Nigel Balchin
Nigel Balchin ( born December 3, 1908 in Potterne, Wiltshire as Nigel Marlin Balchin, † May 17 1970 in London) was an award-winning British author and screenwriter. He was known primarily for his work for the movies of the 1950s and 1960s such as Malta Story, The Man Who Never Was, 23 steps to the abyss, Barabbas or summer of the Accursed. Balchin also wrote under the pseudonym Mark Spade.
Life and work
Nigel Marlin Balchin was born in 1908 in Potterne in the English county of Wiltshire, the son of William and Ada Balchin. He attended school in West Lavington Dauntsey in Wiltshire from 1919 to 1927 and got Peterhouse is the oldest of the Cambridge colleges a scholarship, where he was trained in the natural sciences. He graduated with distinction. He then worked 1930-1935 for the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, where he worked as a consultant for design and marketing for JS Rowntree & Sons. During World War II he was a civil servant in the Ministry of Food, and then successful scientific advisor with the rank of brigadier.
Balchin wrote since 1933 as a freelance writer for satirical journals and also published novels under his own name, many of which were over the decades very successfully in the UK and the USA filmed, including in England the templates for Malta Story, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and the Man Who never Was Ronald Neame for director. In 1956 he moved abroad, where he wrote screenplays including for Hollywood. For the intelligent psychological thriller 23 Steps to abyss with Van Johnson in the lead role, he worked as a screenwriter in 1956, directed by Henry Hathaway. 1961 Balchin returned back to England. There was directed by Roy Ward Baker, the screenplay for the film of the summer cursed with Dirk Bogarde, John Mills and Mylène Demongeot.
Balchin died on 17 May 1970 at the age of 61 years in a nursing home in Hampstead, London. On the Hampstead Cemetery is also his grave.