Ann Robinson, the red-haired actress who was menaced by Martians in the 1953 sci-fi classic The War of the Worlds, died Sept. 26 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 96.
Robinson became one of the most memorable faces in science fiction as Sylvia Van Buren, the library science teacher who teams with Pacific Tech professor Clayton Forrester to figure out a way to defeat the Martians. Gene Barry played Forrester, and the pair’s frightened, quick-thinking chemistry helped make the film endure far beyond its era.
Her death had not been publicly revealed until now. For a performer who began as an inexperienced contract player at Paramount Pictures, the role turned into a defining credit that followed her for the rest of her life. Robinson once said she had gotten more mileage out of War of the Worlds than Vivien Leigh did out of Gone With the Wind, a line that fit the scale of her unlikely fame.
Robinson was born in Hollywood on May 25, 1929, and attended Hollywood High and Sacred Heart Academy in La Canada Flintridge. She broke into movies as a stunt performer, and one of her first jobs came in 1949, when she doubled for June Havoc in The Story of Molly X. During a scene in which she tried to escape the Tehachapi state prison, she got caught on a 15-foot barbed-wire fence.
That hard start gave way to the part that made her famous. Cast by producer George Pal after auditioning at Paramount, Robinson played Sylvia Van Buren in the 1953 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel. The film put her alongside Barry as ordinary people trying to survive an invasion that seemed to come from nowhere, and her wide-eyed terror became part of the movie’s lasting image.
Robinson stayed connected to the role for decades. She also played Sylvia on a few episodes of a 1988-90 syndicated War of the Worlds TV series, and Steven Spielberg invited her and Barry back in 2005 to reprise their scene in his version of War of the Worlds. Robinson later recalled, “Steven was just so adorable,” and said, “They treated me like royalty,” after the reunion.
She also remembered the original production with a mix of wit and regret. Looking back at one scene, she said, “This guy might have been nice! Maybe we ruined a chance for peace because Gene Barry got overzealous and threw that hatchet,” and she described another moment by saying, “This Martian was just coming up behind me to tap me on the shoulder — he wasn’t aggressive, he wasn’t mean. Of course, the Martians had blown my uncle apart, along with a bunch of other people, but maybe this guy was the nice one who wanted to negotiate.”
For Robinson, the role was not just a career marker but a kind of second life, one that kept returning whenever the story of alien invasion came back into fashion. The question now is not whether Sylvia Van Buren mattered; it is how a performer who started with stunts and small breaks ended up owning one of the most durable images in American science fiction.
