Cherry Marshall - a major name on the British Fashion scene in the 50s and 60s - died last week and I just wanted to share this piece on her that a friend of mine found. - - - - - - - - Star of Brit 50s fashion as 'Miss Susan Small,' & TV star who became the Queen of Frinton charity shops. Cherry Marshall who has died in Frinton-on-Sea in Essex at the age of 82, epitomized British fifties fashion with elegant poise, stature and a wide beaming smile which was usually set-off by a slash of scarlet lipstick. As 'Miss Susan Small,' she became a household name before the days of the supermodel. Usually referred to as mannequins she and contemporary Barbara Goalen were two of the standouts of that era, despite there differing looks. "I guess today they would say I was more 'street' than Barbara," she said early last year. Cherry changed direction becoming a top fashion agent and by the 1970s, was the author of the book Catwalk and the face of the groundbreaking House Party women's afternoon television program. She was born Irene Maude Pearson on July 25, 1923 in Christchurch. Her father was a sergeant major, her mother a house wife. She was educated at Woodlands Road School for Girls, and adored her time there. "I didn't ever want to leave," she said. However, on failing a formal interview because of poor elocution Cherry Marshall found herself in London and searching for a job. "I wanted to be a gangster's moll or singer," she said. Choosing her second option, Cherry became a singer in a band. She wore her mother's remodeled cast-off's and decided a singing career was definitely for her. However, the band had other ideas and because she never remembered her lines gave the sack. During WWII, Marshall became a driver with the ATS, opting for motorbikes over cars. She was often mistaken for a boy under her leathers and helmet and invited into the mess where upon she'd remove her helmet shake her flowing hair and raise temperatures. She then became a chauffeur for army officers and majors. It was at an officer's ball that she met Emmanuelle Litvinoff, a major in the Pioneer Core and a poet. "My friend warned me of him saying he was 'a bit funny' because he read palms and wrote poems," she said, adding. "Well, I immediately fell in love with him." He invited Cherry to tea interested to hear some of her our poetry. Settled in the tearooms he presented her with a published volume of his work. "I had my own poems handwritten in a little exercise book. I was so embarrassed that I choose to sit on them rather than show them off to him," she said. Litvinoff and Cherry were married within six weeks of meeting and Cherry immediately fell pregnant with their first daughter Vida. The war now over, the couple found it hard to get by. He was writing and making little profit and so on the advice of a model friend Senyon (?), she took modeling assignments within West End department stores. She re-christened herself Cherry Marshall. Cherry was her father's nickname for her as a child, she took the name Marshall after the much talked about Marshall Plan in America at the time. Her modeling career soon took off. She recalled "Walking the entire Harrods and Marshall and Snelgrove buildings in high heels on thick carpets was murder on ones feet." Cherry Marshall's specialty was fashionable evening and formal wear, although she also modeled daywear and sportswear. She was actually seen as something of an all-rounder and achieved fame as 'Miss Susan Small,' a title bestowed on her when, whilst pregnant with her son Julian she became Susan Small's house model. The house was a premier name on the ready-to-wear circuit, founded by Leslie Carr Jones in the late 1940s, Susan Small was popular throughout the 1950s and 60s. "I was terrified of Leslie Carr Jones knowing I was pregnant so would rush off to the lavatories at lunchtime to express my milk. One gay designer chap who had no idea about the functions of a woman's body thought me astounding as my breast were ever expanding in differing directions. Increasingly disinterested by modeling, she quit to become Susan Small's public relations manager. By the mid-fifties she took over a model school and agency and quickly established herself as a leading light, her only competition being Lucy Clayton. Cherry Marshall managed a whole cross range of talent including Vidal Sassoon during his early years playing up his Spanish roots to magazines and fashion directors. One of her biggest clients was Pattie Boyd, whom she discovered in 1962, and would represent until 1966. She also managed moody catwalk model Brenda Walker, a friend of Shirley Bassey and the Beatles and wife of fashion photographer Adrian Consolé. "I found it hard to recognize that models didn't want to be well groomed any more, or elegant, and that they had a right to push away the old standards," said Cherry. "I know they aimed to look marvelous without trying, to be uniquely themselves with the minimum of effort, and I was a sufficiently good agent to know that the girl who could personify all this was the next top model. I wanted to find a girl who was the product of her generation, not someone a bit older who'd changed course in mid-stream, and I was lucky enough to have Pattie Boyd turn up on my doorstep. She was clean fresh and lovely and everything I'd hoped for." In 1956, Cherry Marshall made international headlines when she took a group of models to Moscow. Pathé, the BBC and NBC covered Cherry's fashion footsteps in the communist Soviet capital. She was featured in the popular Jack cartoon strip and feted amongst political groups. "We were like film stars, like coloured butterflies in the suppressed dank and dreary Soviet Union Russia," she said. Cherry never socialized with fashion folk preferring instead literary types like the Bulgarian novelist, playwright and Nobel Prize winner Elisa Canetti, Bernice Ruben and Joy of Sex author Dr. Alex Comfort. "I did chuckle when I saw his book as I remember he had this queer little house full of beetles and other insects he'd dissected," she said. In 1971, Cherry Marshall became one of the four regulars on the woman's afternoon show House Party. The program was a first; keyhole television with no central presenter, just Cherry and around thirty women all sitting in comfortable chair's talking candidly about divorce, Tupperware and children's tantrums. "It was like watching one's own stair carpet," said a friend. Cherry was the show success story, having a monumental affect on people. When in 1974, she spoke about the glowing properties of cider vinegar; Sainsbury's supermarkets were forced to run hand-written signs that read "Sorry, out of cider vinegar - will re-order." On another occasion Cherry was once visiting the Sistine chapel when a woman approached her and said "Hello, it's chilly here at night isn't it. You know I told my friend that we could do with a pair of those bed socks that Cherry Marshall mentioned last week." The show ran until 1984. In 1978, her book 'Catwalk' was publicised, and read by many would-be models and old friends including Pattie Boyd. People felt they really knew Cherry Marshall, they saw her as a friend and someone she could trust. Cherry was flattered by her celebrity; her catchphrase evenduring in her final day's ill in bed at home was "I'm so lucky!" Cherry was never reticent about her age. She celebrated it. When she turned sixty and obtained a bus pass she dressed to kill in shear stockings and a short skirt determined that the bus conductor would question why she held a pensioners pass. She was much miffed when he didn't. Cherry Marshall bought a red brick mid-terrace within the gates at Frinton-on-Sea, during the mid 1990s, settling there permanently three years ago after a mugger left her badly injured close to her son Julian's home in Islington, North London. Shaken, with a badly broken leg, which doctors warned her would never heal, she became even more determined, she astounded all around her, by recovering. She continued to venture out alone becoming something of a celebrity on The Avenue in Frinton and an avid campaigner in trying to stop the opening of the town's first pub. She took to her new 'country' life and new friends with vigor, including a series of man-friends, the fashion stylist Fiona Dealey and 'The Likes of Us' author Michael Collins, whom she took tea with most weeks and tried to persuade to accompany her to concerts given by obscure singing artist Ollie Austin. In her latter years in Frinton, Cherry Marshall was joined by her second daughter and author Sarah. By her eighties, Cherry had obtained the look of a glitzy glamour girl by becoming the queen of Frinton-on-Sea's charity shops. She wore bright colours and skirts that showed off her proud legs and a series of coquettish red hats over her graying bob hairdo, finished off with a multitude of inexpensive jewellery; her bling. Her pace was quick as her humour. She was happy in her skin and years after the end of House Party still managed to turn heads and to be an inspiration to her three children, step-son and three grandchildren. She and husband Emmanuelle Litvinoff divorced in 1970, but remained good friends. He was often a guest at Cherry's house for Sunday lunch. He and their three children survive Cherry Marshall who died on January 31.
I missed this post the other day - that's fascinating! i really like the susan small stuff, always very smart. Cherry sounded like a pretty cool lady.
I had no idea that is where the Susan Small label came from! I had a couple of garments with this label several years ago and searched for info, but couldn't find much. Interesting info! Sue
