Eileen Diss

Eileen Diss, (13 May 1931 – 5 November 2024) was a British set designer for stage, television and film. She won six BAFTA awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award for Design from the Royal Television Society in 2002, and a BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Special Craft Award in 2006.

Early life and education Diss was born on 13 May 1931 in Leytonstone, East London, England. She was the only child of Thomas and Winifred Diss. She was educated at Ilford County High School for Girls, then an all-girls grammar school in Ilford. Aged 14, she went on a school outing to see Laurence Olivier's film version of Henry V. As there were only ten designers, after only two weeks of training, she was designing her first sets, for Three Little Mushrooms, a children's programme, and an An American Gentleman, a TV film starring a soon to be famous John Gregson. She was three times nominated for a Society of West End Theatre Award (later renamed the Laurence Olivier Awards) as Designer of the Year: for The Family Dance at the Criterion Theatre in 1976, for The Homecoming at the Garrick in 1978, and Measure for Measure at the National Theatre Lyttelton in 1981. She won her first BAFTA for Maigret, a TV series that ran from 1960 to 1963.

Selected productions Television

Maigret (1960–1963) The Wednesday Play (8 episodes; 1964–1968) Tea Party (1965) W. Somerset Maugham (5 episodes; 1969–1970) Cider with Rosie (1971) Alice Through the Looking Glass (1973) Porterhouse Blue (1987) Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993) A Dance to the Music of Time (1997) Longitude (2000)

Films

Joseph Losey's A Doll's House, 1972 Sweet William, 1980 Harold Pinter's Betrayal, 1983 Secret Places, 1984 84 Charing Cross Road, 1987 A Handful of Dust, 1988