Balcon, Sir Michael

Balcon, Sir Michael (1896-1977), British production executive. Born in Birmingham, he entered the film industry as a distributor in 1919. Balcon's first film as a producer, Woman to Woman (1923), and those that followed, were successful, and he jointly founded Gainsborough Pictures in 1924, then Gainsborough Pictures Inc. in 1928. In 1931 he moved to Gaumont-British, which became Gainsborough's parent company. Gainsborough's output included the musicals of Jessie Matthews and the thrillers directed by Alfred Hitchcock, which made both artists significant names in the United States.

In 1936 Balcon was poached by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), then starting up its British operation, but it was an unhappy situation for both. In 1937 he moved to a studio named ATP, which, under his aegis, was renamed Ealing Studios and increasingly encouraged new writers and directors. The advent of war in 1939 convinced him that Ealing should extol the British way of life, but the studio's contribution to the war effort was hit and miss. It did not become distinctively “Ealing” until Dead of Night (1945), a collection of ghost stories, followed by The Captive Heart (1946), a story of prisoners of war, and Hue and Cry (1947). The latter led to Passport to Pimlico,Whisky Galore, and Kind Hearts and Coronets (all 1949), which initiated the outstanding films that came to be known as Ealing Comedies. Quarrels with the Rank Organization, which released Ealing's films, brought about its demise, but Balcon remained influential in the industry until the 1960s. He received a knighthood in 1948 and published his memoirs, A Lifetime of Films, in 1969.