Dilys Powell

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in 1984 Lucinda Douglas-Menzies / National Portrait Gallery

Elizabeth Dilys Powell, CBE (20 July 1901 � 3 June 1995) was an English journalist
who wrote for The Sunday Times for over fifty years. Powell was best known as a
film critic, noted for her receptiveness to cultural change in the cinema, and she
coined many classic phrases about films and actors. She was also one of the founder
members of the Independent Television Authority (ITA), which launched commercial TV
in the UK.

Contents [hide]
1 Early life and education
2 Career
3 Publications
4 References
5 Sources
Early life and education[edit]
Born in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, to Thomas Powell, a bank manager, and Mary Jane
Lloyd, Dilys Powell attended Talbot Heath School, Bournemouth before winning a
scholarship to read modern languages at Somerville College, Oxford.[1] Powell was
in a significant minority of women studying at Oxford at that time.[1]

Powell considered studying Classics (or Greats) at Oxford University, but she was
advised against it by her brother: '"Don't" he said; "the classics are a terrible
grind for a girl, and you will be prematurely wrinkled."'[2] Powell took his
advice, but later regretted it, feeling that she had been robbed of 'deep and solid
pleasures', having 'small Latin...and, goodness knows, less Greek'.[3]

At Oxford she met an archaeologist, Humfry Payne (19 February 1902 � 9 May 1936),
whom she married in 1926. Whilst studying at Oxford she made news headlines in the
Daily Mail after being 'taken out for tea' and climbing over the wall to go out
with her boyfriend, whom she would later marry. She was rusticated for two terms,
and the Principal accused of her 'dragging the name of Somerville in the dust'.[1]
She graduated with a first-class honours degree.[1]

Career[edit]
After her graduation, Powell spent a period as personal assistant to Lady Ottoline
Morrell before joining the literary department of The Sunday Times in 1928.

In 1929 her husband Humfry Payne was appointed director of the British School of
Archaeology at Athens. From 1931 to 1936, Powell spent part of each year in Greece,
frequently attending excavations where her husband was working. Payne died in
Athens in 1936 from a staphylococcus infection. They had no children.

She continued her periodic visits to Greece after 1936, until the Second World War
intervened. In 1939 Powell was appointed film critic at The Sunday Times, and in
1941 she found war work with a Greek connection in the Political Warfare Executive,
which oversaw Britain's propaganda in occupied Europe. In June 1943 she married
Leonard Russell (1906�1974), the literary editor at The Sunday Times.[4]

Powell was one of the founder members of the Independent Television Authority (ITA)
from 1954, despite initial concerns about her possible conflicts of interest (she
wrote for a newspaper that was backing one of the ITV franchises, but its bid was
eventually withdrawn). She resigned her post at the ITA in 1956 in protest at the
government's refusal to come up with funding which it had promised to the authority
in the Television Act 1954.
Her journalism led a change in the writing of cinema criticism. To quote from the
British Film Institute: "... she was open to new directions in cinema and was not
constrained by the middle class shibboleths of "good taste", unlike her rival C. A.
Lejeune, film critic for The Observer from 1928 to 1960." She remained film critic
at The Sunday Times until 1979 � a compilation of her reviews was published in 1989
as The Golden Screen � but from 1976 she also began writing about films on
television, which she continued to do until the end of her life. Her last piece, a
review of Barry Lyndon, appeared in The Times on the day of her death. She also
served as film critic for Punch until its first closure in 1992.[5][6]

Powell was a Philhellene, excavating ancient sites in Greece and Egypt.[2] She was
appointed as President of the Classical Association in 1966, giving her
presidential address at the University of Reading on 5th April 1967. She was only
the second woman President of the Classical Association, following Professor
Dorothy Tarrant (President 1958-9). Powell was made an Honorary Fellow of
Somerville College, Oxford University, in 1991.[7]

She had a gift for the pithy comment, and her memorable phrases about films and the
people of the film world are still frequently quoted by other journalists. In
addition to her journalism she appeared on radio, as a contestant on the BBC radio
panel game My Word!, for nearly thirty years and wrote books about film and travel,
particularly about Greece.

In 1991 the Dilys Powell Award was established in her honour, awarded annually and
in that year to Humphrey Bogart. Recipients have included Helena Bonham Carter,
Kristen Scott Thomas and Judi Dench.

Publications[edit]
Descent from Parnassus (1934), London: Cresset Press (essays on modern poets)
Remember Greece (1941), London: Hodder & Stoughton
The Traveller�s Journey is Done (1943), London: Hodder & Stoughton (Humfry Payne at
the British School of Archaeology at Athens)
Films since 1939 (1947), London: Longmans, Green & Co (for the British Council)
Coco (1952), London: Hodder & Stoughton (biography of a dog)
An Affair of the Heart (1958), London: Hodder & Stoughton
The Mirror of the Present (1967), London: John Murray (presidential address to the
Classical Association at the University of Reading)
The Villa Ariadne (1973), London: Hodder and Stoughton. New edition by Eland in
2016: ISBN 978-1-78060-035-2
The Golden Screen: Fifty Years at the Films (1989), London: Pavilion, ISBN 1-85145-
342-3 (ed. George Perry)
The Dilys Powell film reader (1991), Manchester: Carcanet, ISBN 0-85635-912-2
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b c d "Dilys Powell, Desert Island Discs - BBC Radio 4". BBC.
Retrieved 2017-11-22.
^ Jump up to: a b Powell, Dilys (2003). "The Mirror of the Present". Greece & Rome.
50: 237�249. doi:10.2307/3567848.
Jump up ^ Powell, Dilys (2003). "The Mirror of the Present". Greece & Rome. 50:
237�249. doi:10.2307/3567848.
Jump up ^ Haag, M (5 June 1995). Obituary: Dilys Powell. The Independent archive
Archived 16 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine.. Retrieved 21 March 2013
Jump up ^ Haag, Michael (5 June 1995). "OBITUARY: Dilys Powell". The Independent.
U.K.
Jump up ^ "Dilys Powell, Film Critic, 93". The New York Times. 6 June 1995.
Jump up ^ "OBITUARY:Dilys Powell". The Independent. 1995-06-05. Retrieved 2017-11-
22.
Sources[edit]
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: OUP (2004).
Powell, Dilys, (1958), An Affair of the Heart, London: Hodder & Stoughton.
British Film Institute biography (retrieved 2 February 2006)
The British Library Catalogue
Sendall, Bernard Independent Television in Britain: Volume 1 � Origin and
Foundation 1946�62 London: The Macmillan Press Ltd 1982 (reprinted 1984) ISBN 0-
333-30941-3
Authority control
WorldCat Identities VIAF: 29919407 LCCN: n50020128 ISNI: 0000 0001 0962 5718 GND:
1025549783 SUDOC: 146247949 BNF: cb14863870f (data) BIBSYS: 90825366
Categories: 1901 births1995 deathsAlumni of Somerville College, OxfordEnglish film
criticsEnglish women journalistsEnglish radio personalitiesPeople educated at
Talbot Heath SchoolPeople from BournemouthPeople from BridgnorthThe Sunday Times
peopleEnglish film peopleWomen film critics20th-century women writers20th-century
writersCommanders of the Order of the British Empire
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