Jill Hyem was born in 1937 in Putney, London, England, to Hilda and Rex, a solicitor, and was raised in Devon and East Sheen. From the age of ten, Hyem attended Farlington School, a boarding school in West Sussex, and studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Her early acting experience saw her perform at the Connaught Theatre Worthing, where one of her roles was Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion. Her film roles include The Trunk with Phil Carey. In 1962, Hyem made her West End debut in Goodnight Mrs Puffin with Irene Handl. Hyem's television appearances include Richard the Lionheart with Dermot Walsh, Dixon of Dock Green, and Sergeant Cork. She also starred as Peggy Briggs, the daughter of Jimmy Edwards and Beryl Reid in the comedy series Bold as Brass. Her experience playing minor roles persuaded Hyem she would do better as a writer and create more challenging parts for women.
Writing career
Hyem's writing career began to develop when she became one of the principal writers on the radio soap opera The Dales. When that series was coming to an end, she was asked to devise a more contemporary replacement with Alan Downer, and the BBC commissioned Waggoner's Walk. Hyem and Downer stayed with the series over its 11-year run. She also wrote 30 radio plays, including the lesbian love story Now She Laughs, Now She Cries, A Shape Like Piccadilly—which is about adult illiteracy—and the thriller Remember Me with Jill Balcon and Julian Glover, which won the annual Giles Cooper award. Several of Hyem's radio plays including Equal Terms, Life Sentence and Thank You—which was renamed Post Mortems for the stage—became theatrical productions. Her original theatre plays include Buzz—an adaptation of Lorna Doone—and We'll Always Have Paris. Hyem's television writing includes the BAFTA-nominated drama Tenko, for which she wrote half of the episodes. Anne Valery wrote the other half, and the two women collaborated on a sequel, Tenko Reunion. With Tenko creator Lavinia Warner, Hyem co-created the secret-agent drama Wish Me Luck. Her other work includes episodes of the nurses drama Angels, Wendy Craig's Nanny, the anthology series Sharing Time, the first series of sex-and-sailing soap opera Howards' Way, a mini-series adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's Act of Will, period costume drama The House of Eliott, the Campion episodes "The Case of the Late Pig" and "Sweet Danger", the Miss Marple mystery At Bertram's Hotel, and Body and Soul, with Kristin Scott Thomas, for which Hyem was nominated for a BAFTA. During the writing of Tenko, Hyem and Valery faced opposition from men, including the producerKen Riddington. According to Valery, Riddington was "a wonderful man" who had expected the story lines would receive a "romantic treatment". "I was for guts and so was Jill," Valery recalled. " had no idea he'd taken on these two vipers!" Hyem said; "We were always fighting with men over some storyline. I remember we wanted to write a story about lesbians in the camp and after some conflict we were allowed to – so long as we didn't use the word lesbian". Hyem became an active member of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, and had an interest in promoting women's talents and issues within the profession. She co-founded the Women's Committee to represent areas of women's concern to balance the majority of committees, which were male-dominated. For her works, Hyem was awarded the Guild's Gold Badge in 2007.
Personal life
In 1966, Hyem married Dudley Savill, a Liberal politician and social worker. They had a son named Ben and later divorced. In 2011 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died on 4 June 2015.
