Ivy Close

Ivy Close (15 June 1890 – 4 December 1968) was a British actress. She acted in 44 films between 1912 and 1929

n 1908, Ivy Close was named the World's Most Beautiful Woman by the British tabloid Daily Mirror, beating over 1,500 contestants, so becoming generally recognized as Britain's first beauty queen. Her victory won her not only a new Rover motorcar but also the exhibition of a portrait, by Sir Arthur Hacker, at the Royal Academy in London; the portrait was subsequently used on 4 May 1908 to fill the front page of the newspaper which had organised the contest.The painting was subsequently discovered to be in the collection of the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull but not on display because it required restoration; the necessary work was paid for by her great-grandson Gareth Neame. Neame has argued, "And there was then a competition between the winner in Britain and the winner in the US, and she ended up winning that one. So I often say she was effectively the first ever Miss World."

Besides acting, her other pursuits were motorcycling and golf. She also worked as a model in advertising campaigns and sang in English music halls. Close's film career ended with the advent of talkies, as her English accent was deemed unsuitable for American audiences. Her great-grandson incorporated a passing reference to her career in an episode of Downton Abbey

Ivy died in a nursing home in Goring, Oxfordshire, in 1968

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Close

grave

https://www.findagrave.com/memo.../79380996/ivy-lilian-close