Marion Davies - Los Angeles, CA
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member bluesnote
N 34° 05.342 W 118° 18.990
11S E 378547 N 3772810
The grave of Marion Davies located inside the Davies Masuleum at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
Waymark Code: WM16NHF
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 09/04/2022
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member Alfouine
Views: 4

There are several graves inside this mausoleum belonging to the Douras family including:

Marion Davies
Patricia Lake
Arthur Lake

Taken from Wikipedia, "Marion Davies (born Marion Cecilia Douras; January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies fled the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl. As a teenager, she appeared in several Broadway musicals and one film, Runaway Romany (1917). She soon became a featured performer in the Ziegfeld Follies. While performing in the 1916 Follies, the nineteen-year-old Marion met the fifty-three-year-old newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst, and became his mistress. Hearst took over management of Davies' career and promoted her as a film actress.

Hearst financed Davies' pictures and promoted her career extensively in his newspapers and Hearst newsreels. He founded Cosmopolitan Pictures to produce her films. By 1924, Davies was the number one female box office star in Hollywood because of the popularity of When Knighthood Was in Flower and Little Old New York, which were among the biggest box-office hits of their respective years. During the zenith of the Jazz Age, Davies became renowned as the hostess of lavish soirees for Hollywood actors and political elites. However, in 1924, her name became linked with scandal when film producer Thomas Ince died at a party aboard Hearst's yacht.

Following the decline of her film career during the Great Depression, Davies struggled with alcoholism. She retired from the screen in 1937 to devote herself to an ailing Hearst and charitable work. In Hearst's declining years, Davies remained his steadfast companion until his death in 1951. Eleven weeks after Hearst's death, she married sea captain Horace Brown. Their marriage lasted until Davies' death at 64 from malignant osteomyelitis (bone cancer) of the jaw in 1961.

By the time of her death, her popular association with the character of Susan Alexander Kane in the film Citizen Kane (1941) already overshadowed Davies' legacy as a talented actress. The title character's second wife—an untalented singer whom he tries to promote—was widely assumed to be based upon Davies. However, many commentators, including writer-director Orson Welles, defended Davies' record as a gifted actress and comedienne to whom Hearst's patronage did more harm than good. In his final years, Welles attempted to correct the widespread misconceptions the film had created about Davies' popularity and talents as an actress."

Source -- (visit link)

Taken from the website for Marion Davies, "Actress. She is remembered for being an actress in the pioneer years of the Hollywood film industry. With her three older sisters, Rose, Reine, and Ethel, being successful performers in New York City on Broadway, she had a desire to follow in their footsteps. Starting in school plays, she became a chorus girl after graduation and eventually appearing in the famous Ziegfeld Follies. While being a model, she met William Randolph Hearst, a publishing tycoon, and, although he was married with children, she began a very public intimate thirty-year relationship with him. He was thirty-four years her senior. In the era of black-and-white silent movies, at the age of twenty, she made her first film, "Runaway Romany" in 1917, which she wrote and her brother-in-law directed. In 1918 she appeared in three more films, which were financed by Hearst, including the one that made her a star, "Cecilia of the Pink Roses". From this point, she appeared in more films which were financed by Hearst. After Hearst's wife and children returned to New York in 1927, the couple lived together in his grand mansion, Hearst Castle, in San Simeon, California. They hosted legendary parties attended by many Hollywood personalities. Although some sources state that her popularity as an actress was due to her association with the newspaper magnate Hearst, many newspapers not owned by him gave her favorable reviews for her performances. Although Hearst felt she belonged in more serious costume dramas such as "When Knighthood Was in Flower" in 1922, "Yolanda" in 1924, and "Lights of Old Broadway" in 1925, she is believed that she performed best in light comedies such as "Adam and Eva" in 1923, "The Fair Co-Ed" in 1927, "Show People" and "The Patsy" in 1928, "The Florodora Girl" in 1930 and "Bachelor Father" in 1931. With the introduction of the "talkie" films, she was concerned about passing the voice test but did despite of stuttering when she was nervous or excited; her transition was successful. She continued to have roles in the 1930s, but as the years passed, she had fewer and fewer roles offered. In her memoirs, "The Time We Had", she blamed Hearst for her decline with pushing her to do drama, over promoting her, and his financial problems in the late 1930s. She sold over a million dollars worth of her jewelry to allay his financial problems. Her last role was in "Ever Since Eve" in 1937. A large blow to her reputation came in 1941 with the release of Orson Welles' film, "Citizen Kane", which was claimed to be based on Heart's life and featured a character named "Susan Alexander"; this character apparently was based on Davies' part in his life. Moviegoers came away from believing she was a no-talent, drunken floozy whose rich and powerful lover forced his newspapers to only print favorable reviews for her movies. Since this movie, many film historians have attempted to restore her professional reputation. Although she began to have some problems with alcohol abuse after her retirement, she was a very sharp businesswoman. After Hearst's death in 1951, she married Horace Brown and even after filing for divorce twice, remained married to him until her death. Before her death, she was involved in charity work especially fighting childhood diseases through the Marion Davies Foundation and financing a $1.9 million children's clinic at University of California at Los Angeles in 1952."

Source -- (visit link)
Description:
See citations


Date of birth: 01/03/1897

Date of death: 09/22/1961

Area of notoriety: Entertainment

Marker Type: Tomb (above ground)

Setting: Outdoor

Fee required?: No

Web site: [Web Link]

Visiting Hours/Restrictions: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
To post a visit log for waymarks in this category, you must have personally visited the waymark location. When logging your visit, please provide a note describing your visit experience, along with any additional information about the waymark or the surrounding area that you think others may find interesting.

We especially encourage you to include any pictures that you took during your visit to the waymark. However, only respectful photographs are allowed. Logs which include photographs representing any form of disrespectful behavior (including those showing personal items placed on or near the grave location) will be subject to deletion.
Search for...
Geocaching.com Google Map
Google Maps
MapQuest
Bing Maps
Nearest Waymarks
Nearest Grave of a Famous Person
Nearest Geocaches
Create a scavenger hunt using this waymark as the center point
Recent Visits/Logs:
There are no logs for this waymark yet.