Marion Davies

Marion Cecilia Douras was born on January 3, 1897, in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of five children of Bernard J. Douras, a lawyer and judge in New York City, and Rose Reilly. She had three older sisters, Ethel, Rose, and Reine, and an older brother, Charles, who drowned. Her nephew, screenwriter Charles Lederer, was the son of her sister Reine and was subsequently given the name of the deceased brother. The Douras family lived near Prospect Park in Brooklyn and maintained a close friendship with architect Stanford White. Davies was educated at a Sacred Heart convent near the Hudson River and later at a convent near Tours, France. She struggled with a stammer throughout childhood, and the torment she experienced from classmates and teachers led her to convince her mother to allow her to leave school early to pursue a career as a showgirl. Her sister Reine had adopted the stage name Davies after spotting it on a real estate billboard, and Marion followed suit.

Davies began her performing career as a chorus line dancer in Chin-Chin, a 1914 musical starring David C. Montgomery and Fred Stone, which played at the old Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia before she made her Broadway debut in the production at the Globe Theatre on October 20 of that year. Her Broadway career extended from 1914 to 1920 and encompassed a range of productions, including Nobody Home, Miss Information, Stop Look and Listen, the musical Betty, the musical Oh Boy, the revue Miss 1917, Words and Music, and Ed Wynn's Carnival. When she was not performing, she modeled for illustrators Harrison Fisher and Howard Chandler Christy.

In 1916, Davies was signed as a featured player in the Ziegfeld Follies. Her persistent stammer prevented her from delivering spoken lines, which confined her to dancing routines. It was while performing at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City that newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, seated in the front row, first observed her. Hearst attended the Follies show every night for eight weeks and arranged, without Davies's knowledge, for an intermediary to invite her to be photographed in ornate costumes at Campbell's Studio. During the session, Davies realized Hearst was present in the darkened studio and fled to a dressing room. The two later encountered each other again in Palm Beach, Florida, though Hearst's wife Millicent was present on that occasion.

Davies made her screen debut in 1916 and appeared in Runaway Romany in 1917, a feature film she wrote herself, directed by her brother-in-law, producer George W. Lederer. She continued alternating between stage and screen until 1920, when her final Broadway appearance came in the revue Ed Wynn's Carnival. In 1918, Hearst founded Cosmopolitan Pictures and offered Davies a $500-per-week exclusive contract. After she signed, the two began a relationship. Hearst promoted her career extensively through his newspaper empire and Hearst Metrotone Newsreels, assigning a reporter from the Los Angeles Examiner to cover her daily activities full time, and expending an estimated $7 million on her career advancement. Cecilia of the Pink Roses in 1918 was her first film backed by Hearst, who subsequently secured distribution deals for Cosmopolitan Pictures with Paramount Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn Productions, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Over the following decade, Davies appeared in 29 films, averaging nearly three per year. Her performances in When Knighthood Was in Flower and Little Old New York made her the number one female box office star in Hollywood by 1924, with both films ranking among the biggest box office hits of their respective years. During the same period, Davies became known as the hostess of lavish gatherings attended by Hollywood actors and political elites. In 1924, her name became connected to scandal when film producer Thomas Ince died at a party aboard Hearst's yacht.

Davies retired from the screen in 1937, devoting herself to charitable work and to Hearst, whose health was declining. She remained his companion until his death in 1951. Eleven weeks after his death, she married sea captain Horace Brown. Davies died on September 22, 1961, at the age of 64, from malignant osteomyelitis of the jaw. By the time of her death, her public image had been shaped in part by the character of Susan Alexander Kane in Citizen Kane, Hearst's second wife in the film, an untalented singer whom he attempts to promote. Writer-director Orson Welles was among those who defended Davies's record as a gifted actress and comedienne, and in his final years he worked to correct what he regarded as widespread misconceptions the film had created about her talents and popularity.