Sylvia Miles

       Sylvia Miles died recently at 94. She had quite a career in TV and movies. She was the consummate character actress. Casting directors loved to plug her into their celluloid spaces. She logged well over 100 TV and movie appearances. She is one of those actors you maybe can’t place but when you see her picture you say, “oh, yeah.” She famously dumped a plate of food on the head of critic John Simon after a particularly nasty review of her acting in a play!
She played Cass, a woman inviting Jon Voight upstairs for sex in Midnight Cowboy (1969). She was on the screen a memorable six minutes, but nonetheless was nominated for an Oscar. But she lost to Goldie Hawn for Cactus Flower. Midnight Cowboy is a terrific film which won the Best Movie Oscar. Dustin Hoffman as the wretched Ratso is really good, as is Mr. Voight as Joe Buck. At the time, it became the first x-rated film to win the award. The X rating was changed to NC17 later. Midnight Cowboy is fairly tame nowadays, and is now rated R. 
Farewell, My Lovely (1975) is a delicious film noir with the unbeatable Robert Mitchum as Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe. It has the requisite seamy interiors and a complicated plot that begins at the end and has Mitchum explain what happened. It works! Sylvia Miles garnered another Oscar nomination, this time for an 8-minute scene as an  alcoholic former dancer. She expertly stumbles through the scene but she has a clue that Marlowe needs to solve the case. She lost to Lee Grant for Shampoo. 
92 In The Shade (1975) is a somewhat convoluted film starring Peter Fonda and Burgess Meredith. Fonda plays Tom Skelton, a young man trying to start a fishing guide business in Florida. This is not well received by the existing boat captains and things quickly get really nasty. Sylvia Miles has a frankly bit part as Bella. Don’t blink or you’ll miss her.
Evil Under The Sun (1982) is a British whodunnit with Peter Ustinov as the redoubtable Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot. This is one of those Agatha Christie stories with a double handful of suspects which Poirot must sift through to find the killer. Sylvia Miles and James Mason appear as Odell and Myra Gardener, New York theatrical producers. They are among the suspects. That’s all I’ll tell. 
There are two Wall Street movies, the original in 1987, and Wall Street:Money Never Sleeps (1992). The first one is pretty good,  with Kirk Douglas (“greed is good”) as a sleazy trader and Charlie Sheen as his too apt pupil. These are not nice people! The second one is a pale knock-off not worth your time. Sylvia Miles plays the same shady realtor, Dolores, in both films. 
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for grown-ups.