The Lady Gardiner | |
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| Born | Violette Muriel Baker (1905-09-22)22 September 1905 New Malden, Surrey, England, UK |
| Died | 18 May 1991(1991-05-18) (aged 85) Hendon, London, England, UK |
| Occupation(s) | Director, writer, screenwriter |
| Spouses | Sydney Box (1935–1969; divorced) Gerald Gardiner, Baron Gardiner (1970–1990; his death) |
| Children | 1 daughter |
Violette Muriel Box, Baroness Gardiner, (22 September 1905 – 18 May 1991) was an English screenwriter and director,[1] Britain's most prolific female director, having directed 12 feature films and one featurette.[2] Her screenplay forThe Seventh Veil (co-written with husbandSydney Box) won anAcademy Award forBest Original Screenplay.
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 apupil teacher, a maid, and an assistant in amagic lantern shop. Her father worked as a clerk for theSouth Western Railway atWaterloo. 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 toSurbiton High School.[3][4] Here she took ballet lessons and studied drama with SirBen Greet. In the 1920s, she metJoseph Grossman ofStoll Pictures which led to work as an extra inThe Wandering Jew and in the thriller seriesThe Old Man in the Corner.[citation needed]
In 1929, Baker left a typing job at Barcley Corsets in Welwyn Garden City, for the scenario department of British Instructional Pictures. Astalkies 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 onAnthony Asquith'sTell England (1931). She moved toBritish International Pictures atElstree, where she worked on Alfred Hitchcock'sNumber Seventeen (1932).[3]
In 1935, she met and married journalistSydney Box, with whom she collaborated on nearly forty plays with mainly female roles for amateur theatre groups.[5] Their production company,Verity Films, first released short wartime propaganda films, includingThe English Inn (1941), her first directing effort, after which it branched into fiction. The couple achieved their greatest joint success withThe Seventh Veil (1945) for which they gained theAcademy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay in the following year.[6][7]
After the war, theRank Organisation hired her husband to headGainsborough Pictures, where she was in charge of the scenario department, writing scripts for a number of light comedies, including two for child starPetula Clark,Easy Money andHere Come the Huggetts (both 1948). Muriel Box occasionally assisted as a dialogue director, or re-shot scenes during post-production. Her extensive work onThe Lost People (1949) gained her a credit as co-director, her first for a full-length feature.[7] In 1951, her husband createdLondon Independent Producers, allowing Box more opportunities to direct. Many of her early films were adaptations of plays, and as such felt stage-bound. They were noteworthy more for their strong performances than they were for a distinctive directorial style. She favoured scripts with topical and frequently controversial themes, including Irish politics, teenage sex, abortion,illegitimacy andsyphilis — consequently, several of her films were banned by local authorities.[7]
She pursued her favourite subject – the female experience – in a number of films, includingStreet Corner (1953) about women police officers,Somerset Maugham'sThe Beachcomber (1954), withDonald Sinden andGlynis Johns as a resourceful missionary, again working with Donald Sinden onEyewitness (1956) and a series of comedies about the battle of the sexes, includingThe 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 onSo Long at the Fair (1950), andKay Kendall unsuccessfully attempted to do the same withSimon 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]
Muriel Box left film-making to write novels and created a successful publishing house,Femina, which proved to be a rewarding outlet for herfeminism.[10] She published her memoirs,Odd Woman Out, in 1974,[11] and publishedRebel Advocate, a biography of her second husband, Gerald Gardiner, in 1983.[12]
She marriedSydney Box in 1935 and gave birth to a daughter, Leonora the following year. They divorced in 1969.[13] Her sister-in-lawBetty Box was Head of Production at theGainsborough Pictures studio in Poole Street,Hoxton, and her brother-in-law through Betty wasPeter Rogers, producer of theCarry On series of British comedy films.[14] In 1970, she marriedGerald Austin Gardiner, who had beenLord 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]
Leonora went on to study at theRoyal 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]
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