British songwriter and author

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

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 on 4 February 2017. Its world premiere as a staged performance was at Grange Park Opera in July 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. 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.

Contents

• 1 Family
• 2 Siblings
• 3 References
• 4 External links

Family

She is the fourth of five children of Lt.-Col. Harold Pedro Joseph Phillips (1909–1980) and his wife, Georgina Wernher (1919–2011), 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). Her eldest sister is Alexandra Hamilton, *ss of Abercorn and her youngest sister is Natalia Grosvenor, *ss 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.

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, 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. In 2006, Marita remarried, to the journalist turned media baron Andrew Knight (born 1939).

Siblings

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

References

External links

• Work of the SMA Trust
• London tribute to honor contributions to conservation and the arts
• The Wire Pushkin gets a makeover in the west
• CDI Library Russia List