Marion Davies | Biography, Movies, & Facts (2024)

Marion Davies (born January 3, 1897, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died September 22, 1961, Los Angeles, California) was an American actor who was more renowned for her 34-year relationship with publishing giant William Randolph Hearst than for her performance career. Nonetheless, she was a popular movie star in the 1920s, and she was particularly admired for her comic talents.

Marion’s father, Bernard J. Douras, was a lawyer who served as New York City magistrate from 1918 to 1930. Her three elder sisters—Reine, Ethel, and Rose—also became actors, and, like Reine, Marion used the stage name Davies. At age 13 Davies made her stage debut as a chorus girl in The Blue Bird, and she first appeared on Broadway in Chin Chin (1914). She continued to appear in shows until 1917, when 54-year-old publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst noticed her in the chorus line of The Ziegfeld Follies. Hearst was a married man, but he and Davies began a relationship that lasted until his death in 1951. Hearst proceeded to use his influence and his money to establish a film career for Davies. According to his obituary in The New York Times, Hearst spent $7 million promoting her career.

Davies made her film debut in Runaway Romany (1917), and her first Hearst-supported movie was Cecilia of the Pink Roses (1918). She was often cast in dramatic roles, and one of her most popular movies, When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922), was in this vein. However, Davies was much more successful in such comic films as Enchantment (1921), the hit movie Little Old New York (1923), Zander the Great (1925), and especially The Patsy and Show People (both 1928). She made her talking picture debut in Marianne (1929). Davies costarred with Clark Gable in Polly of the Circus (1932) and Cain and Mabel (1936) and with a young Bing Crosby in Going Hollywood (1933). Davies made her last film, Ever Since Eve, in 1937, the year that she is reported to have sold her jewelry in order to lend Hearst a million dollars to help him out of temporary financial difficulties.

Rejected by Hearst’s family after his death, Davies married an old friend, sea captain Horace G. Brown. Although she twice filed for divorce, she withdrew both suits, and Brown survived her. In her post-Hollywood life, Davies proved to be a shrewd businesswoman. She made sound real-estate investments, including her purchase of the Desert Inn in Palm Springs, California, several Manhattan office buildings, and a series of mansions and castles. Interested in philanthropy and in politics, she supported several charities and campaigned on behalf of John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Davies died of cancer in 1961. Thirty-two years later, upon the death of Patricia Van Cleve Lake, a woman thought to have been Davies’s sister Rose’s daughter, Lake’s family revealed that Patricia was in fact the only child of Davies and Hearst.