Jill Balcon - Biography

Jill Angela Henriette Balcon (3 January 192518 July 2009) was an English film and radio actress. She made her film debut in Nicholas Nickleby (1947), though she was best known for her stage, television, and radio work.

Daughter of Michael Balcon and Aileen Freda Leatherman (1904–1988), she was born in Westminster, London to a Jewish family that originated in the Baltics. and attended Roedean.

In 1951, Balcon married Irish poet Cecil Day-Lewis, who was 21 years her senior and was married when they began their relationship. He was dividing his time between his mistress Rosamond Lehmann in Oxfordshire, his wife, Mary Day-Lewis, and their two teenage sons, in Devon.

Cecil Day-Lewis broke with both his wife and his mistress to be with Balcon for the remainder of his life (although reputedly he was no more faithful to Balcon than he had been to his first wife and to Lehmann). Balcon was cut off by her father when she married Day-Lewis in 1951. Cecil Day-Lewis and Jill Balcon had two children: actor Daniel Day-Lewis and documentary filmmaker/television chef Tamasin Day-Lewis.

Death

Jill Balcon died of a brain tumour on 18 July 2009, aged 84.

External links

• Jill Balcon biography and credits at BFI Screenonline
• Interview with Jill Balcon, The Observer (2007)