Muriel Box#Daughter

Violette Muriel Baker was born in Simla, Poplar Grove, New Malden, Surrey, on 22 September 1905. 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. 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.{{Cite ODNB |title=Box [née Baker], (Violette) Muriel [other married name (Violette) Muriel Gardiner, Lady Gardiner] (1905–1991), screenwriter and film director |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-49588 |access-date=2023-02-19 |date=2004 |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/49588}}{{Cite book |last1=Burnett |first1=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-mwtAQAAIAAJ&q=surbiton+high |title=The Autobiography of the Working Class: An Annotated, Critical Bibliography |last2=Vincent |first2=David |last3=Mayall |first3=David |date=2 March 1984 |publisher=Harvester Press |isbn=9780710809704 |via=Google Books}} 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.{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}}

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).

In 1935, she met and married journalist Sydney Box, with whom she collaborated on nearly forty plays with mainly female roles for amateur theatre groups.{{cite web |title=BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Carol and Muriel |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001jcln |access-date=2023-02-19 |website=BBC |language=en-GB}} Their production company, Verity Films, first released short wartime propaganda films, including The English Inn (1941), her first directing effort, after which it branched into fiction. The couple achieved their greatest joint success with The Seventh Veil (1945) for which they gained the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay in the following year.{{cite web|url=http://www.allmovie.com/artist/muriel-box-p82649|title=Muriel Box - Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos - AllMovie|work=AllMovie}}{{cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/479374/|title=BFI Screenonline: Box, Muriel (1905-1991) Biography|work=screenonline.org.uk}}

After the war, the Rank Organisation hired her husband to head Gainsborough Pictures, where she was in charge of the scenario department, writing scripts for a number of light comedies, including two for child star Petula Clark, Easy Money and Here Come the Huggetts (both 1948). Muriel Box occasionally assisted as a dialogue director, or re-shot scenes during post-production. Her extensive work on The Lost People (1949) gained her a credit as co-director, her first for a full-length feature. In 1951, her husband created London 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 and syphilis — consequently, several of her films were banned by local authorities.

She pursued her favourite subject – the female experience – in a number of films, including Street Corner (1953) about women police officers, 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).{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/06/women-muriel-betty-box-rachel-cooke-film|title=Power women of the 1950s: Muriel and Betty Box|author=Rachel Cooke|work=the Guardian|date=5 October 2013 }}{{Cite news |last=Morley |first=Carol |date=2023-02-19 |title=Who was Muriel Box, Britain's most prolific female film director? |language=en-GB |work=The Observer |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/feb/19/muriel-box-female-film-director-carol-morley-sunday-feature |access-date=2023-02-19 |issn=0029-7712}}

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.

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.{{cite web|url=http://www.filmdirectorssite.com/muriel-box|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208150400/http://www.filmdirectorssite.com/muriel-box|url-status=dead|archive-date=2015-12-08|title=Muriel Box Films - Muriel Box Filmography - Muriel Box Biography - Muriel Box Career - Muriel Box Awards|work=filmdirectorssite.com}} She published her memoirs, Odd Woman Out, in 1974,{{cite book |last=Box |first=Muriel |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1341873 |title=Odd woman out : an autobiography |date=1974 |publisher=Frewin |isbn=0-85632-090-0 |location=London |oclc=1341873}} and published Rebel Advocate, a biography of her second husband, Gerald Gardiner, in 1983.{{cite book |last=Box |first=Muriel |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9668786 |title=Rebel advocate : a biography of Gerald Gardiner |date=1983 |publisher=Gollancz |isbn=0-575-03269-3 |location=London |oclc=9668786}}

She married Sydney Box in 1935 and gave birth to a daughter, Leonora the following year. They divorced in 1969.{{cite web|date=2013-10-05|title=Power women of the 1950s: Muriel and Betty Box|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/06/women-muriel-betty-box-rachel-cooke-film|access-date=2021-07-15|website=the Guardian}} 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.{{cite news |date=1947-03-29 |title=Producers run in Box family |work=Australian Women's Weekly |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51389240 |access-date=2023-02-19}} 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 on 18 May 1991, aged 85.

Leonora went on to study at the Royal Academy from 30 September 1957 until December 1960, exhibiting at both the 1959{{cite web|title=1959 Changing Times|url=https://chronicle250.com/1959#catalogue=leonora+box|access-date=2021-07-15|website=chronicle250.com}} and 1960{{cite web|title=1960 Dod Procter's Jamaican Girl|url=https://chronicle250.com/1960#catalogue=leonora+box|access-date=2021-07-15|website=chronicle250.com}} Royal Academy of Arts Exhibitions, while living at Pond Cottage, Nan-Clark's Lane, Mill Hill NW7.{{cite web|title=Leonora Box {{!}} Artist {{!}} Royal Academy of Arts|url=https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/leonora-box|access-date=2021-07-15|website=www.royalacademy.org.uk}}

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• Too Young to Love (1960)
• The Truth About Women (1957)
• The Passionate Stranger (1957)
• Street Corner (1953)
• The Happy Family (1952)
• Christopher Columbus (1949)
• Here Come the Huggetts (1948)
• The Blind Goddess (1948)
• Daybreak (1948)
• Good-Time Girl (1948)
• Easy Money (1948)
• Portrait from Life (1948)
• When the Bough Breaks (1947)
• Holiday Camp (1947)
• Dear Murderer (1947)
• The Brothers (1947)
• The Man Within (1947)
• A Girl in a Million (1946)
• The Years Between (1946)
• The Seventh Veil (1945)
• 29 Acacia Avenue (1945)
• Alibi Inn (1935)

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• Rattle of a Simple Man (1964)
• The Piper's Tune (1962, featurette for Children's Film Foundation
• Too Young to Love (1960)
• Subway in the Sky (1959)
• This Other Eden (1959)
• The Truth About Women (1957)
• The Passionate Stranger (1957)
• Eyewitness (1956)
• Simon and Laura (1955)
• To Dorothy a Son (1954)
• The Beachcomber (1954)
• A Prince for Cynthia (1953, short)
• Street Corner (1953)
• The Happy Family (1952)
• The Lost People (1949)
• The English Inn (1941, documentary short [credited as Muriel Baker])

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{{reflist}}

• 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

• {{IMDb name | id = 0101504 | name = Muriel Box }}
• {{cite web|url= https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/muriel-box-career-retrospective-san-sebastian-truth-women-passionate-stranger-seventh-veil-happy-family|title= The delights of Muriel Box|date= 3 February 2023}} Sight & Sound festival retrospective report by Neil Young
• Muriel Box (Senses of Cinema Great Directors) by Melanie Williams https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2024/great-directors/box-muriel/
• Spotlight: Muriel Box by Melanie Williams https://www.invisible-women.co.uk/post/spotlight-muriel-box
• How Muriel Box broke down doors by Josephine Botting https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/how-muriel-box-broke-down-doors-female-directors-britain

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Category:1905 births

Category:1991 deaths

Category:20th-century English businesspeople

Category:20th-century English memoirists

Category:20th-century English screenwriters

Category:20th-century English women writers

Category:Best Original Screenplay Academy Award winners

Category:English film directors

Category:English film producers

Category:English women film directors

Category:British women screenwriters

Gardiner

Category:British women memoirists

Category:Spouses of life peers

Category:People educated at Surbiton High School

Category:People from New Malden

Category:People from Tolworth

Category:Writers from the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames