Marion Davies

Marion Davies

Stars

Marion Davies
Film: South side of the 6300 block of Hollywood Boulevard
Actress
Born Marion Cecilia Douras on Jan. 3, 1897 in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Died Sept. 22, 1961 of cancer in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Calif.

Marion Davies was a former Ziegfeld girl who became a comedic actress and mistress to tycoon William Randolph Hearst.

Davies created a splash in "Ziegfeld Follies of 1916," during which she met Hearst and became his mistress for the next 34 years, until his death.

Hearst's wife refused to divorce him to let him marry Davies, so he dove shamelessly into an extramarital affair. When Davies decided she wanted to act, Hearst founded a movie studio to keep her working and ordered all his newspapers to give her rave reviews.

Her motion picture career spanned two decades, from 1917 to 1937.

She starred in pictures produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia and Warner Bros., including "Fair Coed," "Quality Street," "The Cardboard Lover," "Not So Dumb," and "Bachelor Father." Among her last pictures were "Page Miss Glory," "Hearts Divided," and "Cain and Mable."

Davies shined as a comedian, but Hearst wanted her to be a serious leading lady, and his grousing at the studios brought her career to a premature demise. She retired in 1937 and died of cancer in 1961. She's interred in a mausoleum at the Hollywood Forever cemetery marked by her family name, Douras.

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