JOSEPH P. KENNEDY PRESENTS by CARI BEAUCHAMP ! MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY PRESENTS by CARI BEAUCHAMP ! 

MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

First posted May 14, 2009

Long wait for this new book from the public library but worth it! Joe Kennedy made a fortune in the movies about the time (1920's - early 1930's) that talkies and sound film came into being, leaving most silent stars in the dust! Read all about his outside of marriage relationship with actress Gloria Swanson... (Did his bail out of her misfortunes end in a rip off and personal betrayal?)

pages 276-277

...Rose (Kennedy - Joe's wife, mother of eventual President John F. Kennedy) never publicly wavered from her deep-seated belief that Joe's relationship with Gloria was purely professional... (Goodwin) was incredulous about Rose's "strange attitude" and concluded that "it is impossible to believe that Rose did not know," yet she had "willed" that knowledge out of her consciousness. it was "better perhaps to follow the pattern set by her mother long ago: to suffer in silence rather than take the enormous risk of shattering the entire family and bringing public disgrace upon herself and her husband."....

... Gloria too was shocked at Rose's failure to see anything untoward in her relationship with Joe. "If she suspected me of having relations not quite proper with her husband, or resented me for it, she never once gave any indication of it." Was Rose "a fool, I asked myself as I listened with disbelief, or a saint? Or just a better actress than I was..."

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GLORIA SWANSON AT THE HEIGHT OF HER CAREER : SHE FELT BLACKMAILED INTO AN EXPENSIVE DIVORCE BY HER HUSBAND AND THE HAYS OFFICE

Excerpt page 5 : In 1924, Hollywood movies were made on sets built on stages and back lots. Newfangled rear projection and process-screen photography even enabled characters to sit or stand in front of a screen and appear to be anywhere in the world.  To go overseas to make a picture was unheard of. ...

With the possible exception of Mary Pickford, who never managed the transition from  the girlish image that had made her "America's Sweetheart" to full screen womanhood, Gloria Swanson was the most popular  female celebrity in the movie-crazed mid 1920's. When, in September 1924, she sailed to Europe to make Madame Sans Gene, she was twenty-five, had starred in thirty movies - six in a row with *De Mille - and her leading men had included the great heartthrobs from Wallace Reid to Rudolph Valentino.

When Gloria Swanson wanted out of her marriage with Herbert Somborn, he and his attorney threatened her for $150,000: According to author Axel Madsen, De Mille was panicking too.  The Hays Office, as it was called, had instituted morality clauses in movie star's contracts with their studios, and a nasty divorce with rumors flying about her infidelity could end her career.  As a result, De Mille called a meeting and insisted that the divorce would have to be settled secretly as, though she could have charged her husband with desertion a year earlier, now her circumstances could threaten the entire industry! (pages 86-87)

Excerpt Page 87:  When the divorce papers were presented to her, she was tempted to sign it all without seeing her own humiliation spelled out in black and white.  She steeled herself, however, and began to read. Paramount was indeed picking provisions that awarded Herbert $70,000 because he ha "assisted in procuring" her much-improved contract. He was paid $35,000 in cash and another $35,000 in installments, deducted from her salary at the rate of $500 a week. There was more. To keep her job, she had to sign a morals clause waiver. Should she in the future "be charged with adulterous conduct or immoral relations with men other than her husband, and such charges or any of them were published in the public press," her contract would be null and void.  Angry and embarrassed, she signed and went back to work.

During her marriage to Somborn, from 1919-to 1922, Gloria gave birth to a daughter and adopted a son. She remarried to French nobleman Henry de La Falaise in 1925. She had her relationship with Joseph P. Kennedy during that marriage. She and Henry divorced in 1931.

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* Demille : Cecil B. DeMille - a movie producer and actor
** Herbert K. Somborn (m. 1919; div. 1922): President of Equity Pictures Corporation.

GLORIA SWANSON IN THE 1923 SILENT FILM "ZAZA"

Gloria Swanson was one of those few actors who was able to go from the acting - later considered exaggerated expressions to convey the emotions and story - necessary in silent films to the talkies, both speaking and singing as well as acting more naturally. Her career was roaring in the 1920's, the era of the flapper, and the New Woman. She married six times and had three children as well as being engaged in political and humanitarian causes in which she used her fame.

From 1914 to 1974 she appeared in films and on some television programs.

IMDb GLORIA SWANSON's FILM CAREER A long list.  Click here!

Gloria Swanson was the top movie actress in the United States for many years, unless you considered Mary Pickford. Pickford was not successful past the silent film era.

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GLORIA SWANSON and HER RED CARNATIONS

Gloria Swanson was known to carry a red carnation when she was out in public or appeared on a television talk show, so that flower became an associated icon. She would give them as little gifts. In 1981 during an interview with Barbara Walters, she said she had first started doing so in order to have something to do with her hands instead of smoking a cigarette. She exercised, limited her diet to health foods, and credited taking care of her health for maintaining her beauty without cosmetic surgeries or procedures.

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THE SCANDAL THAT RUINED "AMERICAN VENUS" AUDREY MUNSON'S MODELING CAREER

"American Venus" or "Miss Manhattan" : Audrey Muson's image continues in paintings, sculptures, and magazine covers. But her career as a model was brief. Often chaperoned by her mother as a young teen, her image was never used in pornography but as inspired by the works of the ancient Romans and Greeks. She might have fallen in love or not, but in 1919 there was no way to avoid being associated with scandal.

A few years earlier she was in four silent films.  As excerpted from an article linked below from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation.... referencing James Bone

Excerpt: In 1915 Munson launched her career in the silent film industry. She starred in a total of four films: Inspiration (1915), Purity (1916), The Girl o' Dreams (1918) and Heedless Moths (1921). She became the first woman in America to appear nude in a film in 1915. (Referencing the New York Times on 15 April 2016). Munson was praised by local newspapers as being, "The transcendent embodiment of feminine grace and beauty" in her films (Referencing The Kingston Daily Freeman on 5 December 1916).

WILLIAM G. POMEROY FOUNDATION (for Historical Preservation) on AUDREY MUNSON

Excerpt:  ... Munson and her mother were living in a boarding house which belonged to a Dr. Walter Keene Wilkins.  Wilkins fell in love with Munson and murdered his wife so he could be with her, despite the fact that Munson and Wilkins were never involved socially or romantically (Referencing Vaudeville, 22 October 1920).  Wilkins was subsequently convicted of murder and hung himself to escape the electric chair.  This scandal damaged Munson's career and reputation and as a result she struggled to find employment.  Munson lived with her mother who was selling kitchenware door-to-door in Syracuse to support them (Vaudeville).  She became overwhelmed and distraught in 1922 and attempted suicide (New York Post).

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AUDREY MUNSON : AN ATTEMPT TO BE ACCEPTED BY SOCIETY and MARRY A SILVER MINING HEIR GOES WRONG : THERE'S NO GOING FROM BOARDING HOUSE TO NEWPORT "COTTAGE"

Unlike the ever critical mother of Maria Callas, whom was our Mistress of the Month last month, Audrey Munson's divorced mother Kittie, seemed to not only depend on her, but appreciate her. Home from a day of holding poses, her muscle's stiff, Kittie would massage her daughter.  Kittie also went to work at poorly paying jobs to provide.  It would be Kittie, however, who determined that Audrey was not capable of dealing with the world and committed her to a mental hospital.

Kittie also took her daughter to Eliza the Gypsy Queen when she was a girl.  The Gypsy Queen seemed to be making a soothsaying tour at the time.  She told her:

"You shall be beloved and famous.  But when you think that happiness is yours, its Dead Sea fruit shall turn to ashes in your mouth.

You, who shall throw away thousands of dollars as a caprice, shall want for a penny. You, who shall mock at love, shall seek love without finding.

Seven men shall love you.  Seven times you shall be led by the man who loves you to the steps of the altar, but never shall you wed." (page 2)

So, after three silent films beginning in 1915 Hollywood, Inspiration, Purity, and Girl o' Dreams, after years of modeling for famous sculptures and photographers, Kittie was an early Hollywood film star with aspirations and already having spurned some of the men who had been interested in her.  The lack of publicity for the last film and what may have been a significant rip off by the film maker added to her stress. Mother and daughter moved to the beach community of Santa Barbara, where it was clear that daughter was supporting them both.  It was a time in which women still had a few years wait for the vote and bra's were being patented as liberating. Audrey was photographed wearing a man's one piece swim suit that was more revealing than what women wore into the ocean and seemed to be a spokeswoman for liberation. 

Around 1916, Audrey took the fifth man into her life and this time, though there had been speculations about her sexuality due to her nude modeling, this man probably was a lover. She wrote a semi fictional newspaper account of her love life and gave him the name Gordon, but other than that he was a "movie director" and an older man, not much is really known about him.

Audrey moved to Newport, Rhode Island. If she was a Mistress, her involvement with a silver mining heir, Herman Oelrich Jr., whose mother, Tessie Oelrich, had been unusually accepted by society, though they were Catholics, may have been when. (Audrey had been raised nominally as a Catholic as her mother was of Irish Catholic ancestry.) Kittie Munson was very much one to promote the two of them had married - perhaps secretly.  While there seems to be no document that would prove a marriage, perhaps Kittie wanted to save Audrey's reputation. For on the 1930 and 1940 United States census, she is listed as Audrey M. Oelrich.

Though he did eventually marry, Herman was a lousy choice to be a husband.  He was violent and alcoholic and possible gay.

During this time, ripped off financially and rejected or unable to find a suitable mate, Audrey began to have the mental problems that were probably triggered by stress.

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AUDREY MUNSON : AMERICA'S FIRST "SUPERMODEL" : AN ALLEGED INVOLVEMENT WITH A MARRIED MEN LED TO HIS SUICIDE AND THE END OF HER CAREER and SANITY

AUDREY MUNSON

Audrie Marie Munson

1891-1996

I'm electing Audrey Munson, called "America's First Supermodel" to the Honorary Mistress of the Month pantheon here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, because she denied that she had an affair with a married man, but whatever the truth of it was, it ended her career after he, assumed to be love sick and mentally ill,  murdered his wife.  There was plenty of evidence that he did murder his wife, with seventeen blows to the head with a hammer, so the question is, was Audrey a victim of the sexism of the era and the press?

There is also the possibility that she was the mistress of a silver mining heir, one of the richest men in America, who was known to be alcoholic and abusive (and possibly gay, though he did eventually marry), Herman Oelrich Jr.  Audrey may have become pregnant by this man but whatever actually happened, her mother seemed to cover the adventure by declaring her as Audrey Oelrich on two United States census.

Audrey Munson never earned much money and she and her mother, Kittie, who was divorced, mostly lived in boarding houses. She was a chorus girl (called a chlorine) and made her Broadway debut before the age of 18. And she was supposed to have been "discovered" while walking down the street. America's first supermodel made about fifty cents an hour or thirty dollars a week. A loaf of bread was about a nickel but this was just enough for the daughter-mother duo to pay their rent. They were living in one that Doctor Walter Wilkins owned when the murder occurred. 

Perhaps the doctor's motive was to get rid of his wife because she was an obstacle to marrying Audrey. Audrey and her mother moved out and went to take care of business in Canada, behavior that they justified but which was considered suspicious. He denied any involvement with her. She declined to testify against him.

Doctor Wilkens commit suicide by hanging himself while awaiting the electric chair. 

Eventually Audrey herself was committed to a mental institution by her mother and lingered there for sixty-five years. However, her mental or emotional decline may have started before this scandal. She died in obscurity having reached the age of about 104!

Was she cursed as the title if this book suggests?

Was Audrey driven to insanity - paranoia - because of the infamy of this scandal? 

Did Audrey take the Gypsy Queens predictions for her life too seriously, and interpret what happened through the eyes of the psychic?

Now, I have to admit that I hesitated to elect Audrey Munson to this honor because I frankly think her obscurity ended some years ago; there are very many YouTube videos and articles about her and her tragic life that I had to curate. I hope to bring something a little different to my coverage of her.  So while I will be using James Bone's book about Audrey - The Curse of Beauty -  I cast my net wide for information about Audrey Munson.

The first notion that came to me is is that we need to think about what Monica Lewinsky, a young woman who was raised in far more liberated times when it comes to sexuality, has been through. I've been an advocate for getting off Monica's back since way back in the day when she became infamous due to her involvement with the then President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton, who didn't suffer a bit in comparison. Let's go back to Audrey Munson's day - the early twentieth century when the judgement about a young woman's sexuality could effect her entire future. It was even assumed that any woman who acted or sang or danced was a prostitute. In 2016, when I covered ballerina Celestine Emarot, the Mistress of Baron Charles de Chassiron and Ferdinand De Montguyon and the French ballerina Courtesons, we learned that a young dancer often had to have a "patron" so she could afford the lessons, toe shoes and clothing, and eat. Not so long ago it was near impossible for a unmarried adult woman to be supported in this world without a man with limited educational and career options.

I'm always trying to sort through the expectations of purity, the expectations of waiting until married (or at least marrying the first man one has sex with), the expectations that one will be sexual after marriage, the expectations that one will marry, the expectations that one will marry once and stay married - and then all the changes in attitude we've gone through until here we are today.

In 1908, she made Audrey Munson first performance as a teenager at the Rocky Point Amusement Park in the "Dancin' Dolls" chorus line. By 1909 she was performing at the Casino Theatre in New York on the "Great White Way" which was what Broadway was called because of the new electric lights.

She became one of the Floradora Girls and all six of the original girls married a millionaire. (Evelyn Nesbit had also been picked out of a Floradora chorus line as a teenager. Certainly she must have heard of the scandal when Nesbit's lover killed another man over her.) Before she turned eighteen, Audrey made her Broadway debut in "The Boy and The Girl." 

Her first break in New York as an artist's model might have been because she was sighted on the street by photographer Felix Benedict Herzog.  For three months she posed for him but with her mother in attendance to protect her. She posed for mythic schemes like in Old Master's Paintings.

Audrey was called "Miss Manhattan" because so many sculptures around Manhattan were ones she posed for, as well as the "Panama-Pacific Girl" and "The Exposition Girl" because she posed for those marketing events for paintings, sculptures, and magazine covers.  "American Venus" is also a more general affirmation of her as a beautiful model.

Audrey was the first Silent Screen era actress to appear nude in a film called Inspiration in 1915!  It was one of three films she appeared in. The film was not pornography. To give some perspective, The Birth of a Nation, Hollywood's first motion picture, came out the same year.

But so much went wrong.  In 1931 by Oswego County court order she was committed to St. Lawrence State Hospital in Ogdensburg, New York and live there almost sixty-five years - the majority of her life. Though her mother thought it was temporary, the woman eventually moved to a boarding house in the same town. Audrey may have had schizophrenia.

So this month I'll muse about the curse as well as what all made Audrey "crazy" enough to be committed to a mental hospital (then called insane asylum) by her own mother, where she languished the majority of her life!  Her records, which staff members saw during her years there, were sealed and she was buried in an unmarked grave.

Missy

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You may find these archived posts interesting:

September 2016

CELESTINE EMAROT-  MISTRESS OF BARON CHARLES de CHASSIRON and FERDINAND De MONTGUYON and the French Ballerina Courtesans

February 2017

EVELYN NESBIT : Teenage Beauty and Mistress of Architect Stanford White: Before It Was All Over There Was A Murder

EVELYN NESBIT AMERICAN EVE : A SILENT MOVIE (Lots of Modeling Photos!)

Two videos... Lots of modeling photos of Evelyn Nesbit, as well as STANFORD WHITE, the headlines, the trial called "Murder of the Century" at the time.  I think she would be considered beautiful by today's standards too.

LOUISE BROOKS SPEAKING OF THE LIFE SHE LEAD IN 1948 and 1953 AS A KEPT WOMAN

Kenneth Tynan writing in the introduction of the book "Lulu in Hollywood".  This is what LOUISE BROOKS told him, printed on page xxxiv.

"Between 1948 and 1953, I suppose you could call me a kept woman," she said.  "Three decent rich men looked after me.  But then I was always a kept woman.  Even when I was making a thousand dollars a week, I would always be paid for by George Marshall or someone like that.  But I never had anything to show for it - no cash, no trinkets, nothing.  I didn't even like jewelry - can you imagine?  Pabst once called me a born whore, but if he was right I was a failure, with no pile of money and no comfortable mansion.  I just wasn't equipped to spoil millionaires in a practical, farsighted way.  I could live in the present, but otherwise everything has always been a hundred percent wrong about me.  Anyway, the three decent men took care of me.  One of them owned a sheet-metal manufacturing  company, and the result of that affair is that I am now the owner of the only handmade aluminum waste basket in the world.  He designed it, and it's in the living room, my solitary trophy.  Then a time came, early in 1953, when me three men independently decided that they wanted to marry me.  I had to escape, because I wasn't in love with them.  As a matter of fact, I've never been in love.  And if I had loved a man, could I have been faithful to him?  Could he have trusted me beyond a closed door? I doubt it.  It was clever of Pabst to know even before he met me that I posses the tramp essence of Lulu."


Book
Lulu In Hollywood
by Louise Brooks, with Introduction by Kenneth Tynan.
C 1974 and 1982 by Louise Brooks
University of Minnesota Press

LOUISE BROOKS IN PANDORA'S BOX 1929

 UPDATE JUNE 2021  STOP!  Due to a copyright claim to YouTube the film has been taken down.

I'm linking to the full film on YouTube  YOUTUBE LOUISE BROOKS IN PANDORAS BOX 1929

Check YouTube for trailers and clips.  So Sorry!

LOUISE BROOKS ON BECOMING SOPHISTICATED

page 10  Excerpted from LULU IN HOLLYWOOD - essays by LOUISE BROOKS

..."Culture, I was to learn, was not a prerequisite for becoming a sophisticate New Yorker.  It was, in fact, a handicap.  The rich men who before long were exhibiting me in fashionable restaurants, theatres, and nightclubs shrank like truant schoolboys from the name of Shakespeare, and they looked upon an evening spent at the Metropolitan Opera or at a concert in Carnegie Hall as unthinkable misery.  Since I could not gossip about these socialites' families and friends, did not feel secure discussing the theatre and movies, and detested the vulgar game of dirty jokes and sexual innuendos, I talked scarcely at all.  Years later, the dress designer Travis Banton told me that in 1925, at the Colony - the grandest restaurant in town - he watched from another table and put me in the category of "beautiful but dumb," where I remained to the end of my film career.

In 1922, then, if I was to create my dream woman, I had to get rid of my Kansas accent, to learn the etiquette of the social elite, and to learn to dress beautifully.  I could not correct my speech at a fashionable girls' school.  I could not learn table manner from escorts embarrassed by my social inferiority.  I could not afford Fifth Avenue couturiers.  Therefore, I went for my education directly to the unknown people who were experts in such matters - the people at the bottom whose services supported the enchantment at the top of New York..."

Note: Louise Brooks grew up in a household where there were piles of books everywhere, and in her mid -life became a writer of articles about the Silent Film era.

LOUISE BROOKS TO KENNETH TYNAN ON BEING MOLESTED AS A GIRL

To Kenneth Tynan in the Introduction of  of LULU IN HOLLYWOOD - essays by LOUISE BROOKS.

"Having paused to light a cigarette, which provoked a mild coughing spasm, Brooks resumed her story.  "I almost forgot a strange incident that happened in 1952.  Out of the blue, I got a letter from a woman who had been a Cherryvale neighbor of ours.  She enclosed some snapshots.  One of them showed a nice-looking neighbor of ours.  She enclosed some snapshots.  One of them showed a nice looking gay haired man of about fifty, holding the hand of a little girl - me.  On the back she'd written, 'This is Mr. Feathers, an old bachelor who loved kids.  He was always taking you to the picture show and buying you toys and candy.'  That picture brought back something I'd blacked out of my mind for - what? - thirty-seven years.  When I was nine years old,. Mr. Feathers molested me sexually.  Which forged another link between me and Lulu: when she had her first lover, she was very young, and Schigolch, the man in questions, was middle -aged.  I've often wondered what effect Mr. Feathers had on my life.  He must have had a great deal to do with forming my attitude towards sexual pleasure.  For me, nice, soft, easy men were never enough - there had to be an element of domination - and I'm sure that's all tied up with Mr. Feathers.  The pleasure of kissing and being kissed comes from somewhere entirely different, psychologically as well as physically.  Incidentally, I told my mother about Mr. Feathers, and - would you believe it? (Peal of laughter.) She blamed me!  She said I must have led him on.  It's always the same, isn't it?"  And Brooks ran on in this vein, discussing her sex life openly and jauntily, unbuckling one more notch of the Bible Belt with every sentence she uttered."

Excerpted from LULU IN HOLLYWOOD - essays by Louise Brooks

LOUISE BROOKS - FREE SPIRITED SILENT SCREEN STAR : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH FEBRUARY 2013

1906-1985

You may know the iconographic face because of the black helmet of hair worn in a severe bob and the black smoldering eyes peering out directly at you. LOUISE BROOKS, a Flapper, liberated from the fashions that made it difficult to move, became a professional dancer in her teens.

Considered now to be one of the most influential actresses (a word she insisted on rather than the neuter term actor) of the Silent Film era, and associated with free-spirited sex, she would live much of her life after a couple dozen films in obscurity and poverty.

She was born Mary Louise Brooks on November 14, 1906 in Cherryvale, Kansas, the daughter of a lawyer and a pianist. At fifteen she began to dance professionally and joined the Denishawn Dance Company (founded by Ruth St. Denis, a contemporary of Isadora Duncan) and traveled.  In New York City, through with Denishawn Dance Company and Ruth with her, she became a Ziegfeld Follies performer.  She said she was seventeen.

Her acting was natural at a time when others were so overly dramatic. Her peers were Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, two different types, who became more famous. Because her voice was beautiful, she made it into Talkies.  

As a young woman she was associated with sex.  In the chapter called "Why I Will Never Write My Memoirs", of her book (cover above) called LULU IN HOLLYWOOD, she said that she was not degenerate enough for one part of Hollywood and too degenerate for another.  

On page 107, she wrote, "I am not speaking of those vulgar brawls publicised as Hollywood orgies, nor of those parties composed of a herd of extra girls (she means movie extras - background actors) infiltrated by producers and actors stimulated by stag movies, nor of those drunken parties that spread into bedrooms and out upon lawns.  I am speaking of those rare entertainments which, so far as I know, have never been recorded in any memoir."

Louise wrote a series of essays about her experiences in what I call Hollywood's Golden era, which were published in LULU IN HOLLYWOOD. She gives chapters to W.C. Fields, Humphrey Bogart, and Marion Davies. 

She writes about Hearst's management of Marion's career and presumption that he would reign supreme in Hollywood. She writes about her friendship with Marion's Davies' lesbian niece called Pepi Lederer, who had a Black woman as a lover, was raped while drunk and had an abortion, and eventually commit suicide.  Louise says she herself was not lesbian but had a couple sexual experiences with women and sometimes encouraged people to think so. 

She writes, on page 42, that while a guest of Hearst and Marion's she knew that Hearst was also keeping Maybelle Swor in New York, who lived a few floors below their apartment at the Warwick Hotel.  (The first I heard that!)

Louise was never happy with the Hollywood system in which actors were owned by Studios and was outspoken about this unhappiness.  It was career suicide.  She was too independent though not an outright rebel.  So though she made 24 films, it wasn't until she was "rediscovered" for her contribution to the development of acting that people began to look her up, and by then she was old and far removed from her heyday.

After being blackballed by being given lesser and lesser roles until she quit, Brooks bounced around a bit, first going back to her hometown in Kansas where she no longer fit in.  She also went back to New York City and worked as a salesgirl at a department store and was shunned by her old friends for working at such a job.  She may have become a prostitute for a few years in New York City, something she alluded to as her last option. Finally she settled in Rochester New York, famous for the home of Kodak film and cameras, where she lived alone and isolated, with her books and her cat. 

William Paley is said to have provided a stipend to her for all the years of her life when he found out she was destitute, though their long ago affair was said to be brief.

Louise herself wrote that she was a "Kept Woman" but without any one man contributing to her welfare. 

Through this month I'll be excerpting from the book LULU IN HOLLYWOOD, which is an introduction by Kenneth Tynan and essays that were written and published by Brooks in the 1960's and 1970's in magazines like Film Culture and Sight and Sound!

GARBO AS MATA HARI for the 1932 MOVIE "TEMPTRESS OF THE SECRET SERVICE"

MARION DAVIES : 1928 THE PATSY : SILENT FILM

MARION "ROSEBUD" DAVIES : MISTRESS OF NEWSPAPER MAN AND HEARST CASTLE BUILDER WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST

MARION DAVIES is one of the most known mistresses in the world.

That's because when his wife would not go through a divorce, William Randolph Hearst chose to live with her anyway and she him, in California.

According to her memoir, written in 1961, ten years after he died, and which was not published until 1975, more than ten years after she died in 1963, W.R. wanted to get a divorce but couldn't convince his wife to allow it.  So they gave up trying but he did not see or speak to his wife, though they had grown sons, for 25 years.

Marion and W.R. met when she was about 14 years old, maybe 16; she is known to have lied about her age as an adult taking about 7 years off the January 3rd 1897 date when she was born Marion Cecilia Douras, claiming to be born in 1905.  At the time they met she was on stage at the Ziegfield Follies in New York City where so many of the dancers had "Back Stage Johnnys, " Patrons," "Mentors," and became mistresses.  She and her sisters all had entertainment ambitions and the family together changed their surname to Davies.

The family was respectable and so was the early courtship of Marion and W.R.  He gave expensive presents to impress her. He came around the house, was friendly with her parents, who liked him, and Marion and W.R. were fast friends for some time before becoming more involved.

At the time they met W. R., as she called him, was a fifty eight year old mega-successful newspaper man who began building his personal fortune during the Spanish Civil War.  If there is any criticism of Marion's acting or movie success, it is that some say if it were not for Hearst's promotions and involvements in her career, she would not have made it so far. When Marion "retired" into mistresshood sometime before World War II, she was a movie star, a major star of the 1920's and 1930's, who had made 45 films in those early days of Silent Pictures and then Talkies. 

Their relationship is called "a 32 year affair." 

His pet name for her was "Rosebud."

He built her a "beach house" in Santa Monica that was a manor house.  Together they held lively parties at San Simeon, known today as Hearst Castle, because of all the parts of castles he bought in Europe and installed inside, but which he called "The Ranch."  (San Simeon is a major tourist attraction on the Central Coast of California today.) They flew Hollywood stars and supporting casts up the California Coast from Hollywood to be part of the weekend parties.  Charlie Chaplin was one of many regular visitors. Marion had a bubbly personality and kept things lively for their guests.

They sailed with their guests off the coast too.  There was one big scandal when a film producer was accidentally shot and killed on the boat, but generally their relationship was not considered scandalous. 

They lived across the country from W.R.'s wife, they traveled with an entourage to Europe every year for many years, and were accepted as a couple by many of the most elite. 

Marion was ambitious, though she hardly sounds it when you read her story as she wrote it.

She also used the money she earned to invest in real estate and is said to have turned her personal fortune into 20 million dollars.  She became a charitable giver and amassed a precious jewelry collection that was sold in 1963 after her death for about half a million dollars. (The beach house was sold at great loss.)

While Marion was not a secret mistress, there is a story that came out years later,  that she had a secret child. 

The rumor was leaked after the the death of  Marion's "niece" Patricia Van Cleve Lake, who was married to Arthur Lake, an actor, successfully, for her entire adult life.  The rumor was that Patricia was actually Marion's child with Hearst.  Patricia was raised by Marion sister and they spent many a summer and much of their European travel with Marion and W.R.  According to Patricia Lake herself, who made recordings on her death bed, at her wedding to Arthur at San Simeon, Hearst called her into his office and said "I'm your father." 

In her memoir Marion denied ever having had any children.

Missy