14.00 USD
Superb portrait of actress, producer and screenwriter Marion Davies (1897-1961) by G.B. Falci, one of our favorite publishers of film star cards. Amazing tone and contrast on this one, and in very nice, unposted condition.
Miss Davies was a Ziegfeld Girl in the 1910s, and went on to appear in the motion pictures with great success, until her lover, William Randolph Hearst, Newspaper Tycoon, took too much interest in her career and bought her so much publicity that her career floundered.
Now, there are a great many rumors, myths and legends surrounding Miss Davies and much has been written about her, but we had one interesting little idea we've never run across in print (though it probably has been, in keeping with that old axiom, "nothing new under the sun").
Any visitors of ours who are movie buffs, may be familiar with the classic film "Citizen Kane," in which the Kane character is generally accepted as having been modeled after Hearst. No spoilers here, but what if "Rosebud" (a name of key importance in the film) was not what it was purported to be in Citizen Kane?
What if Rosebud was not an "it," but rather a "whom?" In 1993, a woman named Patricia Lake, who since birth had been known as the niece of Marion Davies, made a deathbed request that she be finally acknowledged publicly as the love child of Hearst and Davies.
This is our idea. It has been suggested that Lake's birth and provenance was a well kept secret, Miss Davies being in careful seclusion at the time, and that following the birth, the infant girl was given to Miss Davies' sister to call her own. Davies' sister had lost her own little girl while in infancy you see, whose name happened to have been "Rose," and the infant who later became known as Patricia Lake simply took Rose's place and her name, in order to save both Hearst and Davies from the scandal of a child born out of wedlock and fathered by a married man.
Apparently this was a well kept secret within the family, Hearst only having acknowledged Patricia Lake as his daughter privately, when she was 17. But what if the secret was not all that well kept, what if Orson Welles learned of it? What we are wondering is if Kane's yearning whisper of the word "Rosebud," that deep, dark secret, was actually an intentional dig at Hearst by Welles (they were not good friends) and a not so veiled reference to "Rose," Hearst's secret daughter by Miss Davies? Incidentally, William Randolph Hearst forbade any of his newspapers the running of any advertisements for Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.
Fun, huh? We love a good mystery :) Oh, Mr. Wells, you rascal, you!
Anyhow, we'll say no more, it's just an idea, and if it piqued your curiosity, watch the movie!
A magnificent portrait of a beautiful, beautiful actress. Please examine our high res scans for detail.
Postage is for first class shipping in a secure photo mailer, and we happily combine shipping on all paper goods. If you purchase two cards, we will refund the postage on the second card, and when you purchase three or more cards from us at the same time, your shipping will be entirely free, except for international orders which, because of sudden increases in international shipping rates will still be charged one card's shipping fees on orders of three or more.
And please come visit our blog at:
redpoulaine.blogspot.com
where we post biographical and historical tidbits, images of cards and photographs for sale, some already sold but remembered fondly, related images of historical interest and sometimes even images of items that have not yet arrived in the shop, but that are expected to arrive soon, as well as coupon codes, links to other related sites, and more!