Sylvia Miles

Sylvia Miles was an American actress.

After beginning her career on stage and in films in the 1940s and ’50s, Miles appeared in the pilot for what would become The Dick Van Dyke Show as comedy writer Sally Rogers, the role that later went to Rose Marie for the series.

Miles earned Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for brief appearances in two films: as an aging prostitute in Midnight Cowboy (1969), and as the widow of a nightclub owner in Farewell, My Lovely (1975).

Her other film roles include a script clerk in Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie (1971); a real estate agent in Wall Street (1987); a matchmaker who introduces Amy Irving to a pickle merchant (Peter Riegert) in Crossing Delancey (1988); Meryl Streep’s mother in She-Devil (1989); and herself in the documentary Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990).

Her television resume includes Route 66, The Defenders, Naked City, Car 54, Where Are You?, All My Children, Miami Vice, The Equalizer, One Life to Live, and Sex and the City.

Miles died June 12, 2019, in Manhattan, New York. She was 94.