Marion Davies
Marion Davies was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States on January 3rd, 1897 and is the Director. At the age of 64, Marion Davies biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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Marion Cecilia Davies (born Marion Cecilia Elizabeth Douras, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American film actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Davies appeared in many Broadway musicals and one film, Runaway Romany (1917) and then became the mistress of newspaper mistress William Randolph Hearst.
He later took over the reins of her career's administration.
Hearst funded Davies' pictures and promoted her heavily through his newspapers and Hearst Newsreels.
Cosmopolitan Pictures was established to produce her films.
Hearst preferred to see her in historical dramas, but her true gift was in comedy.
Today Davies is best remembered as Hearst's mistress until his death, and as the hostess of many lavish affairs for Hollywood celebrities.
In particular, her name is linked to the 1924 tragedy aboard Hearst's yacht, when one of his guests, film producer Thomas Ince, died. The title character's second wife, an untalented singer who continues to promote, was widely believed to be based on Davies in the film Citizen Kane (1941).
However, many commentators, including Citizen Kane writer/director Orson Welles, have defended Davies' career as a natural performer, to whom Hearst's patronage did more harm than good.
She resigned from television in 1937 and moved to Hearst and charitable work. Davies provided financial as well as emotional assistance in Hearst's declining years until his death in 1951.
She married for the first time eleven weeks after his death, in a marriage that ended when Davies died of acute osteomyelitis (cancer of the jaw) in 1961 at the age of 64.
Early life and education
Marion Douras was born in Brooklyn on January 3, 1897, the youngest of five children born to Bernard J. Douras, a lawyer and judge in New York City and Rose Reilly. Gloria Gould Bishop's father performed the civil marriage of her father. Ethel, Rose, and Reine were her three older sisters. Charles, the older brother, drowned. Davies' uncle, screenwriter Charles Lederer, the son of Davies' sister Reine Davies, was then named after he was given his name.
The Douras family lived in Brooklyn near Prospect Park. Davies was uninterested in her academic studies and extremely dissatisfied as a child supervised by Catholic nuns and later a religious convent near Tours, France. Davies grew up hearing about the Evelyn Nesbit sex scandal, and her family was close friends with architect Stanford White. Marion left school to pursue a career as a teenager to pursue a career as a showgirl. Marion experiental followed suit after her sister Reine adopted Davies' stage name after seeing a billboard advertisement for Valentine Davies.
Career
At the old Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia, Davies began as a chorine with Chin-Chin, a 1914 musical starring David C. Montgomery and Fred Stone. On October 20, she made her Broadway debut by appearing in the Globe Theatre for the first time. She appeared in Many Home, Miss Information, and Stop, Look, Listen. She modeled for illustrators Harrison Fisher and Howard Chandler Christy when she wasn't dancing.
Davies was signed as a featured player in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1916. However, she had problems with her Ziegfeld career as a result of her persistent stammer, which barred her from pronouncing any lines. As a result, she was relegated to dancing routines only. A group of admirers devoted to Florenz Ziegfeld pursued her sexually when she was on the job. "The stage-door-Johnnies [sic] I didn't like," she said. Especially those who came from Yale." During a Yale rowdy undergraduates, Gaby Deslys, pelted Davies and other chorus dancers with tomatoes and rotten eggs to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the performance.
The teenage Davies was first noticed by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, who was seated in the front row of the audience while dancing in the Follies at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City. Davies, who was recalling this first meeting, said she was worried about Hearst from
Hearst was ostensibly going to the Follies show every night for eight weeks solely to admire Davies. Hearst clandestinely arranged for an intermediary from Campbell's Studio to photograph her in ornate costumes, such as a Japanese geisha and a virginal bride, without Davies' knowledge. As the photos were being shot, Davies discovered Hearst was secretly present in the photo studio's shadow. Terrified, she rushed to the dressing room and locked the door. RIGHT, however, Hearst abruptly departed without introducing himself. They saw each other again in Palm Beach after months of months, but Hearst's wife was there. They didn't become close until a few years later.
Davies made her screen debut in 1916 and modeling gowns by Lady Duff-Gordon in a fashion newsreel, and she appeared in her first feature film, Runaway Romany (1917). Davies wrote the film, which was produced by her brother-in-law, producer George W. Lederer. When she made her last revue appearance in Ed Wynn's Carnival, she would continue to alternate between stage and film until 1920.
Hearst founded Cosmopolitan Pictures in 1918 and asked Davies to commit to a $500-per-week exclusive deal with his studio. Hearst, a 21-year-old Davies, and an old Hearst 58 year-old began a sexual relationship after she signed. Hearst decided to promote Davies on a massive scale, utilizing his vast newspaper empire and Hearst Metrotone Newsreels. Her social work were discussed, and a Los Angeles Examiner reporter was given the full time job of recounting Davies' daily lives in print. Hearst invested $7 million on Davies' career (equivalent to $131,946,759 in 2021).
Hearst, who was then married to Millicent Hearst, and her mother and her siblings were soon moved with Davies and her mother and sister into a chic Manhattan townhouse on the corner of Riverside Drive and W. 105th Street. "Marion's new palace fit for a princess queen was nothing less than a palace fit for a movie-queen," Hearst said, "especially since the queen will often be receiving the newspaper on the premises." Cecilia of the Pink Roses, 1918, was her first film to be funded by Hearst. Cosmopolitan Pictures became his first distributor, first with Paramount Pictures, then with Samuel Goldwyn Productions, and finally with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Davies appeared in 29 films over the course of ten years, an average of nearly three films per year. When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922), directed by Robert G. Vignola, with whom she worked on several films, was one of her best known roles. With both When Knighthood Was in Flower and Little Old New York ranked among the top three box office hits of those years, the 1922–23 period may have been her most successful as an actress. At their 1924 Hollywood convention, she was crowned the nation's top female box-office actress and crowned "Queen of the Screen." Beverly of Graustark, The Cardboard Lover, Enchantment, The Bride's Play, The Lights of Old Broadway, Zander the Great, The Red Mill, Yolanda, Beauty's Worth, and The Restless Sex were among the hit silent films included: Beverly of Graustark, The Cardboard Lover, Enchantment, The Bride's Play, The Bride's Play, The Carpenter's Play, The Red Mill, The Red Mill, The White Mille,
Millicent Hearst's wife and Hearst moved to New York in 1926filt Hearst, and Hearst and Davies followed the Pacific Ocean to Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Playwright George Bernard Shaw allegedly remarked on the sprawling Hearst Castle's Greek statues and celestial suites, "This is what God would have built if he had the money." Hearst and Davies lived at Marion's similarly posh beach house in Santa Monica, as well as St Donat's Castle in Wales, when not holding court. The couple spent a considerable amount of their time entertaining and staging lavish soirees with influential guests, including many Hollywood actors and political figures during the Jazz Age. Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Harpo Marx, Harpo Marx, Clark Gable, Calvin Coolidge, Winston Churchill, Charles Lindbergh, among other things, was among others' frequent visitors.
Hearst's zealous attempts to promote Davies' career had arguably had a detrimental effect as the years went by. Hearst grandiosely marketed her latest films with "signs all over New York City and photographs in the newspaper," according to Davies. "I thought it was going to be a little too much." The public was irritated by such escalating news. "People became so sick of the name Marion Davies that they'd even insult me in New York city." Davies' memoirs in which she appeared in The Times We Had discovered that such over-the-top promotion of her film career likely did more harm than good.
Hearst's enmity with Davies' career, particularly in her earlier films and stage appearances. Davies vetoed the casting of attractive leading men, and it would not normally encourage her to be included in stage or theater plays. Davies's memoirs have repeatedly attacked Hearst's ferocious stewardship in vain: "Everyone has to do a little embrace in pictures, not for the audience's sake." Hearst would not relent, though Hearst would not relent. Therefore, many of her older photographs were considered sexless and featured "no kissing at all" even though a kiss was required for a happy ending. Hearst persisted on rewriting Davies' film scriptperfections, as well as his frequent muckling of film directors such as Lloyd Bacon.
Hearst hampered Davies' career by insisting that she appear only in costume dramas in which she played "a doll-sweetheart out of the 1890s," in the style of D. W. Griffith heroines. Davies herself was more able to explore her comic skills with her colleagues Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford at United Artists, but Hearst advised against doing so. She preferred seeing her in expensive historical films, but she appeared in comedies such as Tillie the Toiler, The Fair Co-Ed (1927), and especially three directed by King Vidor, Not So Dumb (1930), The Patsy and the backstage-in-Hollywood saga Show People (both 1928). The Patsy has a collection of her imitations, some of silent actors Lillian Gish, Mae Murray, and Pola Negri. Instead of the dramatic actress Hearst wanted her to be, Vidor saw Davies as a comedic actor rather than the dramatic actress she wanted her to be. He discovered she was the life of parties and turned it into his films.
Davies was frightened by the sound's entrance because she had a recurring stutter. She continued to film, including Marianne (1929), The Bachelor Father (1931), The Hollywood Revue (1929) with Leslie Howard (1934), Going Hollywood (1934) with Gary Cooper. (1930) Hearst causing frequent accidents on the set and insisted on directing a scene, much to film director Richard Boles lawski's dissatisfaction.
Davies, a producer from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was often involved in several aspects of her films and was regarded as an astute businesswoman. However, Hearst's insistence that she appear in dramatic roles as opposed to her dramatic roles, which was her forte. Hearst allegedly tried to convince MGM production manager Irving Thalberg to play Davies in the coveted role of the 1938 historical drama Marie Antoinette, but Thalberg refused to do so to his devoted wife, Norma Shearer. Davies was denied the female lead in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, which also went to Shearer. Despite Davies' friendship with the Thalbergs, Hearst retaliated angrily by pulling his newspaper support for MGM and moving Davies and Cosmopolitan Pictures' distribution to Warner Brothers.
Page Miss Glory (1935), Davies' first film at Warner Brothers was Page Miss Glory (1935). Pepi Lederer, Davies' vivacious 25-year-old niece, died during this time, triggering a personal tragedy in the course of her own life. Pepi had been a San Simeon permanent resident for many years. She was a closeted lesbian who had sexual interactions with actresses Louise Brooks, Nina Mae McKinney, and others. Hearst became aware of Lederer's lesbianism at some point during the Pepi and Brooks controversy. Hearst arranged for Pepi to be admitted to a mental hospital for her heroin use, according to Louise Brooks' memoirs. To prevent a public controversy or to prevent all blackmail, Hearst arranged for him to be committed to a mental institution for her drug use. Pepi committed suicide in June 1935, only days after her hospitalization, by crashing to her death from an upper floor window of the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. Hearst is accused of using his media to have Pepi's death obscured in the news cycle, and Davies has arranged a funeral for her niece at a private chapel.
Davies appeared in Hearts Divided (1936) and Cain and Mabel (1936), after a brief absence due to her niece's suicide. Ever Since Eve (1937), Warner Brothers' last film, was Ever Since Eve (1937). Warner Brothers bought the rights to Robert E. Sherwood's 1935 film Tovarich for Davies, mirroring earlier MGM events, but Claudette Colbert was given the leading role in the 1937 film version. Hearst shopped Davies and Cosmopolitan for another year, but no deals were made, and the actress officially resigned. Davies was offered the role of Mrs. Brown in Claudia in 1943, but Hearst discouraged her from playing a supporting role and tarnishing her acting career. Davies had never been anything but the actor in her 45 feature films over a 20-year career, and except for uncredited cameo appearances, she had always been top billing.
