Marita Crawley

Marita Georgina Phillips (born 28 May 1954 in London, England) is a British songwriter and author.[1][2]

Her lyrics have been recorded by artists such as Peter Skellern, Demis Roussos, William Lovelady and Art Garfunkel. She has written the libretto for the opera "PUSHKIN", based on the lives of her great-great-great-grandfathers, Alexander Pushkin and Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. Music by Konstantin Boyarsky the opera was premiered in concert performance by Novaya Opera in Moscow February 4th 2017[3]. Its world premiere as a staged performance was at Grange Park Opera in July of 2018.

Marita Phillips studied acting at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama and ballet at the Nesta Brooking School before training as a mime with Adam Darius, with whom she founded and ran The Mime Centre, London.[4] She has written the book and lyrics for the children's musicals; "The Dream Dealer" and "Buzz – the story of Glorybee". She has also written the novel "The Dream Dealer".

Family

She is the fourth of five children of Lt.-Col. Harold Pedro Joseph Phillips (1909–1980) and his wife, Georgina Wernher (1919–2011),[5][6] who was the elder daughter and co-heiress of Sir Harold Wernher, 3rd Bt, by his wife Countess Anastasia de Torby (later Lady Zia Wernher, CBE).[1][5] Her eldest sister is Alexandra Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn and her youngest sister is Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster (a godmother of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge). Marita and her siblings are close to the British Royal Family, being distantly related to both Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.[1][7]

In 1982, Marita married Randall Crawley (1950–1988), a son of Aidan Crawley MP and his wife Virginia Cowles, journalist and author. Randall Crawley was killed with his brother Andrew in a private plane crash near Turin in Italy on 10 September 1988,[8][9] leaving issue two sons and one daughter: Aidan Harold Winston Crawley (22 October 1983), Cosima Georgina Crawley (31 May 1985) and Galen Randall George Crawley (13 November 1988). The posthumous younger son Galen Crawley is a godson of The Prince of Wales.[10] In 2006, Marita remarried, to the journalist turned media baron Andrew Knight (born 1939).[1]

Siblings
  • Alexandra Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn (born 27 February 1946)
  • Nicholas Harold Phillips (23 August 1947 – 1 March 1991)
  • Fiona Mercedes Phillips (born 30 March 1951)
  • Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster (born 8 May 1959)

References
  1. Lundy, Darryl. "p. 11283". The Peerage.
  2. CDI Library Russia List
  3. Macfarquhar, Neil (7 March 2017). "A Descendant's Daring Homage to Pushkin". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 8 July 2017.
  4. Darius, Adam (1984). The Adam Darius Method. London: Latonia. p. 12. ISBN 0-9502707-2-5.
  5. Willis, Daniel, The Descendants of King George I of Great Britain, Clearfield Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 2002, pp. 114, 601–602 ISBN 0-8063-5172-1.
  6. Dewar, Peter Beauclerk (2001). Burke' Landed Gentry of Great Britain: Together with Members of the Titled and non-Titled Contemporary Establishment (19 ed.). Burke's Peerage. ISBN 978-0-9711966-0-5.
  7. London tribute to honor contributions to conservation and the arts
  8. Harriet Crawley, their sister, speaks about the Crawley Gap Year Scholarships in memory of her brothers. Retrieved 18 September 2007.
  9. " Ayer's adopted son dies" The Daily Telegraph, 2004. Harriet Crawley lost her husband Julian Ayer, adoptive son of the philosopher Freddie Ayer, in a Sri Lankan flood.
  10. Work of the SMA Trust
Preceded by
Eliza Burnett		 Line of succession to the British throne Succeeded by
Aidan Crawley
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