Orson Welles The genius who fell from grace after thinking he could challenge the media mogul
Orson Welles Cheating Even Rita Hayworth
If a man christens his lover's clitoris
Rosebud
, his is more than love at first sight.
Gore Vidal revealed in an article the secret of
William Randolph Hearst
, who went from sowing the seed of yellow journalism in 1898, the famous sentence "you send me the illustrations that I will put the war", to plant it in the divine garden of
Marion Davies
.
Despite the omnipotent billionaire editor whom
Orson Welles
envisioned in
Citizen Kane
(1941) he was married to
Millicent Willson
(mother of his five children),
Marion Davies was his official lover
as well as the first lady of that Sodom and Gomorrah that
Kenneth Anger
described so well
. When Hearst saw her perform on Broadway in
Ziegfield Follies
(1916), he knew it was going to be one of his most valuable possessions. In his memoirs
The Times We Had
, Davies confessed that the jealousy of his beloved disguised them with pearls and diamonds from Cartier in exchange for not going to a party to meet the
Prince of Wales
, who was not yet with Wallis Simpson, but he looked secretly with
Lady Thelma Furness
, Gloria Vanderbilt's aunt.
She was 19 and he was 53
. What at first seemed like a gold digger was transformed into a love of such magnitude that the omnipotent magnate did not hesitate to make her queen of his castle while he slept in a four-poster bed that belonged to
Cardinal Richelieu
. We are talking about Saint Simeon, the fatuous representation of his ego settled on a 300 square kilometer site with four megalomaniac buildings: Casa Grande (6,360 square meters with 165 rooms, 42 bathrooms, 14 living rooms, 30 fireplaces and the largest private zoo of the world) and three for guests, Casa del Mar (497 meters), Casa del Sol (336 meters) and Casa del Monte (236 meters).
In fiction it was Welles's Xanadu
.
Hearst wanted to elevate Davies to the altars of celluloid with the creation of
Cosmopolitan Productions
, associated with MGM, where he played
29 silent films and 17 talkies
. The studio that prided itself on having more stars than in the sky (
Norma Shearer, Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy, Elizabeth Taylor
) was the scene of Marion's anger when she learned that Lillian Gish had taken her only dressing room with a private bathroom. Hearst immediately had a ten-room bungalow built. "Hollywood turned a deaf ear to everything that was bad for Marion Davies. Through a year and a half of research I discovered that everyone liked her because she
was detached and charming,
"
Miguel Fidalgo
admits to LOC
, author of the book
Citizen Kane
(Ed. Notorious) on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the premiere of this classic that was the first film for Orson Welles at the age of 25. Kane's lover was Susan Alexander (
Davies's possible alter ego
).
Despite his smash hit with
Mirages
(1928), his artistic streak was swallowed up by his intense and alcoholic social life that divided between San Simeon, the 4,500-square-meter Beverly Estate mansion in Beverly Hills
where JFK and Jackie spent their honeymoon
( currently on sale for $ 89.7 million) and Ocean House, the 34-bedroom beachfront palace in Santa Monica. His parties were attended by the cream of the industry such as Claudette Colbert, Douglas Fairbanks, Rodolfo Valentino, Prince Serge Obelenski or
Charles Chaplin
, who
was about to be assassinated at the hands of Hearst
when he caught him red-handed with Davis at a party on his private yacht.
But the shooting ended the life of director
Thomas H. Ince
.
Hearst's power silenced this 1924 scandal.
"She was detached and lovely"
Not surprisingly, he controlled 28 newspapers, 18 magazines, film producers, news agencies and radio stations that could extol or destroy the careers of the stars by hiring the gossipy
Louella Parsons
.
For his part, Davies also attended exclusive events, such as the dinner in honor of the King of Siam offered by his friend Mary Pickford at Pickfair Manor, where
Alfonso XII, the Dukes of Alba, Greta Garbo or the Mountbatten
also attended
.
Davies was one of the most respected actresses in silent movies for her comedy, but her love insisted on her playing historical-dramatic roles that fell into boozy water because during her transition to sound her popularity decreased due to her stuttering. Unlike what happened to John Gilbert, the Garbo lover who was forced to retire by his voice (said to have been a plot between
Louis B. Mayer and Lionel Barrymorre
), Davies held out on the big screen until 1937 because his
talkies
They weren't box office.
El dolce far niente was his modus operandi in both California and New York, where Hearst
gifted him another mansion
while he resided in a vast apartment across from
Central Park
that Giorgio Armani bought two years ago.
Hearst died in 1951
in the bed of his lover's mansion in Beverly Hills, but the protagonist of
The Lights of Broadway
(1925) found out from the nurse "because she was asleep, probably drunk," says Fidalgo.
The heirs did not invite Davies to the funeral or burial.
A decade later, she passed away
.
And the legend continues: Was the actress and socialite
Patricia Lake the secret daughter
of Hearst and Davies?
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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