My friend William Blackburn, who has died aged 92, was an American businessman who – before the arrival of Häagen-Dazs and Baskin-Robbins – introduced the British to ice-cream flavours from the US.
Horrified by his first bite into the English product, Bill saw a golden market waiting for an entrepreneur. His New England Ice Cream Company, set up in London in 1972, was soon selling its delicious flavours from ice-cream parlours in some of the city’s department stores, including Harrods, Debenhams and Barkers.
Bill was born in Evanston, Illinois, to Oliver Blackburn, a company secretary at Kraft Cheese, and his wife, Phrania (nee Carver). At New Trier high school in Winnetka he proved himself to be an excellent pianist and after attending Princeton University, where he majored in comparative literature, he went on to the Harvard Law School for two years, until his studies were forcibly interrupted by military service in the Korean war.
The army seems to have turned him against the discipline of the law, because, on his return to civilian life he instead plunged into Chicago’s advertising world. From there he moved to New York and joined one of the oldest and largest American advertising companies, Benton & Bowles. There he worked for big name businesses such as Procter and Gamble, for whom he created the brand name Pampers for “the first flushable and disposable nappy”. In 1962 he was transferred to work in their London office, but soon broke away to found his own London-based advertising company, Blackburn Daley.
In London, Bill continued his interest in the piano with instruction from the celebrated pianist and teacher Maria Donska, and his house became a place for musical evenings, where you might meet the likes of Stephen Spender, Anthony Sampson, Freddie Ayer, Humphrey Burton and Julia O’Faolain. I first met William and his wife, Susan (nee Smith), in the early 1970s and found him a most attractive man with a strong Christian faith – amiable, social, relaxed, always a keen reader, and something of a thinker.
In 1978, following Susan’s death from breast cancer, Bill channelled his grief into a charitable endeavour to honour and memorialise her. Together with Susan’s sister, Emilie (Mimi) Kilgore, he established the first and still most prestigious award for female playwrights, the Susan Smith Blackburn prize, which is awarded annually to women from around the world who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre. Since the prize’s foundation, 10 Susan Smith Blackburn finalist plays have subsequently won the Pulitzer prize for drama.
In 1987 Bill married the fashion designer Perri Thompson and went into business with her, forming the fashion company Perri Ashby. His artistic zest never flagged, and even during the last decade of his life he recorded himself playing Chopin, Schubert, Mozart, and Beethoven.
He is survived by Perri, their daughter Christabel, two children from his first marriage, Lucy and Adam, and seven grandchildren.
