Marion Davies was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. As a teenager, she appeared in several Broadway musicals and one film, Runaway Romany. In 1916, Davies was signed on as a featured player in the Ziegfeld Follies. She met newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst and became his mistress.
About Marion Davies in brief
Marion Davies was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. As a teenager, she appeared in several Broadway musicals and one film, Runaway Romany. In 1916, Davies was signed on as a featured player in the Ziegfeld Follies. She met newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst and became his mistress. Hearst financed Davies’ pictures and extensively promoted her career via his newspapers and Hearst Newsreels. Davies became renowned as the hostess of lavish soirées for Hollywood actors and political elites. In 1924, her name became linked with scandal when film producer Thomas Ince died at a party aboard Hearst’s yacht. After the decline of her film career during the Great Depression, Davies struggled with alcoholism, and she retired from the screen in 1937 to devote herself to an ailing Hearst. Davies’ legacy as a talented actress was already overshadowed by her popular association with the character of Susan Alexander Kane in the film Citizen Kane. Davies died of malignant osteomyelitis in 1961 at the age of 64. She was the youngest of five children born to Bernard J. Douras, a lawyer and judge in New York City; and Rose Reilly. Her father performed the civil marriage of socialite Gloria Gould Bishop. She had three older sisters, Ethel, Rose, and Reine. An older brother, Charles, drowned at the aged of 15 in 1906. His name was subsequently given to Davies’ favorite nephew, screenwriters Charles Lederer, the son of Davies’ sister Reine Davies.
Davies worked as a chorine starting with Chin-Chin, a 1914 musical starring David C. Montgomery and Fred Stone, at the old Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia. She also appeared in Nobody Home, Miss Information and Stop, Look and Listen. When not dancing, she modeled for illustrators Harrison Fisher and Howard Chandler Christy. Davies was married to sea captain Horace Brown, and their marriage lasted until Davies’ own death in 1961. She is survived by her daughter, Reine, and her son-in-law, actor and screenwriter Robert De Niro. She died of cancer on September 22, 1961, aged 64, at her home in Los Angeles, California. Her funeral was held at the Los Angeles Memorial Veteran’s Cemetery on September 23, 1961. Davies is buried at Mount Sinai Cemetery in Westfield, New York, with her husband, Horace, and daughter-in New York City’s mayor, Rudy Giuliani. Her husband died of lung cancer on October 2, 1961 at age 80. She leaves behind a son, Robert Davies, and a daughter, Marion Davies, Jr., a television personality and producer. Her grandson, Robert DeNiro, is the creator of the television series “The Voice” and co-host of the daytime talk show “Larry King Live” with Larry King and Larry King Live, which airs on PBS stations across the U.S.
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