Jill Craigie

Jill Craigie (7 March 1914, Fulham, London - 13 December 1999, Camden, London) was an English documentary film director, actor and writer, feminist and wife of distinguished Labour Party politician, Michael Foot, whom she met during the making of her film "The Way We Live".

Born to a Russian mother and a Scottish father, Jill Craigie started her career in film as an actress, but the events of the 1930s politicised her and she turned to filmmaking. Her films depicted her socialist leanings and dealt with left-wing topics such as child refugees, working conditions for miners, and gender equality. After directing five films and writing two others, Craigie retired from the film business for almost forty years, returning to make a single film for BBC television.

In latter years Craigie became an authority on the suffragette movement, holding a large collection of feminist literature in Britain, with pamphlets dating back to John Stuart Mill.

Craigie had a daughter, Julie, from her first marriage. She and Foot had no children themselves, but enjoyed family life with Julie and, later, her four children. They lived in a flat in Hampstead, north London, and in a cottage in Ebbw Vale, South Wales.

In 1998, Craigie alleged she had been beaten and raped by the late Hungarian-born writer Arthur Koestler in 1951, shortly after the release of Koestler's biography in which it was alleged he had been a serial rapist.

Craigie died in 1999 of heart failure at the Royal Free Hospital in north west London, aged 85.

Filmography

*"The Flemish Farm" (1943), screenwriter (credited as "Jill Dell")
*"Out of Chaos" (1944)
*"The Way We Live" (1946)
*"Children of the Ruins" (1948)
*"Blue Scar" (1949)
*"To Be a Woman" (1951)
*"The Million Pound Note" (1953), screenwriter
*"Trouble in Store" (1953), uncredited screenwriter
*"Windom's Way" (1957), screenwriter
*"Two Hours from London" (1995)

Further reading

*cite book | author=Macnab, Geoffrey | title=J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry | publisher=Routledge | year=1993| id=ISBN 0-415-07272-7
*cite book | author=Rollyson, Carl | title=To Be A Woman: The Life Of Jill Craigie | publisher=Aurum Press | year=2005| id=ISBN 1-85410-935-9

References

*cite news|publisher=British Film Institute|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/581828/|title=Craigie, Jill|first=Sarah|last=Easen
*cite book|publisher=University of Exeter|title=The Non-Fiction Film in Britain, 1945-51 (unpublished PhD thesis)|first=Leo|last=Enticknap|year=1999
*cite news|url=http://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/archive/f130303_01.htm|title=An independent woman|publisher=Camden New Journal|first=Gerald|last=Isaaman|date=13th March, 2003

External links

*imdb name|name=Jill Craigie|id=0186063
*Screenonline name|id=581828|name=Jill Craigie biography and credits

Persondata
NAME=Craigie, Jill
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Dell, Jill/Foot, Jill (married names)
SHORT DESCRIPTION=British film director
DATE OF BIRTH=7 March 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH=Fulham, London, England
DATE OF DEATH=13 December 1999
PLACE OF DEATH=Camden, London, England