Ivy Nicholson
American model and actress (1933–2021)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ivy Nicholson (February 22, 1933 – October 25, 2021) was an American model and actor.[1][2] She gained international prominence in the 1950s as a magazine cover model and later became a visible figure in the underground film scene surrounding Pop artist Andy Warhol.
Ivy Nicholson | |
|---|---|
Nicholson by Billy Name, 1964 | |
| Born | February 22, 1933 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | October 25, 2021 (aged 88) Bellflower, California, U.S. |
| Occupations | Model, actress |
Early life
Nicholson was born on February 22, 1933, in Manhattan, New York City. She raised in a working-class family in Cypress Hills, New York.[3][4] In her teens, she settled in Greenwich Village and worked in the Garment District.[5]
Modeling career
Nicholson began her modelling career at age 16 in a Brooklyn department store after winning a beauty contest.[3][5][4] She soon appeared on the covers of major fashion magazines, including Vogue[3][6] Harper's Bazaar,[7] Life,[3] Mademoiselle[8] and Elle.[6]
Nicholson moved to Italy and worked for fashion designers such as Irene Galitzine, Fernanda Gattinoni, the Sorelle Fontana, Simonetta, Alberto Fabiani and Emilio Pucci.[4][9] Salvador Dalí painted her for Life Magazine.[3]
In the 1950s she worked internationally, becoming a familiar face on European and American runways and in fashion publications. Her bold personality and dramatic looks made her one of the era's most memorable models.
In 1954, director Howard Hawks tested her to play the lead female role of Princess Nellifer in his movie Land of the Pharaohs. Instructed to nip at the hand of actor Jack Hawkins in her screen test, Nicholson bit him "to the bone," and Hawks decided to go with Joan Collins instead. Said production designer Alexander Trauner, Nicholson "was very beautiful, but a little cuckoo."[10]
According to a 1960 profile in Look Magazine,[5] Nicholson was living in Paris and had been painted by Marc Chagall, Lucian Freud and her friend Bernard Buffet.[5]
Andy Warhol's Factory
Nicholson returned to the United States from Europe and entered Andy Warhol's circle.[11][2] "Andy was taken by her," said Gerard Malanga, a poet and photographer who was Warhol's assistant.[2] Nicholson appeared in his experimental films and screen tests. As a Warhol superstar, she acted in Underground films including Soap Opera (1964) and Couch (1964), and Lonesome Cowboys (1968), where she frugged for a few minutes.[12][2]
Describing her activities at the Factory, biographer Victor Bockris described her as "a tough, violent and hysterical woman".[13] Catherine O'Sullivan Schorr included a picture of Nicholson in her book Andy Warhol's Factory People with the caption "Fiery fashion model Ivy Nicholson in a rare docile moment sits for a Warhol Screen Test".[14]
Nicholson became infatuated with Warhol and developed a romantic attachment to him. After Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas in June 1968, she threatened to commit suicide if he died while undergoing surgery.[15][16] In Popism: The Warhol '60s (1980), Warhol recalled that when "Louis Waldon came to the hospital the night of the shooting, all the girls in the waiting room rushed over to tell him he had to go home with Ivy and stay with her because she was saying that the moment I died, she was going to kill herself. Later he told Viva and Brigid, 'I spent the whole night with her and those poor children of hers and she kept calling the hospital every ten seconds wanting to know if Andy had died yet so she could jump right out the window if he had. Finally, at six in the morning, they told her they thought he was going to make it, and I collapsed into bed.'"[15] Warhol superstar Ultra Violet also described the incident in her memoir Famous for 15 Minutes: My Years with Andy Warhol (1988), adding that Nicholson "is delusional and thinks Andy will marry her."[16]
Later life and death
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that in the early 1980s, Ivy Nicholson was "living the low life in the Tenderloin."[7]
Subsequently, for some time she was homeless in San Francisco.[9] According to the New York Times, "She spent her last decades in or near poverty, sometimes homeless, telling anyone who would listen that she was on her way back up."[2] During this period, photographer Victor Arimondi recognized her in Tenderloin and brought her to his studio to sit for portraits.[7]
Prior to 2014, Ivy and her son Gunther lived together in a small apartment on the North Shore of Staten Island.
In 2014, Nicholson lived in Venice Beach, California,[3] but she was homeless again by 2018.[4]
Nicholson died at the age of 88 on October 25, 2021, at an assisted living facility in Bellflower, California.[2]
Personal life
In the mid-fifties, she was romantically involved with Colin Tennant, son of the second Baron Glenconnor.[17]
Marriages and children
Nicholson had four children: three sons and a daughter.[4] In 1963, she met and married John Palmer, a co-director of Warhol's silent film Empire which, in their short marriage, they produced twins.[2] Nicholson also had a son by a different man.[5]