Michael Balcon
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| Michael Balcon | |
|---|---|
| Born | Michael Elias Balcon May 19, 1896 Birmingham, England |
| Died | October 17, 1977 (aged 81) Hartfield, East Sussex, England |
| Years active | 1923 - 1963 |
| Spouse(s) | Aileen Leatherman (m.1924) |
Sir Michael Elias Balcon KBE (19 May 1896–17 October 1977) was a British film producer, known for his work with the Ealing Studios.
Born in Birmingham, Balcon was the youngest son and fourth of five children of Louis Balcon (c.1858–1946) and his wife, Laura Greenberg (c.1863–1934), Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who had met in England. Growing up in a respectable but impoverished setting, in 1907 Balcon won a scholarship to Birmingham's George Dixon Grammar School but had to leave in 1913 due to his family's financial needs. He worked as a jeweller's apprentice, was turned down for service in World War I due to defective eyesight, and in 1915 joined the Dunlop Rubber Company's huge plant at Aston Cross, rising to become personal assistant to the managing director.
After the war, his friend Victor Saville invited him to set up a film distribution company together. They formed Victory Motion Pictures, moving to London in 1921 and opening an office in Soho. In 1923, they produced their first feature film, the hit melodrama Woman to Woman, starring Clive Brook and Betty Compson and directed by Graham Cutts. This success led the duo to lease Islington Studios and form Gainsborough Pictures.
The studio, recently vacated by the Hollywood company Famous Players-Lasky -- later Paramount Pictures -- was small but well equipped and fully staffed. A young Alfred Hitchcock was one of its employees. Balcon gave Hitchock his first directing opportunity, and Gainsborough acquired a reputation for producing high-quality films.
By the late 1920s, Balcon's independence had eroded and Gainsborough became an extension of the Gaumont Film Company empire. Still, between 1931 and 1936, Balcon produced a number of classics, including a string of Hitchcock successes (like The 39 Steps and Man of Aran, known as "Balcon's folly" for going well overbudget. He also helped individuals escape Nazi Germany, including the actor Conrad Veidt. In 1936, with Gaumont looking to break into the Hollywood market, Balcon spent several months in the United States forming links with the big studios. On his return, he found Gaumont in financial ruin and joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that November. The year and a half he spent there was a trying period for Balcon, who clashed frequently with studio head Louis B. Mayer.
When he was invited to head Ealing Studios in 1938, he readily agreed. Under his benevolent leadership and surrounded by a reliable team of directors, writers, technicians and actors, Ealing became the most famous British studio in the world, despite turning out no more than six feature films a year. Went the Day Well?, Dead of Night, and of course the Ealing comedies were released during his time there. Other films from the studio include 1950's Dance Hall with Petula Clark and Diana Dors; and The Blue Lamp, whose lead character, George Dixon, took his name from Balcon's school, and later resurfaced in the long-running television drama Dixon of Dock Green. In his 1969 autobiography, Michael Balcon Presents... A Lifetime of Films, he wrote that his years at Ealing Studios were "the most rewarding years in my personal career, and perhaps one of the most fruitful periods in the history of British film production."
Besides Hitchcock, he worked with Basil Dearden, Michael Relph, and many other British greats of the film world. He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1948. Ealing declined during the 1950s, and Balcon's creative control at other companies waned considerably after it was sold. Still, he was proud to be associated with the British New Wave; the last film on which he worked as executive producer was Tom Jones (1963), after which he continued to encourage young directors, serving as chairman of the British Film Institute production board and funding low-budget experimental work.
Balcon was an avid theatre- and opera-goer, loved travel (especially to Italy), and had a wide circle of friends. In 1977, he died peacefully at Upper Parrock, the fifteenth-century house set on a Sussex hilltop near the Kent border where he and his wife had lived since the Second World War. He was cremated and his ashes buried there.
On April 10, 1924, Balcon married Aileen Freda Leatherman (1904–1988), daughter of Max Jacobs and Beatrice Leatherman, born in Middlesex, but brought up in Johannesburg. In 1946 she was appointed MBE for her war work. Their marriage was happy and lasted until Balcon's death. They had two children: Jill, born 1925, and Jonathan, born 1931. His daughter Jill Balcon became an actress, his son-in-law Cecil Day-Lewis was an Irish-born Poet Laureate, and his grandson is the successful Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis.
[edit] Further reading
- Balcon, Michael: Michael Balcon presents... A Lifetime of Films. London, Hutchinson & Co., 1969. Photo-illustrated autobiography.
