Jill Craigie | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Noreen Jean Craigie (1911-03-07)7 March 1911 London, England |
| Died | 13 December 1999(1999-12-13) (aged 88) London, England |
| Occupation(s) | Documentary filmdirector,screenwriter andfeminist |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 1 |
Noreen Jean "Jill" Craigie (7 March 1911[1] – 13 December 1999)[2] was a Britishdocumentary film director, producer,screenwriter andfeminist. She was one of Britain's earliest female documentary makers.[3] Her early films demonstrate Craigie's interest in socialist and feminist politics, but her career as a film-maker has been "somewhat eclipsed" by her marriage to theLabour Party leaderMichael Foot (1913–2010), whom she met during the making of her filmThe Way We Live (1946).
Born Noreen Jean Craigie[1][4] to a Russian mother and a Scottish father inFulham,London, England, Craigie began her career in film as an actress.
Craigie's engagement in feminist issues came from readingSylvia Pankhurst'sThe Suffragette Movement in the early 1940s.[5] After this she attended a gathering of formersuffragettes to lay flowers on thestatue of Emmeline Pankhurst.[5] She was struck by the suffragettes' story and began interviewing them and starting to lay the groundwork for a documentary of the movement. This never materialized due to thecomplicated internal politics of thesuffrage movement post-campaign.[5] Much of this correspondence can be found in her archives.[6] In latter years, Craigie became an authority on the suffragette movement, holding a large collection offeminist literature in Britain, with pamphlets dating back toJohn Stuart Mill. In 1979, she wrote an introduction to a reprint of Emmeline Pankhurst'sMy Own Story, first published 1914.[7]
Her subsequent films depicted hersocialist andfeminist leanings and dealt with left-wing topics such aschild refugees,working conditions for miners, andgender equality. The British Federation of Business & Professional Women paid Caigie for an Equal Pay Campaign Committee film and her film,To Be A Woman was first screened in 1951.[8] After directing five films and writing two others, Craigie retired from the film business for almost forty years, returning to make a single film forBBC television.[9]
Craigie was one of the scriptwriters ofTrouble in Store,Norman Wisdom's film debut, which screened in December 1953. The film broke box-office records at 51 out of the 67 London cinemas in which it played.[10] After writing the first draft of the script, Craigie reportedly asked that her name be removed from the credits after learning of Wisdom's participation.[11]
Craigie served on the Board of Governors of theBritish Film Institute, having been appointed to the role by theHarold Wilson government.[12]
Craigie had a daughter, Julie, from her first marriage.[1] She and Michael Foot had no children together, but enjoyed family life with Julie and, later, her four children.[citation needed] They lived in a flat inHampstead, north London, and in a cottage inEbbw Vale, Wales.[citation needed] While living in Hampstead, Craigie worked as anAir Raid Precaution Warden during World War II.[1]
In 1998, a biography of the lateHungarian-born writerArthur Koestler byDavid Cesarani alleged that Koestler had been aserial rapist and that Craigie had been one of his victims in 1951. Craigie confirmed the allegations.[13] In a 2009 biography,Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual,Michael Scammell countered that Craigie was the only woman to go on record that she had been raped by Koestler, and had done so at a dinner party many years after the event. Claims that Koestler had been violent were added by Craigie later, although Scammell concedes that Koestler could be rough and sexually aggressive.[citation needed]
Craigie died aged 88 in 1999 ofheart failure at theRoyal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London.[14]
Craigie's films were recognised for their "ability to bring out the best in 'ordinary people'" and the "political commitment".[15] Philip Kemp commented more directly on the political content of Craigie's films, noting that her films were an "example of filmmaking as activism, the creative and political processes intertwining and advancing each other that even theSoviet filmmakers of the 1920s had only rarely achieved."[15]
In 2022, a documentary about her life was released.Independent Miss Craigie was directed by Lizzie Thynne, and is available on BFI player. It is one element in a larger research project designed to bring Craigie to wider scholarly and public attention. "Jill Craigie: Film Pioneer" is based at theUniversity of Sussex and funded by theArts and Humanities Research Council.[16]
The archives of Jill Craigie are held atThe Women's Library at theLibrary of the London School of Economics, ref7JCC.
| Political career |
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| Artists | |
