Blanche Marvin


Blanche Marvin, was an American-born British theatre critic, producer, writer, actress and dancer, long-based in London.
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Life and career

Blanche Zohar was born in New York City on 17 January 1925. She reportedly left home at age 14 to act and dance on Broadway, before appearing in Lute Song, which starred Mary Martin and Yul Brynner.
Marvin was reportedly courted by Marlon Brando and became a close friend of Tennessee Williams, whom she met through Margo Jones, who directed the Broadway production of The Glass Menagerie. Marvin later claimed Williams had named his lead character in A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois, after her. She married American producer Mark Marvin, 17 years her senior. She created the Empty Space Peter Brook Award in 1991, and endowed it personally.
She was made an Honorary Member of the Order of the [British Empire] in 2010, for services to theatre, and appeared as a "castaway" on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 16 November 2012.
A widow since 1958, she lived in St John's Wood, north London. She had two children by her marriage to Mark Marvin. Blanche Marvin died on 13 January 2026, four days before her 101st birthday.