Siân Phillips

"I was beautiful, too, once, you know..."

After much procrastination, I'm in the midst of watching I, CLAVDIVS, the 1976 BBC TV adaptation of Robert Graves's books. As such, I am becoming familiar with Welsh actress Siân Phillips who plays the part of Livia Drusilla. (It is a little confusing trying to reconcile the common characters from the HBO/BBC "Rome".)
In the 1976 production, she was in grandmother mode. So I had to troll my precious internet to find some juicy, younger pictures of her. Because that's the kind of full life that I'm building for myself.

Wish there were more, but here's enough to confirm that she was a drop-deader.
She was married to Peter O'Toole for a good clip of time. Producing offspring Pat and Kate O'Toole.
Had no idea what her story was till I started looking her up a few minutes ago, but the biggest surprise to me (given that the show I'm watching is from 1976) was that she's still alive and still working.
If they ever need someone to play her in a flashback sequence, they should get ROME's impossibly hot Indira Varma:
Striking, no?

Speaking of striking, as you may've read, the DGA reached a tentative deal with the AMPTP on Thursday. There's a preliminary analysis of it over @ United Hollywood.

Some intriguing progress. A lot of debate of the merits. Still very uncertain how this will affect the progress toward a new WGA contract, but this is some real news. And at the very least, it means that the AMPTP and the WGA are finally going to start talking again. Albeit "informally"...

Let's return to some final words from Livia, spoken to the gladiator-slaves:

"These games are being degraded by the increasing use of professional tricks to stay alive! And I won't have it! So put on a good show and there'll be plenty of money for the living and a decent burial for the dead. And if not...? I'll break this guild up. And I'll send the lot of you to the mines in Numidia."