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Ivy Nicholson (February 22, 1933 – October 25, 2021) was an American model and Actor.William Fever, The Lives of Lucian Freud, The Restless Years, Knopf Doubleday, 2019, page 399.
In the mid-fifties, she was romantically involved with Colin Tennant, son of the second Baron Glenconnor."But You Married Him," London Review of Books, Volume 2, No 11, June 4, 2020
Nicholson moved to Italy and worked for fashion designers such as Irene Galitzine, Fernanda Gattinoni, the Sorelle Fontana, Simonetta, Alberto Fabiani and Emilio Pucci. Salvador Dalí painted her for Life Magazine.
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.”
According to a 1960 profile in Look Magazine, Nicholson was painted by Marc Chagall, Lucian Freud and her friend Bernard Buffet.
At the time of the Look article she was living in Paris, the wife of French writer and actor, Count Regis Ruyneau St. Georges de Poleon.
In a caption to a 1966 photo he took of her, Billy Name, a photographer associated with The Factory recorded "...the glamorous model Ivy Nicholson who had recently arrived in New York from Europe".
She acted in films made by the Factory, as well as depicted in the film Andy Warhol's Factory People. She frugged for a few minutes in the film Lonesome Cowboys."Our Kind of Movie: The Films of Andy Warhol," Douglas Crimp, Page 112, Copyright 2014 by the MIT Press
Describing her activities at the Factory, biographer Victor Bockris described her as "a tough, violent and hysterical woman"."Warhol: The Biography, Victor Bockris, Page 271, copyright Hachette Book Group, 2003 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"."Andy Warhol's Factory People," Catherine O'Sullivan Schorr, pages are not numbered, Copyright 2015 by Open Road Media
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that in the early 1980s, Ivy Nicholson was "living the low life in the Tenderloin."
Subsequently, for some time she was homeless in San Francisco. 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." During this period, photographer Victor Arimondi recognized her in Tenderloin and brought her to his studio to sit for portraits.
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, but she was homeless again by 2018. Nicholson died on October 25, 2021, at an assisted living facility in Bellflower, California. She was 88.
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