Irene Margolis Backalenick ’47

Irene Margolis Backalenick ’47, of Westport, Conn.; Dec. 16. After graduation, she moved to New York City and worked as an editor and writer for various publishers and magazines. In 1947, she married, moved to Boston, and started a family. After several years her husband accepted a position in New York and they moved to Westport. In Westport she wrote for the local newspaper, the Westport Town Crier, covering the Circuit Court, and eventually expanded her writing to include features and articles for the Bridgeport Post, the Westport News and the New York Times. She was awarded a prestigious publisher’s award from the New York Times for outstanding feature writing. While raising four children, she returned to college and earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Bridgeport. In her 60s, she went on to get a PhD in theater history from the City College of New York and became a full-time theater critic writing reviews for Connecticut papers, TheaterWeek, and Backstage magazine. In 1990, she was one of the founders of the Connecticut Critics Circle. She was also a member of the Outer Critics Circle. After a distinguished 30-year career as a critic, she retired in the early 2000s and became a published poet and playwright. Throughout her life she continued to learn. She enrolled one summer at Oxford University to study theater. She studied Spanish and traveled to Mexico. She was interested in art and cultures and enjoyed traveling to England, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Israel, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Caribbean, Egypt, and France. She was active in the League of Women Voters and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She is survived by three children, including son Paul ’72, and three grandchildren.