Siân Phillips

Siân Phillips

Birth : 1933-05-14, Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, Glamorgan, Wales

History

Dame Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips DBE (born 14 May 1933), known professionally as Siân Phillips, is a Welsh actress, author and singer. Phillips was the daughter of Sally (née Thomas), a teacher, and David Phillips, a steelworker-turned-policeman. She is a Welsh-speaker and in the first volume of her autobiography, "Private Faces", she notes that she spoke only Welsh for much of her childhood, learning English by listening to the radio. She attended Pontardawe Grammar School and later read English and Philosophy at University College Cardiff, graduating in 1955. She entered RADA in LOndon, England with a scholarship in September 1955, the same year as Diana Rigg and Glenda Jackson. She went on to win the prestigious Bancroft Gold Medal for Hedda Gabler and was offered work in Hollywood when she left RADA. While still a student she was offered three film contracts, entailing her to work for an extended period of time in the United States; but she declined, preferring to work on stage instead.

Profile

Siân Phillips
Siân Phillips

Movies

Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends
Self
On 3 May 2022, Cameron Mackintosh invited many of Stephen Sondheim’s old friends to join him in London’s West End for a thrilling, joyously staged production. He had specially devised it to celebrate Sondheim’s extraordinary talents as a composer and lyricist. Featuring an all-star cast including Michael Ball, Helena Bonham Carter, Rob Brydon, Petula Clark, Anna-Jane Casey, Rosalie Craig, Janie Dee, Judi Dench, Daniel Evans, Maria Friedman, Haydn Gwynne, Bonnie Langford, Damian Lewis and Julia McKenzie.
National Theatre Live: Under Milk Wood
Writer
A community is sleeping. If you listen closely, you can hear their dreams. The retired sea captain yearning for his lost love. The landlady living in terror of her guests. A father who can no longer access his memories. A son in search of redemption. As they awake to boiled eggs and the postman, the residents of a small Welsh village juggle old secrets and new realities.
National Theatre Live: Under Milk Wood
Mrs Utah Watkins / Polly Garter / Mrs Beyon
A community is sleeping. If you listen closely, you can hear their dreams. The retired sea captain yearning for his lost love. The landlady living in terror of her guests. A father who can no longer access his memories. A son in search of redemption. As they awake to boiled eggs and the postman, the residents of a small Welsh village juggle old secrets and new realities.
Dream Horse
Maureen
The inspiring true story of Dream Alliance, an unlikely race horse bred by small town bartender, Jan Vokes. With very little money and no experience, Jan convinces her neighbors to chip in their meager earnings to help raise Dream and compete with the racing elites. Their investment pays off as Dream rises through the ranks and becomes a beacon of hope in their struggling community.
A Christmas Carol
Grandmother / narrator (voice)
The radical new take on Dickens’ classic seeks both to exhume the original story’s gritty commentary on social inequality and the corrupting influence of greed, and to breathe new life into the lyricism of the original text by setting its scenes to extraordinary tableaux of modern dance.
Summerland
Margaret Corey
A woman during the Second World War opens her heart to an evacuee after initially resolving to be rid of him.
National Theatre Live: Les Blancs
Madame Neilsen
An African country teeters on the edge of civil war. A society prepares to drive out its colonial present and claim an independent future. Racial tensions boil over. Tshembe, returned home from England for his father’s funeral, finds himself in the eye of the storm.
Time & Again
Eleanor
Eleanor and Isabelle meet again, sixty years after their relationship break up...
Be Happy!
A contemporary love story about Peter, a Freudian psychiatrist married to the Finnish Mika, David, a young British gay who lives in Banyoles, addicted to the Grinder, and Coco Lamour, a French actress from Paris.
Nureyev
Narrator
An insight into the life of the world's most famous male dancer, Rudolf Nureyev.
To Provide All People
Patient
To mark the 70th anniversary of the birth of the NHS, acclaimed poet Owen Sheers takes us on a journey that weaves the extraordinary story of the birthing of Nye Bevan's vision of free healthcare for all people with personal stories of the NHS in British society today.
Miss Dalí
Anna Maria Dalí
Anna Maria Dalí is four years younger than her brother Salvador and they love each other. Both enjoy the great progressive atmosphere of republican Spain, fraternizing with great creators, García Lorca, Buñuel.
Voyageuse
Erica
Based on the life of my late mother-in-law, Erica Thomas, “Voyageuse” is a mix of romance, science and conspiracy theory drawn directly from her journals and a vast archive of personal film and photographs.
Hochelaga, Land of Souls
Sarah Walker
Mohawk archaeologist Baptiste Asigny engages in a search for his ancestors following a tragic terrain slump in the Percival Molson Stadium.
Aberfan: The Green Hollow
A film poem to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, written by Owen Sheers and performed by a stellar cast of Wales's best-known acting talent, including Michael Sheen, Jonathan Pryce, Sian Phillips, Eve Myles and Iwan Rheon, with some contributions from the local community.
Under Milk Wood
Mrs. Pugh
An all star cast unite to perform a distinctive BBC Wales Television adaptation of Dylan Thomas's radio play, presented in collaboration with National Theatre Wales, to mark the centenary of Dylan Thomas' birth. The plot reveals the innermost thoughts of the residents of the small, Welsh fishing village Llareggub as it delves into the dreams of various townspeople including blind sailor Captain Cat, who is haunted by visions of drowned shipmates, Mog Edwards and Myfanwy Price, who dream of each other, and Mrs. Ogmore Pritchard, who dreams of her former husbands.
The 50 Greatest Television Dramas
Self
Boasting an amazing selection of the most watched, most influential and most highly acclaimed programmes ever made, The 50 Greatest Television Dramas presents a long overdue assessment of the rich heritage television drama has to offer. Channel 4 invited over 200 of Britain's top television drama professionals – writers, directors, producers and commissioners – to take part in an exclusive poll to discover what they consider the finest dramas ever produced.
The Murder Room
Marie Strickland
London's Dupayne Museum is in danger of closing since one of the trustees feels that the money expended on preserving the past could be better spent addressing the problems of living people. One of the museum's collections concerns murders committed between the world wars. When a killing that reflects one of the cases on display occurs, history seems to be repeating itself.
Still: Here/Now
Self
A search for the poetic soul of Wales - a feature documentary which explores poetic responses, historical & contemporary, to the issues of social & cultural survival; and celebrates this enduring 2500 year poetic experience.
Stalin: Inside the Terror
Narrator
This program is an overview of the life and career of Joseph Stalin. It concentrates on describing and attempting to explain the origins of the policy of “terror” instigated by Stalin as leader of the USSR. There are interviews with surviving family members and experts all of whom attempt some sort of personality “analysis” of the dictator to explain his behaviour and policies. Another question that is examined is, given his record of “terror”, why was he so popular? Why did so many Russians mourn his death in 1953? This could be an overview and introduction to a study of both Stalin and USSR in the post revolution period.
I, Claudius: A Television Epic
Self
The cast and crew of I, Claudius (1976) discuss the making of the series.
Cinderella: The ITV Pantomime
Evil Baroness
A televised pantomime of Cinderella featuring various celebrities.
Come and Go
Ru
An adaptation of Samuel Beckett's short play from 1965. Three women meet on a bench; they reminisce about their old school days and whisper terrible secrets.
Aristocrats
Narrator/Older Lady Emily Lennox
18th-century England and Ireland viewed through the eyes of four beautiful high-born sisters - Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox, great-granddaughters of a king, daughters of a cabinet minister, and wives of politicians and peers.
Alice Through the Looking Glass
Red Queen
A modern adaptation of the classic children's story 'Alice through the Looking Glass', which continued on from the popular 'Alice in Wonderland' story. This time Alice is played by the mother, who falls asleep while reading the the bedtime story to her daughter. Walking through the Looking Glass, Alice finds herself in Chessland, a magical and fun world. There she meets the Red and White Queens, as well as many other amusing friends on her journey across the chessboard countryside onto become a crowned queen.
The Scold's Bridle
Mathilda Gillespie
Detective Cooper investigates the bizarre circumstances surrounding the murder of Matilda who was found dead in her bath wearing the Scold's Bridle.
House of America
Mam
"House of America" is a 1997 film directed by Marc Evans. The film, set in a depressed Welsh mining town, centres on a dysfunctional family unit of brothers Boyo and Sid, their sister Gwenny and their controlling mother. The film tackles issues such as Welsh identity, its need for indigenous heroes and the nation's perceived inferiority complex.
The Mousehole Cat
Narrator
Told through the eyes of Mowzer, a cat, this tale -- based on a Cornish legend -- follows brave Tom Bawcock as he makes his way towards the treacherous sea conditions to bring food back to the village. Luckily, his faithful cat sings a lullaby to the Great Storm-Cat of the sea, who was responsible for unleashing the terrible weather. Soothed by Mowzer, the Great Storm-Cat allows Tom to catch enough fish to feed every mouth in the village.
The Vacillations of Poppy Carew
Calypso
Adaptation of the novel by Mary Wesley.
The Borrowers
Mrs. Driver
The Borrowers are small, fifteen-centimeter-high humans, who live in the English hinterland. They live out their lives in mouse-hole sized nooks in human houses, and survive by "borrowing" all they need from the house and its inhabitants. This series follows young girl Arriety (Rebecca Callard), and her parents Pod (Sir Ian Holm) and Homily (Dame Penelope Wilton), as they are displaced from their house, and try to find a new one, with the help of a human boy, George (Paul Cross).
The Age of Innocence
Mrs. Archer
In 19th century New York high society, a young lawyer falls in love with a woman separated from her husband, while he is engaged to the woman's cousin.
The Chestnut Soldier
Nain Griffiths
Gwyn can feel danger coming in the wind. Somehow he knows the warnings have to do with the broken toy horse that holds the evil spirit of a prince who lived long ago. When Gwyn discovers that the prince's dark soul has escaped from the horse and is seeking revenge Gwyn, Emlyn, and Nia have to figure out how to save the mysterious soldier who claims to be Nia's distant cousin. With the help of the Snow Spider, can they recapture the prince's soul without hurting the Chestnut soldier?
Tonight at 8.30
Adaptation of Noel Coward's stage play sequence.
The Black Candle
Daisy Barnett
Lily Whitmore is the heir to a crumbling factory that she's determined to restore to its former glory. Unfortunately, Lily must instead turn her attention to the conniving Lionel Filmore who's determined to marry into the family no matter what.
Emlyn's Moon
Nain Griffiths
Young magician Gywn and his friend Nia have been warned to stay away from Emlyn Llewelyn, the strange boy who claims his mother lives on the moon. And yet, a mysterious magic continues to draw them to him. But why? It's up to Gwyn and Nia to solve the mystery, with the help of Arianwen, the Snow Spider.
Red Empire
Narrator (voice)
A thorough and intelligently summarized history of the Soviet Union, from the socio-political origins for the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 to the near end of Mikhail Gorbachev's government, immediately prior to the downfall of "real communism" and the splitting of the USSR. Conducted by British historian Robert Conquest, narrative benefits from a careful research of archive footage and from recent interviews with mostly common who participated in the events.
Dark River
Mrs. Blessington
An angry father sets out to get revenge for the death of his daughter in a toxic waste accident.
Valmont
Madame de Volanges
Set in Baroque France, a scheming widow and her lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman. The lover, Valmont, bets that he can seduce her, even though she is an honorable woman. If he wins, he can have his lover to do as he will. However, in the process of seducing the married woman, Valmont falls in love. Based on the same novel as "Dangerous Liaisons."
David Macaulay: Pyramid
Mersyankh (voice)
How did ancient Egyptians build the Great Pyramid at Giza, joining two million blocks of heavy stone with amazing precision? Who were the leaders who built these enormous structures, and what did these tombs signify? Host David Macaulay explores the history, mythology, and religions of Egypt's people, combining live footage and animation. Take a rare look at the mummy of Ramses II and buried treasure in the sacred Valley of the Kings.
The Snow Spider
Nain Griffiths
On his ninth birthday, young Gwyn (Osian Roberts), who lives on a remote hill farm in Wales, receives five strange gifts from his grandmother (Siân Phillips): a piece of seaweed, a yellow scarf, a tin whistle, a metal brooch and a small broken horse. Gwyn offers the brooch to the wind and receives back a tiny silvery spider - Arianwen, the snow spider - confirming that, as his grandmother had already guessed, he has inherited magical powers from his Celtic ancestor Gwydyon, a powerful magician whose exploits are described in the fourth book ("Math Son of Mathonwy") of the Mabinogion. With the help of the snow spider, Gwyn embarks on adventures involving other worlds of snow and silver, as he attempts to solve the five-year-old mystery of his sister Beth's disappearance in a snow storm.
Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
Charal
The army of the Marauders, led by King Terak and the witch Charal, attack the Ewoks village, killing Cindel's family. Cindel and the Ewok Wicket escape and meet Teek in the forest, a naughty and very fast animal. Teek takes them to a house in which an old man, Noa, lives. Like Cindel, he also crashed with his Starcruiser on Endor. Together they fight Terak and Charal.
The Doctor and the Devils
Annabella Rock
In Victorian England, two grave robbers supply a wealthy doctor with bodies to research anatomy on, but greed causes them to look for a more simple way to get the job done.
Dune
Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
In the year 10,191, the world is at war for control of the desert planet Arrakis—the only place where the space-travel substance Melange 'Spice' can be found. But when one leader gives up control, it's only so he can stage a coup with some unsavory characters.
How Many Miles to Babylon?
Mrs Alicia Moore
Wealthy Alexander Moore and working-class Jerry Crowe are childhood friends and in 1914 find themselves in the same Army unit - Alex as an officer and Jerry as a private. They still remain close, however, until Jerry is court-martialed for desertion, and Alex is put in charge of the firing squad.
Clash of the Titans
Cassiopeia
To win the right to marry his love, the beautiful princess Andromeda, and fulfil his destiny, half-God-half-mortal Perseus must complete various tasks including taming Pegasus, capturing Medusa's head and battling the feared Kraken.
Carpathian Eagle
Mrs. Henska
Murder victims are being found with the hearts cut out. A police detective is assigned to find and stop the killer. Originally an episode of British horror anthology TV series, Hammer House of Horror, that later received a feature release in the United States.
Nijinsky
Lady Ripon
The film suggests Nijinsky was driven into madness by both his consuming ambition and self-enforced heterosexuality, the latter prompted by his romantic involvement with Romola de Pulszky, a society girl who joins impresario Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes specifically to seduce Nijinsky. After a series of misunderstandings with Diaghilev, who is both his domineering mentor and possessive lover, Nijinsky succumbs to Romola's charms and marries her, after which his gradual decline from artistic moodiness to complete lunacy begins.
Heartbreak House
Hesione Hushabye
Captain Shotover, a retired seafarer, is reluctantly hosting a weekend house party for his two daughters and their bohemian friends. As they indulge in dangerous flirtations, will anyone notice their drift to destruction?
Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill
Mrs. Patrick Campbell
Lee Remick stars as Jennie Jerome, born in the United States in 1845, who eventually became Lady Randolph Churchill, and gave birth to Sir Winston Churchill in this seven-part, seven-hour biographical mini-series.
Under Milk Wood
Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard
The delightful if peculiar story of a day in the life of a small, Welsh fishing village called "Llareggub" in which we meet a host of curious characters (and ghosts) through the 'eyes' of Blind Captain Cat.
Platonov
Anna
The title character is a married provincial schoolmaster and a notorious philanderer. He is a russian Don Juan except that he himself doesn't seek to seduce; the women around him simply find him irresistibly attractive, and he is only too happy to go along. The play predates the realism of Chekhov's later works in its desjointedness, but many of its scenes show the seeds of brilliance that would eventually emerge.
Murphy's War
Hayden
Murphy is the sole survivor of his crew, that has been massacred by a German U-Boat in the closing days of World War II. He is rescued, and ends up at a forgotten mission station near the mouth of the Orinoco, and begins to plot his vengeance. He wishes to sink the U-Boat by means of any method imaginable to him, and sets about to make the courageous attempt, assisted by Louis, the administrator of the local oil company.
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Ursula Mossbank
Academy Award-honoree Peter O'Toole stars in this musical classic about a prim English schoolmaster who learns to show his compassion through the help of an outgoing showgirl. O'Toole, who received his fourth Oscar-nomination for this performance, is joined by '60s pop star Petula Clark and fellow Oscar-nominee Michael Redgrave.
Laughter in the Dark
Lady Pamela More
Swinging London in the 1960's. Deals with the affection of a middle-aged man for a very young woman, resulting in a mutually parasitic relationship.
Thief
Woman
A lady catches the attention of a compulsive gambler.
Eh, Joe?
Voice
The first English broadcast of Eh, Joe? which aired on BBC2 on July 4th, 1966 with Jack MacGowran, for whom the play was specifically written, playing Joe and Siân Phillips as Voice. Directed by Alan Schneider with Beckett's supervision.
Young Cassidy
Ella
In Dublin circa 1911, John Cassidy (Rod Taylor), an impoverished idealist, whose ambitions are restricted by the demands of looking after his family, journeys through the social injustices of Dublin life, involving himself with the rowdy tramway-men strike, dawdling with prostitute Daisy Battles (Julie Christie), and seeking a better life. He falls in love with bookshop assistant Nora (Dame Maggie Smith) who encourages him toward a life of writing. Finding success at the Abbey Theatre, his unorthodox views estrange him from family, friends, and his own past.
Becket
Gwendolen
King Henry II of England has trouble with the Church. When the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, he has a brilliant idea. Rather than appoint another pious cleric loyal to Rome and the Church, he will appoint his old drinking and wenching buddy, Thomas Becket, technically a deacon of the church, to the post. Unfortunately, Becket takes the job seriously and provides abler opposition to Henry.
The Longest Day
WRNS Officer (uncredited)
The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"
The Mountain That Had To Be Painted
Narrator
Documentary about the painters Augustus John and James Dickson Innes who, in 1911, left London for the wild Arenig Valley in North Wales. Over three years, they created a body of work to rival the visionary landscapes of Matisse.