Book Report: The Times We Had by Marion Davies

So, I have a Hearst thing, and if you have ever been to San Simeon you also have a Hearst thing.  The magnitude, the weirdness, the Davies/Hearst relationship; it is all just too fascinating for words.  The night that I ran the Huntsville marathon, I watched a film about William Randolph Hearst and Orson Welles and the whole Citizen Kane thing.  Then, the following night, I watched a documentary about Marion Davies.  The film about Hearst and Welles was all about the desperate stab that William Randolph Hearst took at stopping the release of Citizen Kane. Hearst could not stop it, because he filed for bankruptcy and could not free up funds to pay a lawyer for a seemingly frivolous law suit.  The Susan Alexander character in Citizen Kane was of course supposed to be modeled after Marion Davies with the only difference being that Marion was a stage and film actress, not an opera singer and Marion never left Hearst.

Now, the documentary, was narrated by Charlize Theron and produced by Hugh Hefner.  It sort of makes sense that Hugh Hefner would feel that it was his personal responsibility to take up for all the sixteen-year-olds in the world who take up with married 60 year old men.  So that kind of cracked me up, but it was an interesting documentary.  The whole thing talked about Marion Davies' intelligence and talent as an actress, and I guess as a silent film star she was not afraid to do slapstick comedy.

SO, watching these two films inspired me to purchase Marion Davies autobiography, The Times We Had. Let me just tell you, it just about Hearsted me out.  Now, Orson Welles wrote the introduction to the book, which seemed like a bit of a kick in the pants to old William Randoph Hearst who was deceased at the time of the writing and publication.  I can only fathom that Welles agreed to write it out of some deep personal guilt he felt out of portraying Marion Davies so accurately on film after trespassing on her kindness for several weeks at San Simeon.  Welles alludes to this much in his intro, blaming himself for the public perception of Marion Davies. (I am not EVEN going to tell you what I found out that "Rosebud" was purported to mean. It is just too much.) Welles may have had something to do with it, BUT he was right on the money.  He did not represent her falsely right down to the jigsaw puzzles that were her primary source of solitary amusement.  Reading and playing cards were not within her realm of ability.

The Times We Had was a deep deep disappointment.  It is the epitome of what happens when someone is famous for the wrong reasons, and someone convinces her to write a book about it.  As far as I could tell, she was so low and unable to manage her own life that the best thing that ever happened to her was having someone who was reasonably smart and well seated like Hearst scoop her up, silence her and keep her out of as much trouble as he could.  The trouble he could not keep her out of, he could at least keep out of the papers.

Now the book was probably written in her alcoholic heyday, but even accommodating that misfortune, it is poorly written.  It appears to be the work of someone who is trying to cover up/ explain what she wants you to hear, but she does not realize that you kind of know the real story. For instance, she explains the mysterious death or Thomas Ince at San Simeon by saying "I was really furious about the Thomas Ince story. Tom was sick for two days and then died. It (the idea that W.R. Hearst had killed Ince in a fit of jealousy) was the most ridiculous story I ever heard in my life, but when you have an association with a very well known man like W.R. (Hearst) you are bound to get it."

That is sort of how most of the book runs.  Marion explaining that people thought Hearst had done one thing or another, but he really had not; everyone was happy; everything was perfect.  BUT, there are countless instances of Hearst going back to New York to visit his wife and family for however long he felt like being away and leaving Marion with a sitter who made sure that she did not get too drunk or sleep with anyone else.  They had a child, but Hearst insisted she stay a secret, so the child (Patricia Van Cleve Lake) was sent to live with Marion's sister and Marion went on living the way that Hearst insisted that she live.

I guess it was the story of this sort of lost and wayward life that was swept into the overpowering trajectory that was life with William Randolph Hearst and absorbed by it.  To let go of a life, a child, and sublimate any desire that you might have to do anything of your own accord, to have no expectations of your life partner but that he take care of you materially is rather stunning and the fact that her life devolved into alcoholism after Hearst's death is not at all surprising.  She was not allowed at the funeral, and she was largely ignored by his estate.

Rather amazing though, Hearst's money troubles, which stemmed from failing magazines, the upkeep of San Simeon and purchase upon foolish purchase of European art that he could not even store, were pulling him under financially.  Marion went of her own accord, so she says, to Hollywood from San Simeon and sold much of the jewelry that Hearst had given her, coming up with one million dollars to help pull his finances to a manageable state. (The receipt for it is published in the book.) Hearst could not bear to part with any of his collections, and Marion took things into her own hands.  It was pretty amazing and maybe the greatest example of Marion's total submission to Hearst's selfishness.  She was not a partner really, she was a pet in the worst sense of the word.

It was a rather depressing read, but in true Betsy Sloan form I insisted on trudging through to the end.  OH, and the other interesting thing was that the book's editors ended up writing lengthy notes on most every page to try to explain and decipher Marion's stories and personal history and bad grammar and incomplete tellings of various things.

Yeah, so do not read this book.  Read something else.