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Marion Davies

Marion Davies

Birthday: 1897-01-03 | Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

From Wikipedia Marion Davies (January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American film actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Davies was already building a solid reputation as a film comedienne when newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, with whom she had begun a romantic relationship, took over management of her career. Hearst financed Davies' pictures, promoted her heavily through his newspapers and Hearst Newsreels, and pressured studios to cast her in historical dramas for which she was ill-suited. For this reason, Davies is better remembered today as Hearst's mistress and the hostess of many lavish events for the Hollywood elite. In particular, her name is linked with the 1924 scandal aboard Hearst's yacht where one of his guests, film producer Thomas Ince, died. In the film Citizen Kane (1941), the title character's wife—an untalented singer whom he tries to promote—was widely assumed to be based on Davies. But many commentators, including Citizen Kane writer/director Orson Welles himself, have defended Davies' record as a gifted actress, to whom Hearst's patronage did more harm than good. She retired from the screen in 1937, choosing to devote herself to Hearst and charitable work. In Hearst's declining years, Davies provided financial as well as emotional support until his death in 1951. She married for the first time eleven weeks after his death, a marriage which lasted until Davies died of stomach cancer in 1961 at the age of 64.

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

2021
Citizen Hearst

as    Self (archival footage)

1996
The Battle Over Citizen Kane

as    Self (archive footage)

1937
Ever Since Eve

as    Marge Winton

1936
Hearts Divided

as    Betsy Patterson

1936
Cain and Mabel

as    Mabel O'Dare

1935
Page Miss Glory

as    Loretta

1934
Operator 13

as    Gail Loveless

1933
Peg o' My Heart

as    Margaret 'Peg' O'Connell

1933
Going Hollywood

as    Sylvia Bruce

1931
The Bachelor Father

as    Antoinette "Tony" Flagg

1931
The Christmas Party

as    Herself

1931
Five and Ten

as    Jennifer Rarick

1930
The Florodora Girl

as    Daisy Dell

1929
Marianne

as    Marianne

1928
Show People

as    Peggy Pepper

1928
The Cardboard Lover

as    Sally

1927
The Red Mill

as    Tina

1923
Little Old New York

as    Patricia O'Day

1922
When Knighthood Was in Flower

as    Mary Tudor

1920
The Restless Sex

as    Stephanie