Lucienne Hill (née Palmer) was born on 30 January 1923 to an English father and French mother. She was educated at Somerville College, Oxford and worked at Bletchley Park on Enigma. She had early repertory work as an actor in Sheffield, Windsor and Birmingham.

 

She translated 30 of Jean Anouilh's plays including: ARDELE – in Birmingham and London's West End; THE WALTZ OF THE TOREADORS, which was 2 years in the West End and New York and toured the USA for 6 months. THIEVES CARNIVAL at the Arts Theatre; BECKET for the RSC which won many awards including an Evening Standard and a Tony and went on to be made into a film starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole; and POOR BITOS in the West End.

 

Apart from translating Anouilh's plays, she co-wrote (with Frederic Raphael) the libretto for a Leslie Bricusse musical, LADY AT THE WHEEL in 1958; an adaptation of Françoise Sagan's CASTLE IN SWEDEN in 1962 and, for the RSC at the Aldwych in 1964, a version of Roger Vitrac's surrealist 1928 drawing-room satire, VICTOR.

 

Radio adaptations include: SECOND STRING and STORM AT BREWER'S END.

 

Other authors she has translated include: Sartre, Camus and Salacrou.

 

She died on 29 December 2012.