Ethel Maud Warwick
Date of birth: 13 October 1882
Place of birth: Hendon
Date of death: 12 September 1951
Place of death: Bognor Regis/Chichester
Category: model
Identity:
Ethel Maud Warwick is said to have been the daughter of Francis Warwick and Emma Hutt, and to have married an actor Edmund Waller Lewis ('E. Lewis Waller) (1884–1951) in January 1906 and had a daughter - June Belle Florence Waller (Mrs S.F. Pierson, 1907–1993) - before being divorced in 1915 ; then she married Albert Edward (Dickie) Dix on 14 September 1939, divorced him on 11 January 1946.
She trained as an art student, worked as a model, and became an actress and film star.
Life:
Ethel Warwick was a model for Whistler around 1900 (see Eve y491, Ethel Warwick asleep on a sofa m1604, Ethel Warwick holding an apple m1605, Nude model reclining m1606).
She was painted by Phillip Wilson Steer and E.W. Godward and modelled for photographs by Linley Sambourne. Her espressive face and agile body made her an excellent model and later, actress.
She studied art at the London Polytechnic, and then trained for the stage at Henry Neville's school in London.
She first appeared on the stage at the Grand Theatre, Fulham, in 1900, and appeared thereafter in many roles (from Shakespeare to melodrama) in theatres in London and abroad. She joined the New Shakespeare Company in 1920, where her roles included the Queen in Hamlet and Olivia in Twelfth Night. She also played character parts in films and gave 'a creditable performance' as Jessie in The Showing-up of Blanco Posnet.
Bibliography:
Family trees, Ancestry.com.
Obituary, 'Miss Ethel Warwick', Times, London, 13 September 1951, p. 6; Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 .
