She is best remembered by most for her film work through the 1950s and 1960s but is still active in films, television and the theatre.

She started as a starlet. In her second film My Teenage Daughter (1954), she played Anna Neagle's "problem" daughter, and by 1960 had worked with Flora Robson, Orson Welles, Stanley Holloway, Lilli Palmer and William Holden - and made the film Ice-Cold in Alex (1958).

Co-starring John Mills, Anthony Quayle and Harry Andrews, this has become a cult film in recent years because an extract from it was used in a beer commercial. It is an entertaining story about four British Army medical personnel trying to get through enemy territory. A love scene between John Mills and Sylvia Syms was dropped from the film because it was considered too strong.

Also in 1958 she appeared in the English civil war story The Moonraker with George Baker her male lead.

Two years later she was Tony Hancock's wife in The Punch and Judy Man. Other comedies followed, such as The Big Job (1965) with Sid James, but it was for drama that she won acclaim, including The Tamarind Seed (1974) with Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif, for which she was nominated for a British Film Academy award.

My Good Woman in 1972 was a husband-and-wife television comedy series which ran until 1974 with Leslie Crowther. She has played British prime minister Margaret Thatcher on TV and the stage and appeared in the Doctor Who story Ghost Light.

In 2002 she starred in the miniseries The Jury.

She is currently reported to be working on The Poseidon Adventure a new mini TV series. She has also taken up producing and directing.

Among the many other famous names she has worked with are: Marius Goring, Hardy Krüger, Herbert Lom, Cliff Richard, Jenny Agutter, Sophia Loren, George Peppard, Roger Moore, Ray Milland, Bernard Miles and Richard Todd.

Her daughter, Beatie Edney, is also an actress.