Welcome to the second installment of Silent Saturdays, but most importantly, welcome back to Think Classic! We sincerely apologize fore being so useless and silent for the last few months. We are looking forward to getting back into the swing of things, starting with this post!
Today we are honoring a radiant jewel who still holds her luster from the silent era, despite the fact that she so often gets overlooked due to unfortunate circumstances at the time of her career.
Marion Davies
Born January 3, 1897
Died September 22, 1961
Marion Cecilia Douras was born in Brooklyn, New York in the winter of 1897. She was the youngest of five children--four daughters and one son, born to Rose and Bernard Douras. Marion's father was a judge in New York City. She came from a respectable family, but as she and her sisters grew older, they all willingly changed their surname to "Davies." One of the girls had seen the name on a real estate sign and they felt that it might be helpful in their future careers to be represented by a name that alludes to British ancestry. The Davies family was very religious, and all of the children were educated in a private state convent. Eventually, Marion decided that her goals lay beyond the realm of academic achievement, so she left school to build her career.
Davies soon found work as a model and she had several jobs posing for different artists and magazines. At the age of 18 she became one of the infamous Ziegfeld girls and joined up with the Ziegfeld Follies. It was later that same year that her modeling career landed her in front of a different kind of camera. She was chosen to model gowns by designer Lady Duff-Gordon on a newsreel. The next year, Davies appeared on the screen in the film Runaway Romany (1917), which she was also privileged enough to be able to take part in behind the scenes. Davies actually wrote the film herself, and was allowed some creative license due to the fact that the renowned director, George W. Lederer, was her brother-in-law. Critics and audiences alike seemed to automatically take a liking to this beautiful new talent--they wanted to see more of her.
And so they did. She starred in three different films in 1918--The Burden of Proof, Beatrice of Fairfax, and Cecilia of the Pink Roses. These roles turned out a good profit for Davies, who led a comfortable lifestyle. She was also always very generous with her earnings, and used them to help out her family and friends in any way she could. As time went on, she would also prove to be a very astute businesswoman with investments and donations.
In 1917, Davies became romantically involved with newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, who played an interesting part in her career. The two apparently truly cared for one another, and yet they were often at odds within their relationship. Hearst genuinely wished to further Davies in her career, but thought that she would excel in elaborate and expensive costume dramas, rather than the lighthearted comedies that suited her so much better. This difference of opinion might not have been so significant had Hearst not had the financial means to so thoroughly manage her career. As it was, he took it upon himself to relentlessly promote her in the papers, and would even step in and fervently insist that she be given specific roles. No one refused him. In 1918, Hearst outdid himself when he opened his own studio called Cosmopolitan Productions, with the sole intent of using it to bolster Davies' career. Certainly the publicity played its part, and Davies was very quickly becoming one of the most promising stars in the industry.
As time went on, most people began to take note of Davies for other reasons. The lavish
Many of the high points of Davies' career in film happened before talkies dominated the big screen. Davies was apprehensive with the developments of microphones which would enable people to hear her speaking voice, since she had never fully recovered from a stutter since childhood. She was one of the lucky ones, however, who managed a relatively smooth transition and was therefore able to continue on in her career. She did well in the early 1930s, finding herself cast alongside the likes of Leslie Howard, Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, and Gary Cooper in such pictures as Five and Ten (1931), Polly of the Circus (1932), Going Hollywood (1933), and Operator 13 (1934).
The relief that came after her transition to talkies at the beginning of the 1930s was short-lived. In another attempt to steer her away from comedy, Hearst tried to cut a deal with producer Irving Thalberg. He wanted Thalberg to cast Davies as the lead in the epic drama Marie Antoinette. Thalberg ended up giving the famous part to his own wife, actress Norma Shearer. Davies, who was good friends with the Thalbergs at the time, had no objection to this decision. Hearst became angry and severed all ties with Thalberg and publicly pulled his support from MGM--a fatal move for Davies' career. He instead moved Cosmopolitan Productions to team up with Warner Brothers. Davies made only three more pictures under these new arrangements before Cosmopolitan folded. She then made the decision to retire from the film industry, knowing that after the last 20 years, she had done all she could. She devoted herself to caring for Hearst for the next decade, until his death in 1951.
Later in 1951, Davies moved on and married Horace Brown. It was a tumultuous marriage, but the couple remained married until her death. She spent the rest of her life tirelessly doing charity work, founding the Mattel Children's Hospital and the Marion Davies Foundation to fight children's diseases. Marion Davies struggled with various illnesses and injuries in her older age, and she eventually succumbed to stomach cancer on September 22, 1961 at the age of 61.
About 30 years after her death, Davies' niece, Patricia Lake died from lung cancer. Just after her death, a secret was broadcast which Lake had kept to herself since she was 17--that she was not, in fact, Davies' niece, but her daughter. Davies became pregnant in the early 1920s and Hearst sent her to Europe until the baby was born. They decided to give the baby to one of Davies' sisters who had recently lost a child in infancy, so that she could raise her as her own. So Patricia was raised as Davies' niece, despite the fact that she looked remarkably like Marion and spent most of her time with her and Hearst. Davies and Hearst privately passed on the finances to make sure that Patricia received the best possible care and education, and it was even the two of them who gave her away at her wedding, which was also the time when Hearst finally told her that they were her parents.
It was a scandalous piece of news that shocked many, especially since it had been kept a secret for so many years. But it is not the only thing that Davies is remembered for. Her work has stood the test of time. Although Hearst may have prevented her career from fully developing to the heights that she was capable of reaching during her lifetime, she still made her mark on Hollywood. During her 20 year career in the film industry, she starred in 55 motion pictures, 34 of which were silent. She made a name for herself, especially during the first part of her career which developed during the silent era. Audiences and critics today still look back at her work and are drawn to her talent just as they were 95 years ago--they want to see more of her.
"Somebody told me I should put a pebble in my mouth to cure my stuttering. Well, I tried it, and during a scene I swallowed that pebble. That was the end of that."
-Marion Davies
.jpg)
And now, as a little something extra which allows you to see an example of Marion Davies' comedic talents. This is a clip from her 1928 silent film The Patsy. Davies was known for her party impersonations of other actresses. In these scenes, King Vidor allowed her free reign to act out her own imitations of actresses Mae Murray, Lillian Gish, and Pola Negri:
No comments:
Post a Comment