Benn Levy

Benn Wolfe Levy (7 March 1900 – 7 December 1973) was a Labour Party Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. He was educated at Repton School and University College, Oxford and served in uniform in both World Wars.

Parliamentarian

Levy was first elected at the 1945 general election, for the Eton and Slough constituency, and stood down at the 1950 general election. Politically, Levy was to the left of the Labour Party (including being an active member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament); as a sympathiser with the Zionist movement, he also opposed Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin over Bevin's policies towards Palestine and Israel.

Playwright

Outside politics, Levy was a successful playwright who also wrote (and on occasion directed) for the movies. He was married for more than 40 years to the American-born screen and stage actress Constance Cummings; they had one daughter and one son. As an MP, Levy made an unsuccessful effort to abolish theatrical censorship in Britain, and towards the end of his life, he was the principal author of a report opposing the arguments for censorship made by Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford.

Levy's papers are held at the University of Sussex library.

Plays written by Levy:

• This Woman Business - 1925
• Mud and Treacle - 1928
• A Man with Red Hair - 1928
• Mrs Moonlight - 1928
• Art and Mrs Bottle - 1929
• Topaz - 1930
• Ever Green - 1930
• Springtime for Henry - 1931
• Hollywood Holiday - with John van Druten, 1931
• The Devil Passes - 1932
• Young Madame Conti - with Hubert Griffiths, 1936
• Madame Bovary - 1937
• If I Were You - 1938
• The Jealous God - 1939
• Clutterbuck - 1946
• Rape of the Belt - 1957

Selected filmography

Director

• Lord Camber's Ladies (1932) produced by Alfred Hitchcock

Screenplay writer

• The Informer (1929)
• Devil and the Deep (1932)
• The Old Dark House (1932) directed by James Whale
• Unfinished Symphony (1934) directed by Anthony Asquith

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Mrs. Moonlight on Lux Radio Theater: June 26, 1939
• Mrs. Moonlight on Theater of Romance: August 30, 1943
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Benn Levy