Sian Phillips was born in Wales and is bi-lingual. As a child actress she worked on Stage and for the British Broadcasting Company, Wales. At 18 she became a BBC TV Announcer and News Reader. She has also acted in French. She won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where she was awarded the BANCROFT GOLD MEDAL.

Sian was asked to give The Huw Weldon Lecture for the Royal Television Society for 1993. She recorded the lecture in both Welsh and English - the latter being broadcast on BBC Television and she is the first woman to have been asked to give this prestigious lecture - the subject of which concerned her career and experiences on television.

Sian Phillips has appeared in countless stage and television productions, as well as in movies and on radio. She won a New York Critics' award for the film Goodbye Mr Chips and BAFTA awards for the television productions of I Claudius and How Green Was My Valley.