Cherry Marshall
{{Short description|English fashion model, agent and writer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
|name = Cherry Marshall
|image = Cherry Marshall.jpg
|image_size =
|caption = Marshall modelling for Susan Small
|birth_name = Irene Maud Pearson
|birth_date = 25 July 1923
|birth_place = Christchurch, Dorset, England
|death_date = {{death date and age|2006|1|28|1923|7|25|df=y}}
|death_place = Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England
|education = Bournemouth School for Girls
|occupation = Fashion model and agent, and non-fiction writer
|spouse = {{marriage|Emanuel Litvinoff|1942|1970|reason=divorce}}
|children = 3
}}
Cherry Marshall (25 July 1923 – 28 January 2006) was an English fashion model and agent, and non-fiction writer. She was married to the poet Emanuel Litvinoff.
Early life
Marshall was born Irene Maud Pearson on 25 July 1923, at Girlsta Cottage, Jumpers Avenue, Christchurch, Dorset, the only daughter of Ernest Pearson, a sergeant in the Royal Engineers, and his wife, Catherine Margaret Pearson, née Baker, a photographer's assistant.{{cite ODNB|last1=Baker|first1=William|title=Irene Maud Pearson [known as Cherry Marshall] (1923–2006)|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/104147/107128|year=2004|publisher=OUP|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/107128|isbn=978-0-19-861411-1|accessdate=20 November 2017}} She was educated at Bournemouth School for Girls.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/mar/23/guardianobituaries.veronicahorwell|title=Obituary: Cherry Marshall|first=Veronica|last=Horwell|date=23 March 2006|work=The Guardian |accessdate=20 November 2017|via=}}
In 1942, at the age of 19, she met Emanuel Litvinoff at a Catterick Camp dance and they married at a register office a few months later. They had three children together but divorced in 1970.
Career
At the age of 15, she left school to become the singer with a dance band, but could not remember the lyrics. She then worked in a factory, then sat the civil service exams and went to work as a pay clerk at Chatham Dockyard. With the start of the Second World War and the risk of bombing, she moved to Nottingham, where her father was stationed.
In 1941, she worked as a fashion model for the first time, until at the age of 18 she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service as a dispatch rider and driver.
She came up with the name Cherry Marshall based on "Cherry", her husband's nickname for her, and "Marshall" after the Marshall Plan. She did modelling for department stores, Vogue magazine, and became the house model for Susan Small, the ready-to-wear clothing company, through which she became known as "Miss Susan Small" in the early 1950s.{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1510774/Cherry-Marshall.html|title=Cherry Marshall|date=18 February 2006|work=The Telegraph|accessdate=21 November 2017|via=}} Despite giving birth to three children she maintained her 22-inch waist and at one time held the record for London's smallest waist.
Marshall became bored with modelling, and changed career to become Susan Small's public relations manager. In 1954 she changed again, buying a modelling school and agency in London's Jermyn Street through which she became one of the most important modelling agents in London in the early 1960s. She moved to 65 Grosvenor Street, Mayfair W1 in the mid 1960s. Early on at the agency was a chance aberration of decision; a model placed on her books was Ruth Ellis, ultimately in 1955 for killing a lover, to be the last woman receiving death as punishment in Britain.{{cite news|last1=Dyer|first1=Clare|title=Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged for murder in England|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/sep/12/ukcrime.claredyer|accessdate=29 December 2017|work=The Guardian|date=12 September 2003}} The business became the Cherry Marshall Model Agency, and clients included Patti Boyd, Suzy Kendall, Anthea Redfern, Paulene Stone and Pat Booth.{{cite web|url=https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/obituaries/2006/cherry-marshall/|title=Cherry Marshall – Obituaries |date=23 February 2006|work=The Stage|accessdate=21 November 2017}}
She also worked as a fashion journalist, firstly at the Sunday Express. She ran the agency until 1976, whilst also appearing as a regular participant in Southern Television's Houseparty.{{cite journal|last=Forster|first=Laurel|date=2014|title=Everything That Makes up a Woman’s Life’: Feminism and Femininity in Houseparty|journal=Critical Studies in Television|volume=9|number=2|page=94–116|doi=10.7227/CST.9.2.6}}
Publications
Later life
In the 1990s, Marshall bought a house in Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, and died there on 28 January 2006.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://houseofmirelle.uk/2017/06/21/when-cherry-marshall-met-seignon-making-a-model-and-the-face-of-susan-small/ When Cherry Marshall Met Seignon: Making A Model and The Face Of Susan Small]
- [http://lastyeargirl.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/cat-walk-by-cherry-marshall.html Review of The Cat-Walk by Cherry Marshall]
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhRVP6oHBAA British Pathe: Cherry Marshall at modelling school 1964, Mayfair London]
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, Cherry}}
Category:People from Christchurch
Category:English female models
Category:English businesspeople in fashion
Category:English women non-fiction writers
Category:Auxiliary Territorial Service soldiers
Category:English non-fiction writers
Category:20th-century English women
Category:21st-century English women
Category:21st-century English people