{{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.<ref name="ONDB">{{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}}</ref> She was educated at Bournemouth School for Girls.<ref name="guardian">{{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=}}</ref>
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.<ref name="guardian"/> They had three children together<ref name="guardian"/> but divorced in 1970.<ref name="thestage.co.uk"/>
==Career== At the age of 15, she left school to become the singer with a dance band, but could not remember the lyrics.<ref name="guardian"/> She then worked in a factory, then sat the civil service exams and went to work as a pay clerk at Chatham Dockyard.<ref name="ONDB"/> With the start of the Second World War and the risk of bombing, she moved to Nottingham, where her father was stationed.<ref name="ONDB"/>
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.<ref name="ONDB"/>
She came up with the name Cherry Marshall based on "Cherry", her husband's nickname for her, and "Marshall" after the Marshall Plan.<ref name="ONDB"/><ref name="guardian"/> 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.<ref name="ONDB"/><ref name="telegraph.co.uk">{{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=}}</ref> Despite giving birth to three children she maintained her 22-inch waist and at one time held the record for London's smallest waist.<ref name="ONDB"/><ref name="telegraph.co.uk"/>
Marshall became bored with modelling, and changed career to become Susan Small's public relations manager.<ref name="telegraph.co.uk"/> 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.<ref name="ONDB"/><ref name="telegraph.co.uk"/><ref>{{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}}</ref> The business became the Cherry Marshall Model Agency, and clients included Patti Boyd, Suzy Kendall, Anthea Redfern, Paulene Stone and Pat Booth.<ref name="thestage.co.uk">{{cite web|url=https://www.thestage.co.uk/obituaries--archive/obituaries/cherry-marshall/|title=Cherry Marshall – Obituaries |date=23 February 2006|work=The Stage|access-date=21 November 2017}}</ref>
She also worked as a fashion journalist, firstly at the ''Sunday Express''.<ref name="ONDB"/> She ran the agency until 1976,<ref name="ONDB"/> whilst also appearing as a regular participant in Southern Television's ''Houseparty''.<ref>{{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}}</ref>
==Publications== In 1956, she published ''Fashion Modelling as a Career''.<ref name="ONDB"/> In 1978, her memoir ''The Cat-Walk'' came out, followed by ''Primetime Woman'' in 1986.<ref name="ONDB"/>
==Later life== In the 1990s, Marshall bought a house in Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, and died there on 28 January 2006.<ref name="ONDB"/>
==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]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, Cherry}} Category:1923 births Category:2006 deaths 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 Category:20th-century English businesspeople Category:Models from Dorset Category:People from Christchurch, Dorset