Sam Sylvia

Sam Sylvia
Aliases	Sam Francis Sylvia
Relatives	Mrs. Sylvia (Mother) † Justine Biagi (Daughter)
Affiliation	B Movie Director Creator Of Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling
Biographical information
Marital status	Divorced
Physical description
Gender	Male
Height	5'11"
Hair color	Gray
Eye color	Hazel
Other information
Played by	Marc Maron
First appearance	Pilot
Last appearance	—

Sam Sylvia is one of the main characters of GLOW, portrayed by Marc Maron.

Physical Appearance

Sam is a middle-aged man with short gray hair, hazel eyes and pale skin. He has a gray stubble and a thick gray moustache. He is Italian heritage, specifically Sicilian.

Personality

Sam has described himself as not easy to work with, citing the fact that he's cranky, doesn't take criticism well and doesn't like being told what to do. He also adds that apologies and compromise aren't really his thing. He also claims that people say he has a "zany" sense of humor and that, when he makes a horrible stupid mistake, it's usually because he's high, drunk or someone has done something to make him so small and insecure, he has to do something to remind himself that he exists.

His wife's cognitive behavioral therapist has told him he has a flaw in his conflict style, as in he often gets overly defensive when he feels attacked. He can sometimes be able to point out when he does it and even apologize afterwards, like during the car scene with Ruth in Debbie Does Something.

Although he's not the most typical director, Sam is capable of taking a stand for his cast members, like when he defended Carmen Wade from her father — who didn't want her to do wrestling — or when he brought Ruth Wilder to the abortion clinic after she found out she was pregnant. He also seems to care at least a little bit about keeping up professional appearances even though he's far from professional, as shown by him not wanting Rhonda Richardson to go around telling others that they're sleeping together.

He's often way too brutally honest to the point of being straight-up rude. Rhonda has said she struggles with figuring out whether he's joking or he's being mean and he agreed, adding he doesn't know that himself a lot of the time.

When asked whether Sam was just another white racist director, Keith said he's "more sexist" than racist, in his experience. Despite that, Sam has shown disdain for right-wing people, notably calling the people at Birdie Howard's 'Just Say No' fundraiser a bunch of "white, right-wing idiots."

Background

Sam was formerly married to Carolyn. They divorced because she cheated on him with his steadicam operator. He quit everything the very day after he found out, including the movie he was working on, and got on a plane for Vegas. They share joint custody of their dog, Lenny.

He's claimed to have a "shitty" history with women, implying he's had various romantic or sexual encounters that didn't end well, outside of just his wife. He's also claimed to have slept with various actresses that worked on his projects before, who only wanted bigger parts or other favors from him.

Sometime in either 1968 or 1969, he was at a Black Panther rally in Sacramento, but he got kicked out. He went on to go to Rosalie Biagi's bar, then went home with her afterwards. He left that morning without even staying for breakfast. He didn't know at the time, but he got her pregnant that night, and she ended up keeping the child.

In 1978, he had a threesome with Cherry Bang and her husband, Keith Bang. He has worked with the pair in the past, speficially having had Keith do stunts for him twice, including in his film Blood Disco. They went on to party with each other for 5 years after that. Him and Cherry, however, didn't talk to each other for two years, after she had a miscarriage.

He has worked on eight movies in his director career, prior to GLOW, two of which are taught in colleges. His first ever feature credit was a movie called Swamp Maidens of the Viet Cong. He's also directed Gina the Machina, which was so offensive, it was banned in 49 states. He is known for having directed other titles such as Oedipussy, Venus in Chains, Couch of Pain, Blood Disco, and Blood Disco 2. Although some people, like Sebastian Howard, mistake them as comedies, but they're not supposed to be. After his last project, he has struggled to find work, up until GLOW came up.

He's been working on his new movie called 'Mothers and Lovers' for the past ten years. It's, as he describes it, a semi-autobiographical, psycho-sexual, time-travel drama about an all-american boy that can't stop jerking off to fantasies about having sex with his own mother, which makes him hate himself enough to build a time machine to go into the future — where she's old and hideous — to escape his oedipal impulses, but he accidentally puts the wrong date and goes back to the 1950's instead, where she's a horny teenager and spends the entire movie trying to have sex with him instead of with his future dad.

He claims he let his mother "slowly deteriorate" in a hospital, instead of dying at a beach in Italy like she would have wanted, because he wanted to try making her live as long as possible, thus not allowing her to die on her own terms. He heavily regrets that decision now.

He's implied to have had a gambling issue in the past. He seems to over it by now, but he still thinks it's fun, specifically Blackjack.

Biography

Sebastian Howard, the producer for the project, personally hired Sam to be the director of GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling). Outside of just taking care of the directing aspect, he also takes charge of the casting initially. At first, he heavily dislikes Ruth Wilder, partly because he's not sure if he finds her pretty or not, and even cuts her out of the line-up after she tries to impress him alongside Carmen Wade, who he spares because she has a famous father in the wrestling world, Goliath Jackson. However, Ruth later comes back in costume to try and win her role back, but Debbie Eagan storms in furious because she found out her husband had been cheating on her with Ruth. The pair ends up fighting and Sam finally sees potential for the wrestling show, not only in Ruth, but also in Debbie.

He hires Ruth back, but asks her about Debbie the very next day. He then leaves the girls to stretch while he goes "have a pee," which is mostly an excuse to rifle through their lockers. Cherry Bang catches him in the act. They bicker in a friendly way, then he keeps rifling through a bag, where he finds a bunch of playbooks and a planner labeled with Ruth's name that he rips a page out of. He leaves Cherry to train the girls while he's gone, then goes to find Debbie.

While Sebastian wants a classic female wrestling show without some complicated storyline, Sam is used to directing his own complicated films — taking little to no advice from other people on set — so he tries to bring that into the project instead. At first, Sebastian pretends to like it, but he encourages the girls to create new characters for themselves at a party in his mansion, which annoys Sam. They end up having a fight about it, but ultimately he apologizes and decides to do it more like Sebastian wants it, as long as he agrees to give him the funds for his next movie, 'Mothers and Lovers'.

He has a teenage daughter, Justine Biagi, who joins GLOW simply to meet him. Prior to her doing so, he had no idea that he had a daughter.

When he believes that the funding for the GLOW program on K-DTV has fallen through, he leaves to wallow in his misery, causing Ruth Wilder to end up overseeing the program despite not being the director. ("Money's in the Chase") This causes resentment when he later returns but she continues to act in this capacity, leading him to believe that his position is in danger. When Reggie Walsh speaks up for her, he fires Reggie. ("Viking Funeral") Together with Bash Howard, he implements a new plan in which only the most creative acts each week end up on the program. He resents it when Debbie Eagan uses her star power to negotiate a producer role on the project, but begins to warm to her when he sees her genuine interest in improving the program. Despite a lingering resentment towards Ruth, he is forced to concede to Bash and Debbie that Ruth and Yolanda Rivas's break-dancing act should be a part of the week's program. ("Candy of the Year")

When GLOW moves to the Fan-Tan Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, he is left with much time to spend working on his personal screenplay project. However, he takes over the role of referee in the program after Keith Bang walks out on Cherry. Meanwhile, he begins developing feelings for Ruth Wilder, but she is reluctant to return them, being in a relationship with Russell Barroso and uncertain about how she really feels about him.

When his daughter shows him her own personal screenplay project, he finds it to be excellent, much better than his own. He decides to help her by shopping the project to various studios. Although they are successful, the stress of his job and his lifestyle of alcohol and cigarettes catches up with him, causing him to have a heart attack. He hides this from Justine.

He encourages Justine to invite Ruth to audition for a role in her screenplay. Though Ruth auditions well, Justine ultimately feels that Ruth is not right for the role. This creates a rift between Sam and Ruth, as she feels he should have fought harder for her and was leading her on.

As a Christmas gift, he presents Justine with adoption papers. Although he is biologically her father, it's not legal because he isn't on her birth certificate. He explains that by adopting her, he can leave an inheritance. She happily accepts and signs the papers.

Behind the scenes

Marc Maron's character, Sam Sylvia was based on the actual creator of Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, Matt Cimber. Cimber is an Italian-American director with a long and pretty successful career as a director. He did mostly blaxploitation films, which Samuel L. Jackson has called some of his favorites. Quentin Tarantino also said that Cimber's films were some of his favorite movies. Cimber was married a few times, including to Jayne Mansfield.

Trivia

• He hates eggs.
• He sprays Drakkar Noir on his clothes when he forgets to do his laundry.