Olga Edwardes: Movies & Filmography

Olga Edwardes (born Olga Florence Solomon; 20 May 1915 – 23 July 2008) was a distinguished English actress and artist whose career spanned multiple decades and creative disciplines. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, she was the daughter of architect Joseph Michael Solomon, a partner of Herbert Baker who tragically took his own life in 1920 in Cape Town when Olga was only five years old. Her mother, Jean Cox, was a South African actress who remarried Hugh Edwards in 1922, after which the family adopted the surname Edwardes. Olga began her stage career in the 1930s, making her debut in 1934 at the Open Air Theatre in productions such as As You Like It, Party 1860, Androcles and the Lion, and Romeo and Juliet. She later became one of the early faces of the BBC's fledgling television service, appearing from 1936 and even serving as a television announcer in 1939 when Elizabeth Cowell was on leave. During World War II, she married Pilot Officer Anthony Max Baerlein in 1941, only to be widowed later that same year when he was killed in action. In 1946, she married economist and journalist Nicholas Davenport, who was more than twenty years her senior, and together they transformed Hinton Waldrist manor into a celebrated salon frequented by influential artists, economists, philosophers, and politicians. As a salonnière, Olga became known for her 'astounding beauty' and impressive creative force, inspiring verse from poets like A. P. Herbert. She studied art at the Westminster School of Art under Mark Gertler, and later, beginning in 1956, pursued formal training at the Chelsea Polytechnic, the Royal College of Art, and Peter Lanyon's school in St Ives, Cornwall. She exhibited with the London Group and the Women's International Art Club, and held solo shows at the Piccadilly Gallery in 1969 and 1976, as well as at the Oxford Gallery in 1978. Her later paintings focused on landscape, employing broad, fluid brushstrokes and dynamic colours to abstract natural forms. She became friends with major British artists including Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Terry Frost, and William Scott, and her art collection, auctioned after her death, fetched approximately £550,000. Olga died on 23 July 2008 in Elstree, Hertfordshire, leaving behind a rich legacy in both British theatre and mid-20th century British art.