Trivia of Marion Davies

 Trivia of Marion Davies (3 January 1897 - 22 September 1961)

*Born Marion Cecilia Elizabeth Brooklyn Douras to a middle-class family in Brooklyn, Marion and her sisters soon changed their name to “Davies” because it sounded more British, which they thought would help them gain entry into the upper echelons of New York society.

*While performing in the 1916 Ziegfeld Follies, the nineteen-year-old Marion met the fifty-three-year-old newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst, and became his mistress for over 30 years. Hearst took over management of Davies's career and promoted her as a film actress.

*She and Rudolph Valentino were crowned Queen of the Screen and King of the Screen, respectively, by theater owners at the Motion Picture Carnival in May 1924.

*William Randolph Hearst reportedly tried to push MGM production boss Irving Thalberg to cast Davies in the title role in Marie Antoinette (1938), but Thalberg gave the part to his wife, Norma Shearer. Hearst had previously attempted to get Davies cast as Elizabeth Barrett Browning in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), a role that also went to Shearer.

*She had a long-standing reputation in the film industry for being extremely kind to the casts and crews of her films, going so far as to pay hospital bills anonymously if she heard that they were sick.

*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.Hearst died in 1951 and Davies banned from Hearsts' funeral.

*After Hearst’s death on 1951, Davies inherited 170,000 shares of his company’s stock which made her a part of his company’s managerial team. However, she chose to relinquish the stock on October 30, 1951 and retained only her role as an advisor within the corporation.