Early life

Sarah Miles was born in the small town of Ingatestone, Essex, in South East England; her brother is film director, producer and screenwriter Christopher Miles. Miles's parents were Clarice Vera Remnant and Frank Remnant. Through her maternal grandfather Francis Remnant, Miles claims to be the great-granddaughter of Prince Francis of Teck (1870-1910) and thus a second cousin once removed of Elizabeth II.

Unable to speak until the age of nine because of a stammer and dyslexia, she attended Roedean, and three other schools, but was expelled from all of them. Miles enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at the age of 15. Shortly after finishing at RADA, Miles debuted as Shirley Taylor, a "husky wide-eyed nymphet" in Term of Trial (1962), which featured Laurence Olivier; she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer.

Career

Soon afterwards, Miles had a role as "Vera from Manchester" in Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963), and "thrust sexual appetite into British films" according to David Thomson. She gained another BAFTA nomination, this time as Best Actress. She had a "peripheral" part in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup (1966). a director she thought (at his death in 2007) was "a rogue and a tyrant and a brilliant man".

After acting in a several plays from 1966 to 1969, Miles was cast as Rosy in the leading title role of David Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970). It was critically savaged, which discouraged Lean from making a film for some years, despite Miles' performance gaining her an Oscar nomination and an Oscar win for John Mills, and the film making a substantial profit. In Terence Pettigrew's biography of Trevor Howard, Miles describes the filming of Ryan's Daughter in Ireland in 1969. She recalls, "My main memory is of sitting on a hilltop in a caravan at six in the morning in the rain. There was no other actor or member of the crew around me. I would sit there getting mad, waiting for either the rain to stop or someone to arrive. Film-acting is so horrifically belittling."

On 11 February 1973, while filming The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, David Whiting, briefly one of her lovers, was found dead in her motel room. She was acquitted of culpability in his death. Miles later commented: "It went on for six months. Murder? Suicide? Murder! Suicide! Murder! Suicide! And, gradually, the truth came out, which I'm not going to speak about, but it certainly wasn't me. I had actually saved the man from three suicide attempts so why would I want to murder him? I really can't imagine."

Her performance as Anne Osborne in The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976) was nominated for a Golden Globe. Interviewer Lynn Barber wrote of Miles' appearances in Hope and Glory, White Mischief and her two earliest films that she "has that Vanessa Redgrave quality of seeming to have one skin fewer than normal people, so that the emotion comes over unmuffled and bare."

Filming White Mischief on location in Kenya in 1987, Miles worked for the second and last time with Trevor Howard, who had a supporting role but was by then seriously ill from alcoholism. The company wanted to fire him, but Miles was determined that Howard's distinguished film career would not end that way. In an interview with Terence Pettigrew for his biography of Howard, she describes how she gave an ultimatum to the executives, threatening to quit the production if they got rid of him. The gamble worked. Howard was kept on. It was to be his last major film. He died the following January.

She most recently appeared in Well at the Trafalgar Studios and the Apollo Theatre opposite Natalie Casey.

Personal life and family

Miles was married twice to the British playwright Robert Bolt, 1967-1975 and 1988-1995. He wrote and directed the film Lady Caroline Lamb, in which Miles played the eponymous heroine, and wrote Ryan's Daughter as well. After his stroke, the couple reunited and Miles cared for him. "I would be dead without her", Bolt said in 1987, "When she's away, my life takes a nosedive. When she returns, my life soars." The couple had a son Tom, who is now a watch dealer.

Miles has stated that she’s been drinking her own urine for over 30 years, as she feels it positively affects her health in a variety of ways.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1962	Term of Trial	Shirley Taylor	Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer
1963	The Servant	Vera	Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best British Actress
	The Ceremony	Catherine
1965	Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines	Patricia Rawnsley
	I Was Happy Here	Cass Langdon	Also known as Time Lost and Time Remembered
1966	Blowup	Patricia
1970	Ryan's Daughter	Rosy Ryan	Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1972	Lady Caroline Lamb	Lady Caroline Lamb
1973	The Hireling	Lady Franklin
	The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing	Catherine Crocker
1974	Great Expectations	Estella
1975	Bride to Be	Pepita Jiménez
1976	The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea	Anne Osborne	Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1978	The Big Sleep	Charlotte Sternwood
1981	Priest of Love	Film Star
	Venom	Dr. Marion Stowe
1984	Ordeal by Innocence	Mary Durant
1985	Steaming	Sarah
1986	The Harem	Lady Ashley
1987	Hope and Glory	Grace Rowan	Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
	White Mischief	Alice de Janzé
1992	The Silent Touch	Helena
2001	Days of Grace	Sissi, La Madre
	Jurij	Martina, directrice clinica
2003	The Accidental Detective	Smeralda Mazzi Tinghi

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1974	Great Expectations	Estella
1983	Walter and June	June
1987	Queenie	Lady Sybil
1990	A Ghost in Monte Carlo	Emilie/Mme. Bluet
1994	Dandelion Dead	Catherine Armstrong	TV mini-series
2004	Poirot: The Hollow	Lady Angkatell

Books

Sarah Miles has written the following books:

• A Right Royal Bastard. Pan Book. 1994. p. 368. ISBN 0-330-33142-6. 1st part of memoirs
• Serves Me Right. Macmillan. 1994. p. 384. ISBN 0-333-60141-6. 2nd part of memoirs
• Bolt from the Blue. Phoenix. 1997. p. 272. ISBN 0-7538-0229-5.
• Beautiful Mourning. Orion. 1998. p. 352. ISBN 0-7528-0140-6.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]