Sarah Miles

As talented as she was unconventional, British Actress Sarah Miles rose to the forefront of the British New Wave movement in films opposite Sir Laurence Olivier and Robert Shaw, and under such renowned directors as David Lean and Michelangelo Antonioni. She garnered critical acclaim in various London stage productions prior to miraculously landing her film debut as a co-star opposite her screen idol Olivier in the psycho-sexual drama "Term of Trial" (1962). Miles' torrid affair with Oliver - a then-married man old enough to be her father - would be one of many trysts carried on with some of film's biggest names throughout the years. Other projects like "The Servant" (1963), "The Ceremony" (1963), and "Ryan's Daughter" (1970) threatened to typecast her as a habitual adulteress, a trend only bolstered by the details of her personal affairs. Her turn opposite Burt Reynolds in "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing" (1973) was overshadowed by the suspicious death of her personal manager on location, just as he admirable work opposite Kris Kristofferson in "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" (1976) was eclipsed by her and her co-star's onscreen nudity. After a rough patch, both personally and professionally, Miles gained a bit of much deserved respectability with more mature performances in films that included "Steaming" (1984) and "Hope and Glory" (1987). Although largely retired by the late-1990s, Miles continued to entertain with a series of tell-all memoirs, proving that real life can indeed often be more entertaining and salacious the anything committed to film.