45 Facts About Marion Davies

Marion Davies soon became a featured performer in the Ziegfeld Follies.

Marion Davies retired from the screen in 1937 to devote herself to an ailing Hearst and charitable work.

In Hearst's declining years, Marion Davies remained his steadfast companion until his death in 1951.

Marion Davies's father performed the civil marriage of socialite Gloria Gould Bishop.

Marion Davies had three older sisters, Ethel, Rose, and Reine.

Marion Davies's name was given to Davies' favorite nephew, screenwriter Charles Lederer, the son of Davies' sister Reine Davies.

Marion Davies appeared in Nobody Home, Miss Information and Stop, Look and Listen.

In 1916, Marion Davies was signed as a featured player in the Ziegfeld Follies.

Marion Davies sent me flowers and little gifts, like silver boxes or gloves or candy.

Marion Davies continued to alternate between stage and screen until 1920 when she made her last revue appearance in Ed Wynn's Carnival.

Marion Davies's newsreels touted her social activities, and a reporter from the Los Angeles Examiner was assigned the full-time job of recounting Davies' daily exploits in print.

Marion Davies was named the number one female box-office star by theater owners and crowned "Queen of the Screen" at their 1924 Hollywood convention.

In 1926, Hearst's wife Millicent Hearst moved to New York, and Hearst and Marion Davies moved to the palatial Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Marion Davies herself was more inclined to develop her comic talents alongside her friends Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford at United Artists, but Hearst pointedly discouraged this.

Marion Davies preferred seeing her in expensive historical pictures, but she appeared in contemporary comedies like Tillie the Toiler, The Fair Co-Ed, and especially three directed by King Vidor, Not So Dumb, The Patsy and the backstage-in-Hollywood saga Show People.

Marion Davies noticed she was the life of parties and incorporated that into his films.

Marion Davies's career progressed, nonetheless, and she made a number of films during the early sound era, including Marianne, The Hollywood Revue of 1929, The Florodora Girl, The Bachelor Father, Five and Ten with Leslie Howard, Polly of the Circus with Clark Gable, Blondie of the Follies, Peg o' My Heart, Going Hollywood with Bing Crosby, and Operator 13 with Gary Cooper.

Hearst purportedly used his press influence to have Pepi's death obscured in the news cycle, and Marion Davies arranged a funeral for her niece at a private chapel.

In 1943, Marion Davies was offered the role of Mrs Brown in Claudia, but Hearst dissuaded her from taking a supporting role and tarnishing her starring career.

At one point, Hearst reportedly came close to marrying Marion Davies, but decided his wife's settlement demands were too high.

Lita Grey, Charlie Chaplin's second wife, wrote four decades later that Marion Davies confided to her about her relationship with Hearst.

Marion Davies knows about me, but it's still understood that when she decides to go to the ranch for a week or a weekend, I've got to vamoose.

Marion Davies became irate when Hearst's newspapers began openly promoting Swor's career in a nearly identical fashion to their earlier promotion of hers.

Lake told her friends and family that Marion Davies became pregnant by Hearst in the early 1920s.

Lake claimed she was born in a Catholic hospital outside Paris between 1919 and 1923 and was then given to Marion Davies' sister Rose, whose own child had died in infancy, and passed off as Rose and her husband George Van Cleve's daughter.

Marion Davies reportedly told Lake of her true parentage when she was age 11, while Hearst confirmed he was her father on her wedding day at age 17, where both Marion Davies and Hearst gave her away.

In November 1924, Marion Davies was among those revelers aboard Hearst's steam yacht Oneida for a weekend party that culminated in the death of film producer Thomas Ince.

Marion Davies was taken to his Hollywood home where he died.

Consequently, when Hearst's Cosmopolitan Pictures folded in 1938, Marion Davies left the film business and retreated to San Simeon.

However, Marion Davies was intensely ambitious, and she faced the harsh reality at age forty that she could no longer play young heroines, as in her earlier films.

Consequently, when drunk at parties in San Simeon, Marion Davies often lamented her retirement and "cursed everyone who felt she had contributed to her ruined career".

Marion Davies retained her original 30,000 shares and an advisory role with the corporation.

Marion Davies filed for divorce twice, but neither was finalized, despite Brown admitting he treated her badly: "I'm a beast," he said.

In Summer 1956, after many decades of heavy drinking, Marion Davies had a minor cerebral stroke and was admitted to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital.

Marion Davies quipped to columnist Hedda Hopper that "we blondes seem to be falling apart".

When Joseph P Kennedy learned Davies was dying of cancer, he "had three cancer specialists flown out" to examine her.

Consequently, a retroactive myth soon developed that Marion Davies was "not a great actress and the films she made were not among the more impressive or profitable releases".

However, contrary to the retroactive myth that Marion Davies' films were neither popular nor profitable, most of Marion Davies' films made money, and she remained a popular star for most of her career.

That Susan was Kane's wife and Marion Davies was Hearst's mistress is a difference more important than might be guessed in today's changed climate of opinion.

Hearst built more than one castle, and Marion Davies was the hostess in all of them: they were pleasure domes indeed, and the Beautiful People of the day fought for invitations.

In 1985, Marion Davies was portrayed by 23-year-old Virginia Madsen in the ABC telefilm The Hearst and Marion Davies Affair with Robert Mitchum as Hearst.

In subsequent decades, Marion Davies was portrayed by Heather McNair in Chaplin and by Gretchen Mol in Cradle Will Rock.

The movie depicts Marion Davies growing irritated with Hearst's lifestyle and political views.

That same year, a documentary film Captured on Film: The True Story of Marion Davies premiered on Turner Classic Movies.

In 2004, the story of William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies was made into a musical titled WR and Daisy, with book and lyrics by Robert and Phyllis White and music by Glenn Paxton.