Victoria McKee

A ‘free spirit’ who freelanced for most of her career for national and international newspapers, she also became a singer/songwriter, as Vicky McKee, after meeting her future husband Jack Pearson – who brought out the music in her. From the turn of the Millennium she was as happy ‘busking’ on a street corner as she was interviewing the great and the good in their natural habitats, and as creative in her music (only playing songs she wrote) as she was in her journalism, coming up with her feature ideas herself and actively selling them, rather than waiting for commissions. Sometimes she and Jack, a talented photographer, would work on stories together - as they did on the training of women in the military for The Times, and on “The New Utopias” – supposedly – of gated communities for the very rich in Florida, for The Daily Telegraph.

Although she contributed to most of Britain’s national newspapers – The Times/Sunday Times, Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph, Independent/Independent on Sunday, Guardian, Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday, Sunday Express, and often to their colour supplements – she was best known for her regular contributions to The Times from 1988-2002. During that period, the News International Library informed her, she had clocked up over 2,000 bylined articles for the Times alone (not including those she wrote under other names). She also contributed regularly to magazines such as Harpers & Queen [now Harpers Bazaar], for which she devised and wrote a series on complementary medicine that combined celebrity interviews with information for readers, and to international publications such as The New York Times, her ‘home town paper.’ She was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1991, for her writing.

Born in New York City – mid-town Manhattan – to musical publicist Alix Williamson and her husband, concert and opera artists’ manager Joseph Lippman, Victoria spent her childhood being “dragged” to concerts, operas, and around Europe. Eschewing the private education her parents “half-heartedly” proffered, she prided herself on going to ‘Junior High School’ in New York’s notorious ‘Hell’s Kitchen,’ before going on to the highly academic Bronx High School of Science, and to ‘double major’ in both English and Theatre Arts at the prestigious Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

Coming to England in 1973 to get an MA in Shakespeare Studies at The Shakespeare Institute of The University of Birmingham, Victoria stayed, married and raised a family here – working for 10 years as a staff feature writer on The Birmingham Post & Mail before turning freelance in 1986. She always lived in the Midlands, even when working full-time in London. Her children Daniel [31, Teacher] and Jessica [28, Fitness Instructor] are from her first marriage to the late Bob McKee, former chief executive of CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) whom she met at The Shakespeare Institute.

The death of her mother in New York City shortly before 9-11, and the need to deal with her affairs there (including organising and donating an Alix Williamson Collection to the Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center) caused Victoria to start a trans-Atlantic lifestyle as well as a trans-Atlantic writing career. She reinvented herself as a lecturer and teacher, lecturing at Cape Cod Community College, The University of Central England (now Birmingham City University), teaching adult education classes in both the U.S. and the UK (for Birmingham Adult Education and Sandwich Community School, Cape Cod), and devising her own creative concepts such as ‘Waterside Writing Workshops,’ ‘ACTS’ – Actors’ Circle for Training in Shakespeare – and Youth ACTS, for teenagers. She loved working with young people who enjoyed Shakespeare, and infusing others with enthusiasm for his works. She trained as a teacher at Warwick University in 2009, teaching at The Royal Grammar School, Worcester, and Queen Mary’s Grammar School, Walsall after training placements at Langley School, Solihull, and Small Heath School,Birmingham.

Between 2004 and 2012 she also brought out three CDs of her original songs: Vicky McKee: Find the Dream, Vicky McKee: Unguarded and Vicky McKee: Forever and a Night (see www.vickymckee.com). She enjoyed playing live in pubs, clubs, libraries and other venues in the U.S. and UK – whether solo, as the ‘Shore Thing’ duo with Jack, or as a full band with musicians Jem Vipond and Carl Harris, who, like Jack, play on her CDs. She also built her “dream house” in Onset, Massachusetts, with sparkling water views.

She married Jack Pearson, a retired American Army careerist, on 8/8/8 (August 8, 2008) on the sand dunes of Cape Cod, where he has worked every summer since they met, in 1999, for the Cape Cod National Seashore while she ran her writers’ workshops and acting classes up and down the Cape. Most recently she founded Improv Cape Cod at Cotuit Center for the Arts.

A Memorial Service: Remembering Vicky, will be held at 12pm, October 28th, 2013, at Cotuit Center for the Arts, 4404 Falmouth Rd, Cotuit, MA 02635, USA. No flowers, please, but donations would be appreciated to Myeloma UK (www.myeloma.org.uk).