Michael Balcon

Influential production executive who gave Alfred Hitchcock his first solo directing job ("The Pleasure Garden" 1925) and later founded Gainsborough Pictures, which produced many of Hitchcock's early classics as well as Robert Flaherty's "Man of Aran" (1933). He also headed Gaumont-British and MGM-British during the 1930s and helmed Ealing Studios from 1937 till 1959, during which time it produced the famous postwar series of comedies including "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (1949), "Whisky Galore" (1949), "The Man in the White Suit" (1951) and "The Lavender Hill Mob" (1952). Balcon later founded Bryanston Films, and took over production at British-Lion in 1964 after a much-publicized battle. Father of former actress Jill Balcon, whose son is actor Daniel Day-Lewis.