McGill Libraries
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Lewis, H. Jefferson, 1951-
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1951-
History
Howard Jefferson Lewis, also known as H. Jefferson Lewis, and commonly Jefferson Lewis, was born in Montreal in 1951. He was the son of Crosby Lewis and Ruth Mary Penfield Lewis, the daughter of renowned neurosurgeon Wilder Graves Penfield. Lewis was educated in Europe and the United States, and graduated with a degree in Film Studies from Queen's University in 1972. He worked as a journalist for the Ottawa Citizen, Southam News Service, and CBC Radio. Following the death of his grandfather in 1976, Lewis undertook writing a biography of Penfield, which resulted in Something Hidden: A Biography of Wilder Penfield (Toronto: Doubleday) published in 1981. The biography was later turned into a screenplay and a movie produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the National Film Board of Canada. In subsequent years, he worked as a producer and wrote and directed short dramas, whose themes frequently revolved around Canadian subjects. Lewis married Catherine Ann Keachie in 1976. The couple had one daughter, Cleo Lewis.