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Sylvia Sidney (August 8, 1910 – July 1, 1999) was an American actress.

Sidney, born Sophia Kosow in The Bronx, New York, was the daughter of Rebecca (née Saperstein), a Romanian Jew, and Victor Kosow, a Russian Jewish immigrant who worked as a clothing salesman. Her parents divorced by 1915 and she was adopted by her stepfather, Sigmund Sidney, a dentist. Sidney became an actress at the age of fifteen as a way of overcoming shyness, using her stepfather`s surname as her professional surname. As a student of the Theater Guild`s School for Acting, Sidney appeared in several of their productions during the 1920s and earned praise from theater critics. In 1926, she was seen by a Hollywood talent scout and made her first film appearance later that year.

During the Depression, Sidney appeared in a string of films, often playing the girlfriend or the sister of a gangster. She appeared opposite such heavyweight screen idols as Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Joel McCrea, Fredric March, George Raft (a frequent screen partner), and Cary Grant. Among her films from this period were: An American Tragedy, City Streets and Street Scene (all 1931), Alfred Hitchcock`s Sabotage and Fritz Lang`s Fury (both 1936), You Only Live Once, Dead End (both 1937) and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine which was shot in early Technicolor. Although Sidney had an arresting, slightly Eurasian face and a lovely figure, these assets were often obscured for the sake of the stark, gritty plots of her films.

After what seemed to be a promising second phase of her career playing opposite the likes of James Cagney in films like Blood on the Sun (1945) with a considerably more glamorous screen persona, her career diminished somewhat during the 1940s. In 1952, she played the role of Fantine in Les Misérables, and her performance was widely praised and allowed her opportunities to develop as a character actress. She received an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973). During the filming of Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, costar Joanne Woodward remarked how she and her husband, Paul Newman, had a difficult time remembering their anniversary date. Later, Sidney surprised Woodward with a gift of a handmade pillow with the inscription "Paul and Joanne" and their anniversary date.

As an elderly woman Sidney continued to play supporting screen roles, and was identifiable by her husky voice, the result of a lifetime cigarette smoking habit. She was the formidable Miss Coral in the film version of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and later was cast as Aidan Quinn`s grandmother in the television production of An Early Frost for which she won a Golden Globe Award. She played Aunt Marion in Damien: Omen II and had key roles in Beetlejuice (directed by longtime Sidney fan Tim Burton) and Used People (which co-starred Jessica Tandy, Marcello Mastroianni, Marcia Gay Harden, Kathy Bates and Shirley MacLaine). Her final role was in another film by Burton, Mars Attacks!, in which she played a senile grandmother whose beloved Slim Whitman records stop an alien invasion from Mars when played over a loudspeaker.

On TV, she appeared as the imperious mother of Gordon Jump on the pilot episode of WKRP in Cincinnati; as the troubled grandmother of Melanie Mayron in the comedy-drama Thirtysomething and, finally, as the crotchety travel clerk on the short-lived late-1990s revival of Fantasy Island with Malcolm McDowell, Fyvush Fi