Christine Allsopp

Christine Belinda Allsopp was born in London and raised in Farnham Common near Pinewood Studios. Her father was an architect, writer, surveyor and editor of the Estates Gazette. Her mother, Connie Reeve, was a leading make-up artist who supervised John Huston’s ‘Moulin Rouge’ and ‘Beat the Devil’, and ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ for Michael Powell. Her uncles Harold and Gerald Fletcher were make-up artists; Harold trained Connie, the first woman trained at Shepperton Studios in the early 1950s. Aunt Eileen was also a make-up artist and exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy.

After private schooling at Dair House, Brigidine Convent and St. Helens and St. Katherine’s, her parents’ divorce led to state schools where she was bullied for sounding posh. She adopted an Oxfordshire accent to fit in.

She attended secretarial college in Cheltenham, then joined Oxford University Press as a secretary, assisting Ron Heapy in Children’s Books. Sensing limited prospects without a degree, she left to pursue film make-up.