Globe Award. She played 'Aunt Marion' in "Damien: Omen II" (1978) and had key roles in "Beetlejuice" (1988, as 'Juno' for which she won a Saturn Award), and "Used People" (1992, as 'Becky'). Her final film role was in "Mars Attacks!" in which she played a senile grandmother whose beloved Slim Whitman records stop an alien invasion from Mars when played over a loudspeaker. Her television career included appearances on "My Three Sons," "WKRP in Cincinnati," the 1990s revival of "Fantasy Island," and "Thirtysomething." Her Broadway career included "Vieux Carre," The Fourposter," "Enter Laughing," and "Barefoot in the Park." She was married three times, first to publisher Bennett Cerf (1935 until 1936), then to actor and acting teacher Luther Adler (1938 until 1947), and then to radio producer and announcer Carlton Alsop (1947 until 1951). She was skilled at needlepoint and sold needlepoint kits featuring her designs, and she published two popular instruction books: "Sylvia Sidney's Needlepoint Book" (1968) and "The Sylvia Sidney Question and Answer Book on Needlepoint" (1975). She died of throat cancer at the age of 88. In 1982 she was awarded The George Eastman Award, given by the George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures.