McCORMICK, Sophie Lilly Sarah (1956-2020)
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Sophie Lilly Sarah McCormick was born in London on 27 October 1956, the only daughter of an Anglo-Irish father, John Ormsby McCormick, and an aristocratic French mother, Francine Paris. Her father served in the Diplomatic Service, and Sophie spent her early years in Jakarta and Ankara.
Her mother, who was related to Count Grigory Potemkin, the lover of Catherine the Great, was an active member of the French Resistance during the Second World War and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. She remained a lifelong political activist, espousing such causes as Tibetan liberation and the freeing of Poland from Communism.
She moved to Florence in the late 1970s to study painting and train as a picture restorer. In Rome she met Lord Constantine Phipps (later 5th Marquess of Normanby), with whom she had a daughter.
In the final years of her life when she was unwell, she was cared for by an American yachtsman, Tad Wilbur. It delighted her to inform visitors that he was descended from the royal family of Hawaii.
Sophie McCormick is survived by her daughter, Pandora, an actress.
Sophie McCormick, born October 27 1956, died March 7 2020
