Benn W. Levy (1900-1973) was for many years active as a playwright and as a director of his own and other people's plays. For nearly five years, from 1945 to 1950, he was Labour MP for the Eton and Slough Division of Buckinghamshire. His his plays include: Hollywood Holiday, Springtime for Henry, Clulterbuck, Mrs. Moonlight, and Art and Mrs. Bottle. Additionally, he wrote dialogue for flims, including Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail, usually accounted the first of British talking films, and for UFA in pre-Hitler Germany. In 1933 he married the American actress Constance Cummings, who was already established in the United States in plays and films. The following year he directed her on her first stage appearance in London. He directed her again in New York in his adaptation of Madame Bovary, and in London, in conjunction with William Armstrong, in the American comedy Skylark during the Second World War. He served for three years in the Royal Navy, first as an ordinary seaman, later with the rank of lieutenant. He was wounded and decorated in 1944 in the Adriatic.
