There have always been many celebrities in Hollywood. Others reach their peak and then fade away just as quickly as they appeared, while some remain in the spotlight for decades.
Legendary actresses like Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Jayne Mansfield, Raquel Welch, and Jean Harlow have attracted a lot of attention over the years, in no small part due to their inherent talent and stunning appearances.
However, there were always rivals vying for the opportunity to dethrone them, even when they sat on the throne as the industry’s queens. The “golden girl from the American Midwest” and American actress Sydne Rome was one such person.
Sydne took a different route to success in the entertainment industry than any other actress has. With her blonde hair and blue eyes, she chose to travel to Europe, and people couldn’t get enough of her. She allegedly even once dated David Bowie.
Rome may have had the “it” factor, but she didn’t enjoy much time in the limelight. She has a family of her own now, but she is still very active. Sadly, she sustained permanent facial scarring in one accident.
On March 17, 1951, Sydne Rome was born in Akron, Ohio. In the words of Sydne herself, her mother was a “born hippie,” and her father was employed in the plastics industry”.
She was raised in the 5,000-person small town of Upper Sandusky by upper-middle-class parents. It was claimed to have the highest per capita income of any town in the United States.
Early years in Rome of Sydne.
In the course of Hollywood history, there have been numerous instances of actors’ offspring becoming successful in their own right. Some examples include Kate Hudson, the daughter of Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson, and country singer Billy Ray Cyrus’s child, Miley Cyrus; Dakota Johnson, whose parents are actors Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson; and Dakota Cyrus.
The phrase “nepo baby” is employed, which, according to Sky, is “a catchier way to say the successful child of a celebrity – someone who rode to fame on the coattails of their talented parent, often making a name for themselves in the same or an adjacent industry”.
Some people get a great opportunity because they have connections in the entertainment industry because their famous parent is famous.
Others, however, find it challenging because they feel pressured to equal their parents’ accomplishments and celebrity status.
There was no need for Sydne Rome to be concerned about this. Her family members had never even considered working in the entertainment industry.
Nothing about my family should have influenced my obsession with acting, she claimed to the Daily News in 1974. “My mother is just’mom,’ and my father ran a plastics company. I have four younger siblings—two sisters, two brothers. ”.
Rome attended high school in Ohio, but by then she had already started expressing a lot of interest in acting. The young girl had made plans for her future, but everything changed after she confided in her loved ones.
She chose Pennsylvania and the renowned Carnegie Tech School of Acting at Pittsburgh University as her new home instead of Illinois.
initially attempt at fame in Hollywood.
“When high school was over, I intended to enroll at Northwestern University. However, I was advised to attend Tech if I were seriously interested in acting. So I did, and I’m glad I did,” Sydne said to The Pittsburgh Press.
Rome built her acting prowess at the Carnegie Tech School of Acting. Her teachers included renowned vocal coach and voice actress Edith Skinner and film executive Bern Stearn, whose daughter she later grew close to. She performed in two plays at the school: Nina in Anton Chekhov’s The Sea Gull and Tania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
It was time for the aspiring actress to move to California after completing her studies in Pennsylvania. When she joined the Pasadena Playhouse, her success on stage only increased.
Rome did, however, appear in plays by Tennessee Williams, Shakespeare, and Anton Chekhov, but her debut as a movie star in Hollywood was a total failure. After another year with the Pasadena Playhouse, she tried her luck in Europe once more after being passed over for her first significant role in the movie Candy. Candy was sent to Rome by her agent.
She was a stunning woman, there was no denying that. However, in those days, simply looking good in clothes wasn’t enough.
She told the Daily News, “I had a terrible time in Rome with young Italian directors who wanted me to play in the nude. I wasn’t interested in doing it. Now, I see things differently. Nude play has become a staple of our profession. I don’t mind it as long as it doesn’t involve graphic love scenes and is actually called for in the script”.
Prior to the 1970s, Sydne Rome primarily appeared in low-budget Italian movies.
similar to Birgitte Bardot.
When she collaborated with director Roman Polanski on the movie What? in 1972, Sydne made a significant advancement in her career, despite the film’s unfavorable reviews from critics. She also got married to cameraman and photographer Emilio Lari in 1973.
The young American actress was already being compared to Brigitte Bardot at that point. She was even referred to as “the up-and-coming Jean Harlow or Raquel Welch, the ticking Sex Bomb of the nineteen-eighties” by The Sunday Telegraph in 1979.
A young actress might have felt a lot of pressure from that comparison. However, Sydne accepted it with grace.
“[Brigitte] is fantastic, exciting, very open, and awfully available. Every man’s dream, she is. I might appear less accessible at first glance. I do believe, however, that viewers will reevaluate and change their minds. And I’m a better actress than Bardot,” she added.
Rome appeared to have everything she needed to succeed in Hollywood, but she just couldn’t seem to make the final move. Although she starred in Some Girls Do in 1969, her first movie didn’t advance her career. As a result, she tried her luck in films from Germany, France, and Italy.
Rome was cast alongside the legendary David Bowie in David Hemmings’ Just a Gigolo as the 1970s came to an end.
“We were close.
I learned that the leading man hadn’t been found as I prepared to travel to Berlin for the first [script] readings. David would possibly enjoy playing this role, I reasoned, as he [Bowie] had an interest in that time period in Germany between the two world wars. I gave him a call and requested his permission to send the script. He agreed after we did so, she said in 2021, according to NME.
David Bowie and love.
Even that the two had once been romantically involved was rumored, but she later denied it in an interview with Italian television.
“I met him because he called me to go to Paris with him to see the premiere of his movie, and I accepted [the offer for Just a Gigolo] right away,” Rome said. “We spent a year together. He was delicious and so much fun”.
Rome relocated to the city of Rome, which she called her home for more than ten years. She started playing music in the 1980s and put out several albums, all of which were sadly not successful.
L’uomo puma [The Pumaman], from 1980, was one of many productions in which Synde starred. It doesn’t take a movie aficionado to determine the film’s success given its pitiful 2 point 2 out of 10 rating on the International Movie Database. A documentary about Formula 1 that was filmed in Rio de Janeiro was among the first documentaries Rome produced. Although she still had aspirations of becoming a major star, she was bothered by the fact that the movie industry had expanded beyond producing quality movies.
In all countries but America, I’m well known, she said. “I adore creative work, but I despise the business aspect of my career. An actress may begin to feel like nothing more than a business asset, that only the deal she represents is what matters”.
No, it’s not just having passes made, I can handle that.
Being in films can be awful for a woman.
But it takes years of hard work before anyone truly respects you. Actresses aren’t supposed to be smart”.
She concluded: “Perhaps that’s why so many actors and actresses experience insecurity. – the woman more so than the men. We cry together on each other’s shoulders because I have several actress friends. Actors actually find it simple to make friends because they don’t really belong to any one class; they aren’t upper-class, middle-class, or lower-class people. They blend in anywhere. ”.
Sydne Rome sustained permanent scarring in a car accident.
Sadly, Rome’s marriage to Emilio did not endure. According to Corriere, she remarried the physician Roberto Bernabei, and the two of them decided to adopt Vanessa and Jesse, two sisters who were living in the favelas of Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 2021, Pope Francis appointed him as his personal physician after he established himself as a respected medical professional.
Rome’s career continued, and she appeared in numerous productions, but her big break in the US never materialized. Despite that, she discovered more significant things in life, such as a serene, loving family.
Later, Sydne Rome’s life underwent a permanent change in 2009. She was involved in a serious accident while driving her car, which contained one of her eight-year-old daughters.
Rome revealed that she had been driving her car for the first time after it had been in the garage for three weeks during an interview on the Italian talk show Vieni da Me.
Sydne ended up driving off the road and colliding with a tree while carrying her daughter. She suffered significant damage when the airbag blew up in her face.
Rome stated, “I went to the hospital and they stitched up my ski,” adding that the medical staff was unaware that the accident had damaged Rome’s facial muscles. After some time, that area of my face became paralyzed; as a result, I underwent physical therapy, and today I’m slightly better”.
Sydne sadly admitted that, after looking at old photographs, the change to her right side of her face made it difficult for her to recognize her face.
Rome today, Sydne.
She continued, “I know it’s me, but it’s like seeing another person again.
Sydne didn’t let her horrific injury get the better of her. She kept on acting in movies, and most recently appeared in the 2023 release of the Italian movie La Quattordicesima Domenica Del Tempo Ordinario.
Additionally, Sydne, now 72 years old, played a recurring character in 53 episodes of the Italian drama Don Matteo between 2021 and 2022.
Sydne Rome has always done what she enjoyed, despite not becoming the next Brigette Bardot. She still pursues her passion in spite of the tragic accident.
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