by Sylvia Young, who died at the age of 85, promoted the childhood talents of some of the biggest names of the British show company of singers such as Amy Winehouse, Rita Ora and the Spice Girl Emma Bunton to the actors Keeley Hawes and Billie Piper.
She opened the Sylvia Young Theater School in Central -London in 1981 and provided the newly launched BBC Soap Eastenderers with stars such as Adam Woodyatt, Litia Dean, Nick Berry and Danniella Westbrook in the first decade. She also trained young artists who entered the West End level, such as Denise Van Outen in Les Miserables and Nicola Stapleton (later from Eastenders) in aspects of love.
Then, in 1994, when the director Sam Mendes spoke 3,000 children for his revival of Oliver! In the London Palladium he found five of the six young people and almost half of the other young actors, among the “babies”, as she called them.
Although their classes broke men like Matt Willis from Pop Group and the actors Steven Mackintosh and John Pickard were, many of those who continued success were female. “We produce girls with bottles,” said Young, who survived a hard education in the East End in London. “We develop trust.”
The Sylvia Young Theater School was opened with 27 students and became a small group of services in performing arts that offer full -time courses for those between the ages of 10 and 16. Together with 20-year-old employees, she was offered as an actor and academic training of qualified teachers.
Monday to Wednesday was spent on the standard school lessons, while on Thursday and Friday the representative arts were reserved. “My goal was to prove that the occupation of a stage school would not affect the general education of a child,” said Young. Dean Gaffney, who came to Eastenderers in 1993, remembered that the end every week “became a complete fame school, whereby people singing the hallways and tracks instead of school uniforms”.
Saturday and summer courses have also been set up, as did two connected agencies to seek work: Young ‘UNT for pupils and horsemore management for others over 16 years.
For Young, the provision of places for scholarships and scholarships was important that said: “I never wanted it to be only for children of the rich.” She encouraged her charges to learn talent across the board – to sing, dance and act – and to consider, such as:
Other graduates of the school are Naomi Campbell, Samantha Janus, Kellie Bright, Nicholas Hoult, Dani Behr, the singer Dua Lipa, three members of the Girl Band All Saints and Casting Director Tony de Freitas as well as Adele Silva, Shereeeee and Isabel Hodgins.
In contrast to some reports, Winehouse was not excluded, said Young, who told the Guardian in 2022 that future singing sensation was “very smart”, but “very cheeky” to find the academic work too easy and get bored. “I liked her enormously.”
Young was born Sylvia Bakal in Whitechapel, East London. Her mother Sophie (born Wexler) came from Romanian heritage while her father Abraham, who in the 17th/21st Lancers served, had parents from Belgium and Romania, he worked as a tailor presser after the Second World War and then had a betting business.
Sylvia was evacuated in 1943 to live at a mining family in a village outside of Barnsley and returned to London after the war, the oldest of nine children. When she found peace in her local library, she read hundreds of plays as a child.
When she left the Skinners’ Company School in Stamford Hill in North London, she accepted an employee job at the age of 16 before working for Stoke Newington Libraries (1956-57) while working with the amateur Repertory Company in Mountview Theater Club (1957-65). She became a mother who was at home after she had born the births of her two daughters of Norman Ruffell, whom she married in 1961.
Aldersbrook, Alderbrook, at the fundraising show for her girls’ primary school on the basis of the Primary School in primary school, and led her to create his young “UN company” and performed old music-hall routines for charitable purposes. When the students called their Sylvia Young-un, she accepted the name.
From 1973 she headed a vocal and drama group in Manor Park, East London before set up a Saturday school near the Leicester Square six years later. In 1980 this moved to the premises of a boys club in Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and became the Sylvia Young Theater School the following year. Shortly afterwards to Marylebone, a change to the marble arch was followed in 2010.
Over the years, among the students of Young, her own older daughter Frances Ruffelle, who struggled for bad behavior, has been her own older daughter. “I was 15 years old, an independent teenager who talked back, and my mother decided that she couldn’t teach me,” said Ruffelle, who played musicals like Les Miserables and Chicago in West. Young’s other daughter, Alison, also played, Rossmore managed and finally became the school in 2015.
Young was appointed OBE in 2005 and won a special Recognition Olivier Award in 2022.
Her husband and children survive with four grandchildren, pop singer Eliza Doolittle, Nat, Felix and Coral.
• Sylvia Young (Sylvia Bakal), stage school, born on September 18, 1939; died on July 30, 2025
