Dame Jane Elizabeth Ailwên PhillipsDBE (born 14 May 1933), known professionally as Siân Phillips (/ʃɑːn/SHAHN), is a Welsh actress. Her early career consisted primarily of stage roles, including the title roles in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. In the 1960s, she started taking on more roles in television and film. She is particularly known for her performance as Livia in the 1976 BBC television series I, Claudius, for which she was awarded a BAFTA and a Royal Television Society award. She was nominated for a Tony Award and Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance as Marlene Dietrich in Marlene.
Early life
Phillips was born on 14 May 1933 in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, the daughter of Sally (née Thomas), a teacher, and David Phillips, a steelworker who became a policeman.[1][2] She is a Welsh-speaker: in the first volume of her autobiography Private Faces (1999) she notes that she spoke only Welsh for much of her childhood, learning English by listening to the radio.[3][4]
Phillips attended Pontardawe Grammar School and originally was known there as Jane, but her Welsh teacher called her Siân, the Welsh form of Jane.[5][6] Later she took up English and philosophy at University College Cardiff.
Phillips graduated from the University of Wales in 1955. She entered RADA with a scholarship in September 1955, the same year as Diana Rigg and Glenda Jackson.[7][8][9] She won the Bancroft Gold Medal for Hedda Gabler and was offered work in Hollywood when she left RADA.[10] While still a student, she was offered three film contracts to work for an extended period of time in the United States, but she declined, preferring to work on stage.[11]
Career
Early career
Phillips began acting professionally at the age of 11 with the Home Service of BBC Radio in Wales. At the same age she won her first speech-and-drama award for her performance at the National Eisteddfod held at Llandybïe in 1944, where she and a school friend played the parts of two elderly men in a dramatic duologue.
She made her first British television appearance at 17 and won a Welsh acting award at 18. In 1953, while still a student at University College, Cardiff she worked as a newsreader and announcer for the BBC in Wales and toured Wales in Welsh-language productions of the Welsh Arts Council.[9][10][12]
From 1953 to 1955, Phillips was a member of the BBC Repertory Company and the National Theatre Company and toured Wales performing Welsh and English plays for the Welsh Arts Council. For the Nottingham Playhouse in 1958, she was Masha in Three Sisters. She performed as Princess Siwan in Saunders Lewis's The King's Daughter at the Hampstead Theatre Club in 1959 and as Katherine in Taming of the Shrew for the Oxford Playhouse in 1960. She was Princess Siwan again in the BBC's production of Siwan: The King's Daughter alongside Peter O'Toole with Emyr Humphrys as producer. It was broadcast on BBC One (Wales only) on 1 March 1960.[13][14] From October 1958 to April 1959, she was compere of the Land of Song (Gwlad y Gân) monthly programme at TWW (Television Wales and the West) Channel 10 with baritone Ivor Emmanuel.[15]
She made her first appearance on the London stage in 1957 when she appeared in Hermann Sudermann's Magda for RADA.[16]Magda, about an opera diva, was her first real success in London. The play did well and benefited her career greatly; although she was only a student at the time, she was the first since Sarah Bernhardt to play the role.[17]
In 1957, Phillips performed the title role in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler.[18][19][20] West End opening at The Duke of York's Theatre, December 3, 1957, with Fredrik Ohlsson as Tesman. They also performed at Det Nye Teatret in Oslo and at The Vanbrugh, RADA .
Many sources consider this her London stage debut but she actually did Magda before Hedda Gabler.[21] In September 1958, she was performing as Margaret Muir in John Hall's The Holiday at Oxford New Theatre.[22]
In May 1958, Phillips performed as Joan in a production of Shaw's Saint Joan by Bryan Bailey, at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, which had opened just six weeks before. An observer described her performance: "Sian Phillips' portrayal of Joan defies the law of averages, since, after seeing Siobhan McKenna in the 1955 Arts Theatre production, I reckoned it impossible to equal within half a century. Like the Irish girl, the Welsh girl is perfect.... 'This girl doesn't act Joan – she is Joan.' In short, perfection."[23]
She was Julia in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1960–1961 version of The Duchess of Malfi.[24] Her Royal Shakespeare Company performances are:
Julia in The Duchess of Malfi: at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (Stratford, 30 November 1960, opening night).
Julia in The Duchess of Malfi: at the Aldwych Theatre (London, 15 December 1960, opening night)
Bertha in Ondine: at the Aldwych Theatre (London, 12 January 1961, opening night)
Another popular role was that of the Reverend MotherGaius Helen Mohiam in David Lynch's Dune (1984) and Charal from Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985). She also appeared in seasons 2 and 4 (1998 and 2000) of the Canadian TV series La Femme Nikita as Adrian, the renegade founder of the powerful Section One anti-terrorist organisation. In 2001, she appeared as herself in Lily Savage's Blankety Blank.[26][27] and in Ballykissangel as faith healer Consuela Dunphy in Episode 7 ('One Born Every Minute' or 'Getting Better All the Time'). Her most recent film is The Gigolos (2006) by Richard Bracewell, in which she played Lady James. In 2010, she appeared in New Tricks in the episode "Coming out Ball" and in 2011 she appeared in the episode "Wild Justice" in the fifth season of the television series Lewis. In 2017, she played Lady Yvette Bristow in the TV series Strike. In 2022, she appeared in the series McDonald & Dodds. In 2024, Phillips portrayed Enid Meadows in the Doctor Who episode "73 Yards".[28][29]
She provided spoken-word backing to a track on Rufus Wainwright's 2007 album Release the Stars and appeared live with him at the Old Vic Theatre in London on 31 May/1 June 2007. In 2009 Phillips starred in London's West End production of Calendar Girls. Phillips played Juliet opposite Michael Byrne's Romeo in Juliet and her Romeo at the Bristol Old Vic from 10 March to 24 April 2010.[32]
In January 2011, she appeared in a new cabaret show, Crossing Borders, at Wilton's Music Hall in London. One review said: "Her cabaret shows are always of the more traditional type. She’s had a long and very impressive career, and her show followed its progression, with backstage anecdotes about the people she’s met and worked with along the way. It may not be edgy, but it’s a truly delightful evening, by a truly delightful performer, in a truly delightful venue."[33]
In 2024, Phillips reflected on her life and career, for the first time, in Siân Phillips at 90, broadcast on BBC One on 1 March. The documentary includes Philips recounting, with candour, the difficulties in the later part of her marriage to O'Toole, which culminated in the ultimatum that she should leave the family home, without their two children, within the space of four hours.[35][36][37]
In January 2018, Phillips was recognised for her career spanning more than 70 years at the BBC Audio Drama Awards and was given a Radio Lifetime Achievement Award.[39]
Phillips's first husband was Donald Roy, a post-graduate student at the University of Wales, who later established the Drama Department at the University of Hull[43] and after whom the University Theatre is named.[44] They were married in 1956 and divorced in 1959.[45][46]
Already pregnant with their first child, Phillips married Peter O'Toole in December 1959. They had two daughters: Kate, born 1960, and Patricia, born 1963.[47] Patricia is a theatre practitioner,[48] and Kate is an actress. The couple divorced in 1979, and Phillips wrote about this tempestuous period of her life in Public Places, the second volume of her autobiography.
Her third husband was actor Robin Sachs, who was 17 years her junior. Their relationship began in 1975. They were married on Christmas Eve 1979, shortly after her divorce from O'Toole. Phillips and Sachs divorced in 1991.[46]
Her two volumes of autobiography – Private Faces and Public Places – were published in 1999 and 2001, respectively.[46]
Others
Since 2005, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Cymru (BAFTA in Wales) has presented the Tlws Sian Phillips Award to a Welshman or woman who has made a significant contribution in either a major feature film or network television programme.[50][51][52]
^Jenny Gilbert, "How We Met: Diana Rigg and Valerie Solti" The Independent (6 September 1998). Retrieved at www.independent.co.uk, 13 December 2011.
^"Sian Phillips Biography" at www.filmreference.com. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
^ ab"Sian Phillips" in Turner Classic Movies at www.tcm.com. Retrieved 13 December 2011
^ ab"Phillips, Siân (1933–)" in BFI Screenonline at www.screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 16 December 2011.
^"Wales Video Gallery: Sian Phillips" (video interview) at [walesvideogallery.org] Retrieved 18 December 2011.
^"Siân Phillips: Stage and Screen Actress" at [www.terrynorm.ic24.net]. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
^Sian Phillips Biography in www.filmreference.com. Retrieved 16 December 2011.
^"Siwan: The King's Daughter" in BBC One at www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 16 December 2011.
^"TWW (Television Wales and the West) Channel 10" at [www.78rpm.co.uk]. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
^"University of Kent: Special Collections Theatre Collections" at www.kent.ac.uk. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
^Terri Paddock, "20 Questions With... Sian Phillips" in Whats On Stage (15 March 2004) at www.whatsonstage.com. Retrieved 16 December 2011.
^"V&A Search the Collections: Sian Phillips in The Holiday" at collections.vam.co.uk. Retrieved 18 December 2011.
^"BBC Wales Arts: Siân Phillips" at www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 18 December 2011.
^"Sian Phillips: Milestones" in Turner Classic Movies in www.tcm.com. Retrieved 18 December 2011
^"Wales Video Gallery: Sian Phillips" (video interview) at walesvideogallery.org. Retrieved 16 December 2011.
^"V&A Search the Collections: Sian Phillips in The Holiday" at collections.vam.co.uk. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
^Mervyn Jones, "Socialist Coventry Scores Another Triumph" Tribune Magazine (23 May 1958). Retrieved from archive.tribunemagazine.co.uk, 13 December 2011.
^"Sian Phillips" BBC: Wales Arts in www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
^Royal Shakespeare Company Archive Catalogue at calm.shakespeare.org.uk. Retrieved 16 December 2011.
^"Siân Phillips at 90" – via www.bbc.co.uk. O'Toole made my life impossible. He dragged the court case on for three years and in the end it was all over. And I didn't ask for anything. He kept all my jewellery, everything, and the art, what little art I possessed there, he kept everything, and my furniture. And I just started all over again.
Siân Phillips at the Wales Video Gallery: this video interview was conducted shortly after Phillips performed in Israel Horovitz's My Old Lady, where she played the 94-year-old Mathilde Giffard. The play opened at the Promenade Theatre on Broadway in October 2002.
