Ursula St. George

Ursula Edith Kate Mackarness was born on Staten Island. Her English-born father Charles Mackarness^[2] was a grandson of dramatist James Planché and son of novelist Matilda Anne Mackarness; he was a magazine editor, sculptor, and dog breeder.^[3][4] Her mother was an actress, and toured with young Ursula as a chaperone.^[5][6] John Mackarness and George Mackarness, both bishops, were her father's uncles; politician Frederick Coleridge Mackarness and sportsman Charles Coleridge Mackarness were his cousins.

St. George appeared in The Blue Bird (1911),^[7] and was best known in the title role in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which she performed across the United States and Canada in a Klaw and Erlanger production, 1911 and 1912.^[8][9][10] She was sixteen years old for much of the run of the show.^[11] "Miss St. George holds her audience in the delicious spell of her girlishness and ingenuous beauty," raved a Texas critic.^[12]

She and her husband were art collectors, and had a particularly valuable collection of ancient Chinese artifacts. In 1927, Australian artist James Peter Quinn painted her portrait.^[13] In 1972, she donated a pair of ancient Chinese bronze vessels to the British Museum, with enough money to build a case for them.^[14][15] Other Cull collection items were auctioned by Sotheby's in the 1960s,^[16] and she sold seven paintings by James Peter Quinn in 1975.^[17] Further objects from their collection were bequeathed to the British Museum in 1979.^[18]

Ursula Mackarness married London banker Anders Eric Knos Cull in 1913, in London.^[2][19] They had six children and lived at Warfield House in Bracknell, Berkshire.^[20] The Culls' grandson Eric Brodnax was a member of the equestrian team representing the U.S. Virgin Islands at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.^[21]

Ursula Mackarness Cull was widowed in 1968,^[22] and still alive in 1972.^[14]