Ivy Lilian Close was born 15 June 1890 in
Stockton-on-Tees,
County Durham, the daughter of Emma ( Blackburn) and John Robert Close. She had a younger brother, Raymond, and a sister, Dorothy. Her first husband was photographer and filmmaker Elwin Neame (1885–1923), who she married in 1910. Together they established Ivy Close Films in 1914, one of the first movie production companies founded by a film star. This marriage produced two sons: the director, cinematographer, producer and screenwriter
Ronald Neame, and author and screenwriter Derek Neame (1915–1979). Her grandson, by Ronald, was producer and screenwriter
Christopher Neame and her great grandson, by Christopher, is producer
Gareth Neame. In 1938 she married Australian stuntman and make-up artist Curly Batson; this marriage lasted until his death in 1957. In 1908, Ivy Close was named the World's Most Beautiful Woman by the British tabloid
Daily Mirror, beating over 1,500 contestants, so becoming generally recognized as Britain's first beauty queen. Her victory won her not only a new Rover motorcar but also the exhibition of a portrait, by
Sir Arthur Hacker, at the
Royal Academy in London; the portrait was subsequently used on 4 May 1908 to fill the front page of the newspaper which had organised the contest. The painting was subsequently discovered to be in the collection of the
Ferens Art Gallery in
Hull but not on display because it required restoration; the necessary work was paid for by her great-grandson Gareth Neame. Her great-grandson incorporated a passing reference to her career in an episode of
Downton Abbey. Ivy Close died 4 December 1968 in
Goring,
Oxfordshire, aged 78. ==Selected filmography==