Irene Shubik - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Irene Shubik was born in 1929 in Hampstead, London to a Russian Jewish father and a French Jewish mother. When World War II broke out in 1939, she was evacuated to Canada. She read English literature at University College London, obtaining an MA in “The Use of English History in Drama from 1599-1642”. Uninterested in a career in academia, she applied to join the BBC but was turned down. Unable to obtain work, she moved to the United States, visiting her brother, the economist Martin Shubik, who was teaching at Princeton University. Meeting with little success in building a career in Princeton, when her brother was called before the Dean of the University for keeping a woman in his quarters, she moved to Wilmette, Chicago where her other brother, cancer surgeon Philippe Shubik, was based. Wilmette was the home of Encyclopædia Britannica Films and, impressed by her MA thesis, they hired Shubik as a scriptwriter. Shubik was subsequently offered a twelve month contract with the National Film Board of Canada but was unable to take up the position as both of her parents had become seriously ill.