Michael Balcon

Born in Birmingham, Balcon was the youngest son and fourth of five children of Louis Balcon c. 1858–1946 and his wife, Laura (née Greenberg; c. 1863–1934), Lithuanian Jewish immigrants from Latvia (then part of the Russian Empire) who had met in Britain. 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 owing to his family's financial needs. A commemorative plaque was subsequently placed at George Dixon Grammar School, marking his notability as a film producer.[2] He worked as a jeweller's apprentice, was turned down for service in the First World War because of defective eyesight, and joined the Dunlop Rubber Company's huge plant at Aston Cross in 1915, rising to become personal assistant to the managing director.

Green plaque on Balcon's house in Tufton Street, Westminster[3]

Balcon began his career in filmmaking during the 1920s and, together with Victor Saville and John Freedman, he formed Balcon, Freedman & Saville. After the war, Balcon's friend Victor Saville suggested a partnership to establish a film distribution company for the new and growing industry. The company, Victory Motion Pictures, led to them settling in London, opening an office in Soho in 1921. In 1923, their first feature film was released, the successful melodrama Woman to Woman, starring Clive Brook and Betty Compson, and directed by Graham Cutts. They leased Islington Studios and formed the more long-lasting Gainsborough Pictures.

Rouben Mamoulian, Miriam Hopkins, visitor Michael Balcon, and Kenneth Macgowan on the set of Becky Sharp (1935)

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 Hitchcock his first directing opportunity, and Gainsborough gained a reputation for producing high-quality films.

English Heritage blue plaque on the front wall of the White Lodge at Ealing Studios, Ealing Green.[4]

When Balcon was invited by an old associate of his, Reginald Baker, 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, Undercover (1943), and the Ealing Comedies were released during his time there. Other films from the studio include Dance Hall (1950) with Petula Clark and Diana Dors; and The Blue Lamp (also 1950), whose lead character, George Dixon, was named after Balcon's grammar school. This character was later used 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, Balcon worked with Basil Dearden, Michael Relph and many other significant figures of British film. He was knighted in 1948 for his services to the industry.

In 1944, Ealing Studios was taken over by the Rank Organisation. In 1955 Rank sold the studio to the BBC. As a result, Balcon left Rank in 1956 and set up the production company Ealing Films, striking a distribution and production deal with MGM. Balcon's company would shoot films at MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood and MGM would handle the worldwide distribution of the films.

In 1959 Balcon became chairman of Bryanston Films, a subsidiary of British Lion Films.[5] The firm went bankrupt in 1963. Balcon took over British Lion Films.[6] 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 published one book and many articles, including:

• Realism or Tinsel? (1943)
• The Producer (1945)
• Twenty Years of British Film 1925–1945 (1947)
• Film Production and Management (1950)
• Michael Balcon Presents… A Lifetime of Films (1969) (his autobiography)

A pub in Ealing is named in his honour.[7] The BAFTA for Outstanding Contribution to British Film is presented every year in honour of Balcon's memory.[8]

In 1938, Balcon wrote an article in The Cine-Technician, the journal of the filmmakers union, titled 'I wish I could join' in which he criticised the working condition under which films were made and was instrumental in improving these conditions and increasing the salaries of people working on film sets.[9]

Balcon was knighted in 1948.[1]

On 10 April 1924, Balcon married Aileen Freda Leatherman (1904–1988), daughter of Max Jacobs and Beatrice Leatherman, whose families were Jewish immigrants from Poland. She was born in Middlesex, but brought up in Johannesburg, South Africa. The couple enjoyed theatre and opera, loved travel (especially to Italy), and had a wide circle of friends. Lady Balcon was one of a series of society beauties photographed as classical figures by Madame Yevonde.[10] They had two children: Jill (1925–2009), and Jonathan (1931–2012).

In 1946, Aileen was appointed an MBE for her war work.[11]

Their daughter Jill Balcon became an actress.[12] She met Anglo-Irish poet, Cecil Day-Lewis, and the two started a relationship, marrying in 1951. (He was twenty years older than she and already married when they met. He had two teenage sons, and a mistress.) Michael Balcon was deeply unhappy about the marriage, and became estranged from his daughter as a result.[13]

Day-Lewis later was appointed as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.[14] They had two children together (Michael and Aileen's grandchildren): Tamasin Day-Lewis, who became a food critic and television chef, and Daniel Day-Lewis, who became an actor. He has won three Academy Awards in addition to many other awards.[15]

In 1977, Balcon died at Upper Parrock, a 15th-century house set on a Sussex hilltop near the Kent border.[1] He and his wife had lived there since the Second World War. He was cremated and his ashes buried there.

He was a life-long friend of director Charles Frend with whom he collaborated on a number of Ealing Studio films.[16]

• Balcon, Michael (1969). Michael Balcon presents... A Lifetime of Films (autobiography). London. Hutchinson & Co
• Duguid, Mark and others (ed.) (2012). Ealing Revisited. BFI

Wikiquote has quotations related to Michael Balcon.

• Michael Balcon biography and credits at BFI Screenonline
• Michael Balcon in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Michael Balcon at IMDb
• personal history of his father by Jonathan Balcon on British Entertainment History Project