Mae Murray

Mae Murray, born Marie Adrienne Koenig on May 10, 1885, in New York City, was an American actress, dancer, film producer, and screenwriter who became one of the most recognizable figures of the silent film era. Known by the nicknames "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen," she was the second-oldest child of Joseph and Mary Koenig, whose parents had emigrated from France and Germany respectively. Her two brothers were William Robert and Howard Joseph. The family settled in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and in May 1896, her father died from acute gastritis resulting from alcoholism. Her mother subsequently took a position as a housekeeper for Harry Payne Whitney to support the family.

Murray's performing career began on the Broadway stage in 1906, when she appeared alongside dancer Vernon Castle. She went on to perform in several Broadway productions between 1906 and 1915, including the musicals The Young Turk, The Bachelor Belles, and Her Little Highness, as well as the play Miss Daisy. In 1908, she joined the chorus line of the Ziegfeld Follies, and by 1915 she had advanced to headliner status, appearing in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915. During this period she also became a prominent figure on the club circuit in both the United States and Europe, with dance partners that included Clifton Webb, Rudolph Valentino, and John Gilbert.

Murray made her motion picture debut in To Have and to Hold in 1916. She became a major star for Universal, appearing with Rudolph Valentino in both The Delicious Little Devil and Big Little Person in 1919. At the height of her popularity in the early 1920s, she formed a production company with director Robert Z. Leonard. In 1925, Murray, Leonard, and Stahl produced films at Tiffany Pictures, with Souls for Sables starring Claire Windsor and Eugene O'Brien serving as the first film released under that banner. That same year, Murray appeared in the title role of The Merry Widow, directed by Erich von Stroheim and co-starring John Gilbert. During this period she also wrote a weekly newspaper column for William Randolph Hearst and was painted by Hollywood portrait artist Theodore Lukits in a work titled Symphony in Jade and Gold (The Actress Mae Murray), completed in 1922 and later exhibited at the Pacific Asia Museum in 1999. In the early 1920s, Murray served on the board of trustees of the Motion Picture and Television Fund alongside Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, Jesse L. Lasky, Harold Lloyd, Hal Roach, Donald Crisp, Conrad Nagel, and Irving Thalberg.

The transition to sound film marked the beginning of Murray's professional decline. She made her sound debut in Peacock Alley in 1930, a remake of her 1921 silent version of the same title. In 1931, she appeared in Bachelor Apartment alongside Irene Dunne, Lowell Sherman, and Norman Kerry, a film that received poor critical notices. Her final film was High Stakes in 1931, also featuring Sherman. Her career had already been severely damaged by her decision, at the urging of her fourth husband David Mdivani, to walk out on her contract with MGM. Studio head Louis B. Mayer responded by effectively blacklisting her from Hollywood's major studios. In 1927, Murray was also sued by masseuse Sylvia of Hollywood for an outstanding amount of $2,125, resulting in a widely publicized court case.

Murray married four times. Her first marriage, to William M. Schwenker Jr. in September 1908 in Hoboken, New Jersey, ended in divorce in 1910. On December 18, 1916, she married former dancer and future Olympic bobsled champion Jay O'Brien, who had previously been married to Irene Fenwick; that marriage ended in 1918. She then wed film director Robert Z. Leonard on August 18, 1918, and they divorced on May 26, 1925. Her fourth marriage, to David Mdivani on June 27, 1926, produced one child, Koran David Mdivani, born in 1926. The couple divorced in 1933. Koran was placed in the care of Sara Elizabeth Cunning of Averill Park, New York, beginning in 1936 while recovering from a double mastoid operation performed by Cunning's brother Dr. David Cunning. A custody dispute between Murray and Mdivani concluded in 1940 with Murray receiving legal custody, though Koran continued to live with Cunning, who adopted him under the name Daniel Michael Cunning. Mdivani had by that point depleted the majority of Murray's finances. Murray also campaigned for the reelection of President Herbert Hoover in 1932.

In the 1940s, Murray made regular appearances at Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe nightclub, where her dancing, particularly the Merry Widow Waltz, was well received, though her costuming and makeup drew criticism. In 1946 she taught ballroom dancing to teenagers at a studio on Crenshaw Boulevard near 48th Street in Los Angeles. She was the subject of an authorized biography, The Self-Enchanted, written by Jane Ardmore and published in 1959. On the evening of February 19, 1964, Murray was found disoriented in St. Louis, having lost track of her destination and the name of her hotel. In her later years she received assistance from the Motion Picture and Television Fund, the same organization on whose board she had once served. Murray died on March 23, 1965, at the Motion Picture House in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 79, and is interred at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood. She holds a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6318 Hollywood Boulevard, and her eyes were among those of three actresses — along with Pola Negri and Theda Bara — combined to form the logo of the Chicago International Film Festival.