Trivia

Infamous for dumping a plate predominantly of steak tartare (as well as potato salad, pâté and Brie cheese, not pasta which has largely been incorrectly reported) on the head of dyspeptic theater critic John Simon of New York magazine in The Ginger Man, a New York City restaurant, after he gave her a nasty, scathing review in a 1973 play and labelled her as 'one of New York's leading party girls and gate-crashers'.

Contrary to popular belief, Miles' six-minute role in Midnight Cowboy (1969) isn't the shortest performance to receive an Oscar nomination. That title belongs to Hermione Baddeley for Room at the Top (1958), for a two-and-a-half-minute performance. Miles' performance as Cass ranks fifth shortest, behind Baddeley, Beatrice Straight in Network (1976), Maria Ouspenskaya in Dodsworth (1936) and Jane Alexander in All the President's Men (1976). Six years later, she received a second Oscar nomination for an eight-minute performance in Farewell, My Lovely (1975).

A fixture on NYC's party scene, she took over colleague Andy Warhol's mantle after his death of appearing at seemingly every movie or gallery opening in Manhattan, prompting the quip that "Sylvia Miles would attend the opening of an envelope.".

From 1976 onward, she consistently claimed she had been born in 1934, shaving a decade off her true age.

Portrayed Sally Rogers in the Carl Reiner television pilot "Head of the Family" (1959), which eventually became the basis for The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961).

As a revue comedy performer, she made her first TV appearance on a Bob Hope NBC show in 1950.

Second husband Gerald Price was a New York stage actor and was instrumental in prompting Sylvia to take an avid interest in developing a stage career in the mid-1950s.

Miles was born in New York City, the younger of two daughters of European-born Jewish parents, Reuben (a furniture maker) and Bella (née Feldman) Sheinwald (sometimes misspelled as Scheinwald or Scheinwold), who lived in Brooklyn before moving to Manhattan, where their daughters were raised. Miles attended Washington Irving High School. Her elder sister, Mrs. Thelma Rahlens (born 1920), survived her and was her sole immediate survivor.

She was a lifelong Democrat.

She was born on the same day as fellow actress Jane Greer.