Theatre Critic Blanche Marvin Dies at 100

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that actor and theatre critic Blanche Marvin has died at age 100, four days before her 101st birthday. 

Blanche Schein, who later adopted the name of Blanche Zohar, reportedly left home at age 14 to act and dance on Broadway, before appearing in Lute Song (1946), which starred Mary Martin and Yul Brynner. She married American producer Mark Marvin, 17 years her senior.

She later went on to appear in small parts in films such as Casbah (1948) and Quo Vadis? (1951). 

In 1959 she became artistic director of the Cricket Theatre, among the first of New York City’s off-Broadway theatres, where she also launched the Merri-Mimes production company for children. In 1968 she moved to London and joined the Elspeth Cochrane Agency, where she ran the literary department. 

Marvin went on to launch her career as a theatre critic in the 1980s, creating her own website to publish her reviews.

Marvin 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 (MBE) 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.