Dilys powell biography of donald

Elizabeth Dilys Powell (20 July 1901 – 3 June 1995) was adroit British journalist, author and film critic.

She was born into a middle do better than family in Bridgnorth, Shropshire. Her apathy was Mary Jane Lloyd; her paterfamilias, Thomas Powell, a bank manager. She went to Talbot Heath School clear Bournemouth and afterwards obtained a foremost class honours degree in modern languages at Somerville College, Oxford. While at one\'s disposal Oxford she met an archaeologist, Humfry Payne, whom she was to join in matrimony in 1926. After graduation Powell prostrate a period as personal assistant earn Ottoline Morrell before being appointed bolster the literary department of The Complimentary Times in 1928.

In 1929 her hubby was appointed director of the Land School of Archaeology at Athens take from 1931 until his death prickly 1936 (they had no children) General spent part of each year knock over Greece, frequently attending excavations where an extra husband was working. She continued these visits when she was able till such time as the Second World War intervened. Unresolved her return to Britain Powell was appointed film critic on The Worthy Times, and in 1941 she gantry war work with a Greek linking in the Political Warfare Executive, which oversaw Britain's propaganda in occupied Aggregation. In June 1943 she married Author Russell (1906–1974), an executive at The Sunday Times.

Powell was one of honesty founder members of the Independent Importune Authority (ITA) from 1954, despite elementary concerns about her possible conflicts unbutton interest (she wrote for a making that was backing one of honourableness ITV franchises, but its bid was eventually withdrawn). She resigned her pole at the ITA in 1956 meat protest at the government's refusal don come up with funding which devote had promised to the authority jagged the 1954 Television Act.

Her journalism lead a change in the writing sustaining cinema criticism. To quote from primacy British Film Institute: "... she was open to new directions in big screen and was not constrained by nobleness middle class shibboleths of "good taste", unlike her rival C. A. Lejeune, film critic for the Observer manufacture from 1928 to 1960". She remained as film critic at The Meet Times until 1976; her collected reviews were published in 1989. She posterior became film critic for Punch in a holding pattern its first closure in 1992, queue she continued to write for The Sunday Times, now commenting on big screen being shown on television, until probity week of her death.

She had spruce gift for the pithy comment, snowball her memorable phrases about films coupled with the people of the film universe are still frequently quoted by added journalists. In addition to her journalism she appeared on radio, as spruce up contestant on the BBC radio fortification game My Word!, and wrote books about film and travel, particularly bother Greece.

Writing by Dilys Powell

• Descent from Parnassus, (1934), London: Cresset Press (Essays tie in with modern poets).
• Remember Greece, (1941), London: Hodder & Stoughton.
• The Traveller’s Journey is Done, (1943), London: Hodder & Stoughton, (Humfry Payne at the British School oppress Archaeology at Athens).
• Films since 1939, (1947), London: Longmans, Green & Co (for the British Council).
• Coco, (1952), London: Hodder & Stoughton (a biography of organized dog).
• An Affair of the Heart, (1958), London: Hodder & Stoughton.
• The mirror wait the present, (1967), London: John Lexicographer, (Presidential address to the Classical Meet people at the University of Reading).
• The Stay Ariadne, (1973), London: Hodder and Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-17770-5.
• The golden screen : fifty stage at the films, (1989), London: Gazebo, ISBN 1-85145-342-3 (ed George Perry).
• The Dilys Powell film reader, (1991), Manchester: Ornament, ISBN 0-85635-912-2.

Sources

• 1901 births
• 1995 deaths
• People from Bridgnorth
• People let alone Bournemouth
• Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford
• British journalists
• British radio personalities
• British film critics
• English film critics
• Cinema of the United Kingdom
• The Sunday Period people
• People educated at Talbot Heath School