Oriel Ross

Oriel Ross, born Muriel Mary Swinstead on 10 June 1907 in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire, was an English actress who worked across stage, film, and television from the 1920s through the 1950s. The daughter of John Howard Swinstead, a clergyman, she studied at the Royal College of Music and made her stage debut at the age of sixteen in Karel Čapek's The Insect Play in 1923.

During the mid-1920s, Ross lived in Jacob Epstein's bohemian household on Guildford Street, London, alongside his wife, mistress, children, models, and followers. Epstein sculpted her on multiple occasions: a bust in 1925, exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in 1926 and at Epstein's 1927 New York exhibition; a head in 1926, now held in a private collection with an additional cast in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, also shown at the 1927 New York exhibition; and a torso completed in 1931–32, now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. A bronze head and shoulders from 1931 is on display at the Victoria Gallery and Museum at the University of Liverpool, bequeathed to the university by Lord Henry Cohen. In 1933, Cecil Beaton included Ross in The Book of Beauty, noting that she was Epstein's favorite model.

In 1928, Ross appeared as Nature in Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Ode before traveling to New York, where she performed on Broadway in both plays and revues. Her Broadway credits, spanning 1928 to 1931, included the play The Admirable Crichton and the revue This Year of Grace. She returned to London in 1931 and maintained a steady career throughout the following two decades, during which she became a member of Lilian Baylis's Old Vic Company.

Ross's film career began in 1931 with the British-German production The Loves of Ariane, directed by Paul Czinner, in which she played the Duchess. The following year she appeared as Connie in The First Mrs. Fraser, directed by Thorold Dickinson and Sinclair Hill, and took the stage role of Catherina of Russia in Casanova. In 1933 she played Lady Poppy in the British drama Self Made Lady, directed by George King, and in 1935 she appeared as Elsie in Michael Powell's crime film The Price of a Song. That same year, on 21 June 1935, she married George Poulett, 8th Earl Poulett; the marriage ended in divorce in 1941.

Her stage work in 1938 was extensive, encompassing A Midsummer Night's Dream at Regent's Park, the role of Helen in Troilus and Cressida at the Westminster Theatre, On a Summer Day at the Torch Theatre, and Touchwood at the Q and Embassy Theatre. That year she also appeared in the radio production Alonzo MacTavish and played Isolda in the television film Tristan and Isolda. In 1941 she took the role of Lady Willoughby in the British anti-Nazi thriller Pimpernel Smith, produced and directed by Leslie Howard. In 1946 she portrayed Queen Isabella of Castile in the television drama The Man with the Cloak Full of Holes, and in 1952 she appeared as Madame in The Maids, the first play presented in French by the Institute of Contemporary Arts, directed by Peter Zadek.

Beyond her performing career, Ross was a skilled amateur artist who produced line drawings of figures including Jacob Epstein, actors Elsa Lanchester and Ernest Thesiger, gallery owner Arthur Jeffress, and composer Constant Lambert. Seven of her drawings are held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. In the 1940s, actor Henry Kendall rented a maisonette in a house she owned on Ebury Street. Ross died on 20 October 1994 in Hoxne, Suffolk.