Dilys Powell had two passions: Greece and the cinema. She was born in 1901 and met her first husband, the archaeologist Humfry Payne, while they were both at Oxford. It was with Humfry that she fell in love with Greece. When he died there, unexpectedly, in 1936, just ten years into their marriage, her love of the country deepened, and she wrote several books set in Greece, illuminated by its bright light and contrasting shadows. Powell's career as a film critic began in 1928, when she joined the Sunday Times and she was still watching five films a week into her nineties. She was a generous reviewer, who admitted "I suppose I began as most young people do, showing off and trying to make jokes, but then it began insensibly to dawn on me that being a critic was not criticising in the cant sense of the word." She was much loved in the film world. She died in 1995.