Biografia
Originally trained as a singer at the Royal College of Music, she gave up her career upon marrying Paul Spencer, who had briefly been an actor with the Anew McMaster touring company.
Following World War II and her divorce, she supported her son Nicholas's education by working as an assistant house mistress at Cheltenham Ladies' College and as a teacher at Pate's Junior School in Cheltenham.
She returned to the stage in 1964, touring with the all-female Osiris Repertory Company, performing Shakespeare for schools and convents, and later with Salisbury Arts Theatre.
Subsequently, she appeared in repertory theatre at Lincoln Theatre Royal—where her son was then director of productions—as well as at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham, the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, Worthing, Westcliff, the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham, Queen's Theatre in Hornchurch, the Arts Theatre in Ipswich, the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, the Theatre Royal in Bath, the Crucible in Sheffield, and Birmingham Rep.
Her numerous television roles included appearances in Blott on the Landscape, When the Boat Comes In, nineteen episodes of Crossroads as Daisy Pinfold, A Pin to See the Peepshow, Softly, Softly, Love Hurts, Lovejoy, The Bill, and Miss Marple. She held leading roles under John Schlesinger in Separate Tables alongside Irene Worth, and for Moira Armstrong in Countess Alice with Wendy Hiller. Her film credits include Where Angels Fear to Tread and a brief role in Richard Attenborough's Shadowlands.
In the West End, she performed in Waltz of the Toreadors with Trevor Howard; at the National Theatre, she played Thomas Mann's wife in Tales from Hollywood; and at the Shaw Theatre, she appeared in a revival of Pygmalion. Her final stage appearance was at age 83 at the National Theatre, reprising her role as Julia Shillitoe in a revival of Anthony Page's television production of Absolute Hell with Judi Dench. Her last television role was in the 1996 Sue Birtwistle production of Emma. A minor stroke soon after ended her career.
Sylvia had a keen interest in history and discovered by chance that her great-grandfather was comic actor John Hughes, a close friend of Edmund Kean and a member of the Drury Lane company in the 1830s. He married Elizabeth Jones, a notable Rosalind in As You Like It at Covent Garden in 1832. After Hughes' death, Jones concealed her theatrical past. Sylvia traced the Jones family to Bath, where in the late 18th century they were prominent members of a company touring the West Midlands circuit—areas where Sylvia herself had frequently performed.
Recognized as somewhat of an authority on Edwardian etiquette, she was invaluable in period productions.
Sylvia was known as an immediate confidante to many in the girls' dressing room and is warmly remembered by numerous colleagues.
She passed away at the actors' retirement home Denville Hall in England at the age of 94.
