Profile of Marion Davies on Famous Like Me

Marion Davies (born January 3, 1897; died September 23, 1961) was a United States actress whose long-running relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst obscured her talents.

Of Greek and Irish heritage, she was born Marion Douras in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of five children born to Herbert Douras, a lawyer who moved in New York City political circles, and Rose Reilly, formerly of Jersey City, New Jersey. Her elder siblings included Rose, Reine, and Ethel. A brother, Charles, drowned at the age of 15 in 1906. She spoke fluent Greek and liked to do puzzles.

The Douras family lived near Prospect Park in Brooklyn, but already the bright lights of Manhattan beckoned to the sisters. They all became showgirls on the Great White Way, where Florenz Ziegfeld was beginning his spectacular annual "Ziegfeld Follies" shows. These shows were considered the high end of Vaudeville.

The girls changed their surname to Davies, which one of them spotted from a realtor's sign in the neighborhood. Even as New York was the melting pot for new immigrants, having a Anglo-Saxon surname greatly helped one's prospects.

She made her film debut in 1917's Runaway Romany. Soon she began to play light comedic roles well into the 1920s and giving generous financial assistance to her family and friends. Her talent and personal life are still overshadowed, however, by her relationship with Hearst, who was married to former showgirl turned society grande dame Millicent Veronica Willson, and Davies' fabulous life as hostess at San Simeon and Ocean House in Santa Monica. Hearst met her soon after she'd started working in movies, and formed Cosmopolitan Pictures solely to produce starring vehicles for her.

Hearst loved seeing her in expensive costume pictures such as When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922), Little Old New York (1923), Janice Meredith (1924) and Quality Street (1927), but in retrospect she seems to have fared just as well, if not better, in contemporary comedies like Tillie the Toiler, The Fair Co-Ed (both 1927), and especially two directed by King Vidor, The Patsy and the backstage-in-Hollywood saga Show People (both 1928), where she showed a comedic talent and pantomimic skills.

Davies movie career lasted for 20 years, playing light comedic roles well into the 1930s. Her career, however, was hampered by Hearst's insistence that she play distinguished, dramatic parts, as opposed to the comic roles that were her forte. She also harboured an increasing dependence on alcohol, hiding bottles of liquor in San Simeon's toilet tanks. Her body of work has often been praised by contemporary critics however. They included: Marianne, Not So Dumb, Five and Ten, Blondie of the Follies, The Bachelor Father, Going Hollywood, Operator 13, Cain and Mabel, Page Miss Glory, and Ever Since Eve.

In all Davies appeared in fifty movies, including ten movies that she produced. Her last was in 1937. She was involved with many aspects of her films and was considered an astute businesswoman.

Hearst and Davies were never a fully committed couple, as Hearst never divorced his wife (at one point he came close to marrying Davies but his wife's settlement demands were too high) and Davies was infatuated with actor Dick Powell in the mid-30's. In the mid-20's she was involved with Charlie Chaplin. The latter relationship became the stuff of legend in 1924 when Hearst, Davies and Chaplin were on Hearst's yacht with film producer Thomas Ince. Ince took ill and died, and in spite of no supporting evidence, rumors have circulated for years that Hearst mistook Ince for Chaplin and shot him in a jealous rage. The rumors were dramatized in the play The Cat's Meow, which was later made into a 2001 film starring Edward Herrmann as Hearst, Kirsten Dunst as Davies, Eddie Izzard as Chaplin and Cary Elwes as Ince.

By the early 1940s, Hearst's empire crumbled and he was about to lose everything. Over Hearst's objections, Davies sold millions of dollars of the gifts he had given her over the years to raise money to bail him out. Davies commented that the gold digger had fallen in love. When Hearst died, his family had every trace of Davies' presence in his home removed, and when discussing his life and legacy, made no reference to her.

Ten weeks after Hearst's death, Davies married for the first time, at the age of fifty-four, on October 31, 1951. Her husband was a former sea captain, policeman and sometime actor, Horace G. Brown. It was not a happy marriage (he encouraged her drinking): Davies filed for divorce twice, but neither was finalized.

In 1952, Davies donated $1.9 million to establish a children's clinic at UCLA, which still bears her name. She also fought childhood diseases through the Marion Davies Foundation.

Davies died of cancer in Hollywood. Her funeral was attended by old-time Hollywood legends and President Herbert Hoover. She is buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood.

After the death of Davies' niece, Patricia Lake (née Van Cleeve), Lake's family announced that she was in fact the daughter of Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst. Prior to the announcement, it had been said that Lake was the daughter of Rose Davies (Marion's sister) and her first husband, George Van Cleeve. Although the claim does not appear to have been verified independently, Lake and her husband—Arthur Lake, who played Dagwood in numerous films—were buried beside Davies.

Davies was rumored to be the inspiration for the shrill, talentless Susan Alexander character portrayed in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, which was based loosely on Hearst's life. This portrayal has led to various portrayals of her as a drunken bimbo, the most recent of which was Melanie Griffith's in HBO's RKO 281. Welles himself deeply regretted that so many assumed Susan Alexander was a carbon copy of Davies—he felt that the real Davies was a wonderful woman. Davies was also portrayed by Virginia Madsen in The Hearst and Davies Affair (1985) and Heather Macnair in Chaplin (1992). Madsen later became a Davies fan and said that she felt she had inadvertently played her as a stereotype rather than a real person. Many film historians and fans resent the negative reputation Kane garnered her and have worked to restore her image in the public eye. Their efforts included a 2001 documentary which featured appearances by friends and costars who tearfully remembered Davies even four decades after her death.

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