Career
She was the first woman to become a major West End producer. She was the Royal Court Theatre general manager in the 1960s. On one occasion, the night when the French ambassador went to see Madeleine Renaud performing in Beckett"s Oh, Les Beaux Jours, a warning of a possible bomb on the premises was delivered to her but she did nothing, and told no one.
“I can"t turn these people out.
lieutenant would have been silly”, she later commented. She produced musicals, including a musical version of Prisoner: Cell Block H, as well as a production of The Who"s Tommy, in addition to reworking classics such as Chekhov"s The Seagull, and introducing new innovative or original productions (The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin and The Bed Before Yesterday).
Helen Montagu died, aged 75, from undisclosed causes in London on New Year"s Day, 2004.
