Muriel Box

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Right Honourable
The Lady Gardiner
Born
Violette Muriel Baker

(1905-09-22)22 September 1905
New Malden, Surrey, England, UK
Died18 May 1991(1991-05-18) (aged 85)
Hendon, London, England, UK
Occupation(s)Director, writer, screenwriter
SpousesSydney Box (1935–1969; divorced)
Gerald Gardiner, Baron Gardiner (1970–1990; his death)
Children1 daughter

Violette Muriel Box, Baroness Gardiner, (22 September 1905 – 18 May 1991) was an English screenwriter and director,

Best Original Screenplay
.

Early life

Violette Muriel Baker was born in Simla, Poplar Grove, New Malden, Surrey, on 22 September 1905.[1] She was the third child of Caroline Beatrice (née Doney) (1872–1961) and Charles Stephen Baker (d. 1945). Her mother had been a pupil teacher, a maid, and an assistant in a magic-lantern shop and her father worked as a clerk for the South Western Railway at Waterloo. Her family called young Muriel "Tiggy". She attended St Matthew's School, Tolworth, for her primary school years moving up to Holy Cross Convent in Wimbledon in 1915, but was expelled, mostly as she had not been baptised. She then transferred to Surbiton High School.[3][4] Here she took ballet lessons and studied drama with Sir Ben Greet. In the 1920s she met Joseph Grossman of Stoll Pictures which led to work as an extra in The Wandering Jew and in the thriller series The Old Man in the Corner.

In 1929, Baker left a typing job at Barcley Corsets in Welwyn Garden City, for the scenario department of British Instructional Pictures. As talkies were introduced, Barker was given the task of reading unsolicited manuscripts which led to her developing story writing and dialogue skills. She landed a job as continuity clerk on Anthony Asquith's Tell England (1931). She moved to British International Pictures at Elstree, where she worked on Alfred Hitchcock's Number Seventeen (1932).[3]

Career

In 1935, she met and married journalist

Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay in the following year.[6][7]

After the war, the

illegitimacy and syphilis — consequently, several of her films were banned by local authorities.[7]

She pursued her favourite subject – the female experience – in a number of films, including

Somerset Maugham's The Beachcomber (1954), with Donald Sinden and Glynis Johns as a resourceful missionary, again working with Donald Sinden on Eyewitness (1956) and a series of comedies about the battle of the sexes, including The Passionate Stranger (1957), The Truth About Women (1958) and her final film, Rattle of a Simple Man (1964).[8][9]

Box often experienced prejudice in a male-dominated industry, especially hurtful when perpetrated by another woman. Jean Simmons had her replaced on So Long at the Fair (1950), and Kay Kendall unsuccessfully attempted to do the same with Simon and Laura (1955). Many producers questioned her competence to direct large-scale feature films, and while the press was quick to note her position as one of very few women directors in the British film industry, their tone tended to be condescending rather than filled with praise.[7]

Later years

Muriel Box left film-making to write novels and created a successful publishing house, Femina, which proved to be a rewarding outlet for her feminism.[10] She published her memoirs, Odd Woman Out, in 1974,[11] and published Rebel Advocate, a biography of her second husband, Gerald Gardiner, in 1983.[12]

Personal life

She married Sydney Box in 1935 and gave birth to a daughter, Leonora the following year. They divorced in 1969.[13] Her sister-in-law Betty Box was Head of Production at the Gainsborough Pictures studio in Poole Street, Hoxton, and her brother-in-law through Betty was Peter Rogers, producer of the Carry On series of British comedy films.[14] In 1970, she married Gerald Austin Gardiner, who had been Lord Chancellor, who died in 1990. She died in Mote End, Nan Clark's Lane, Mill Hill, Hendon, Barnet, London[3] on 18 May 1991, aged 85.[1]

Daughter

Leonora went on to study at the Royal Academy from 30 September 1957 until December 1960, exhibiting at both the 1959[15] and 1960[16] Royal Academy of Arts Exhibitions, while living at Pond Cottage, Nan-Clark's Lane, Mill Hill NW7.[17]

Filmography

Screenwriting credits

Directing credits

References

  1. ^ a b c "Muriel Box". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016.
  2. ^ Young, Neil (24 October 2018). "The delights of Muriel Box". British Film Institute.
  3. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/49588. Retrieved 19 February 2023. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  4. ISBN 9780710809704
    – via Google Books.
  5. ^ "BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Carol and Muriel". BBC. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
  6. ^ "Muriel Box - Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos - AllMovie". AllMovie.
  7. ^ a b c d "BFI Screenonline: Box, Muriel (1905-1991) Biography". screenonline.org.uk.
  8. ^ Rachel Cooke (5 October 2013). "Power women of the 1950s: Muriel and Betty Box". the Guardian.
  9. ISSN 0029-7712
    . Retrieved 19 February 2023.
  10. ^ "Muriel Box Films - Muriel Box Filmography - Muriel Box Biography - Muriel Box Career - Muriel Box Awards". filmdirectorssite.com. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015.
  11. OCLC 1341873
    .
  12. OCLC 9668786
    .
  13. ^ "Power women of the 1950s: Muriel and Betty Box". the Guardian. 5 October 2013. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  14. ^ "Producers run in Box family". Australian Women's Weekly. 29 March 1947. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
  15. ^ "1959 Changing Times". chronicle250.com. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  16. ^ "1960 Dod Procter's Jamaican Girl". chronicle250.com. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  17. ^ "Leonora Box | Artist | Royal Academy of Arts". www.royalacademy.org.uk. Retrieved 15 July 2021.

Sources

  • Odd Woman Out by Muriel Box, published by Leslie Frewin, London, 1974
  • Gainsborough Melodrama, edited by Sue Aspinall and Robert Murphy, published by the British Film Institute, London, 1983

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Muriel_Box&oldid=1218051016"