And the Rest Is History by Marlene Wagman-Geller

affair with the man who sat in front of them.
    William Randolph Hearst was born with the silverest of spoons as the only son of a millionaire miner. When he was a child, his adoring mother, Phoebe, took him to Europe, where he developed a lifelong passion for fine art and antiques. He attended Harvard (with a ten-thousand-a-month allowance), until his expulsion for presenting several of his professors silver chamber pots engraved with their names. This did not trouble him, as his aspiration lay not with academia but with publishing. His foray into the arena he would come to dominate began when he persuaded his father, Senator George Hearst, to let him run the family-owned San Francisco Enquirer . He transformed it into the city’s most popular daily, partially through publicity gimmicks such as marching bands, oyster dinners, firework displays, and free boat rides. After he acquired the New York Journal , the publishing industry would forever bear his imprint.
    His empire grew to encompass dozens of newspapers and magazines (the latter included Cosmopolitan , Town and Country , and Harper’s Bazaar ). In 1903, the day before his fortieth birthday, William married a twenty-one-year-old chorus girl, Millicent Wilson, with whom he had five sons.
    When his adored mother passed away in 1919, William inherited 168,000 acres on a hilltop, La Cuesta Encantada (“The Enchanted Hill”), in San Simeon, California, on which he spent $37 million to build a castle. The walls of its 165 rooms were graced with his $50 million art collection (a quarter of a billion dollars in modern currency); its grounds included a Roman-style pool where Spartacus was filmed as well as the largest private zoo in the country. Hearst called San Simeon his “little hideaway.” When he lived on the East Coast his form of relaxation was the theater, where he was to meet the greatest love of his life—one for whom he was to risk his reputation.
    The first time Marion met William, the eighteen-year-old Marion was working as one of the chorus girls in the Ziegfeld Follies. As she was cascading down the steps on the stage, she caught the eye, and eventually the heart, of the publishing baron who occupied the front two seats (one was reserved for his hat)—William Randolph Hearst. Afterward, he had bouquets, gloves, candies, and silver boxes delivered to her dressing room and arranged to have her photographed at his studio. During the session, however, she caught only a glimpse of him, as he slipped away before they could talk.
    The two crossed paths again a few months later in Palm Beach, when, on the way to an amusement park, she lost control of the brakes on her bicycle and crashed, just missing the car in which William, coincidentally, was sitting. Stunned, as she was lying flat on her back, he asked if he could help. He tied her broken bike to his car and told his chauffeur to take her to the Royal Poinciana Hotel. They recognized each other from the photography session, but no mention of it was made, as Mrs. Hearst would not have been amused. He then stuck his head in the car and asked his wife to walk with him.
    Soon after, Marion was at a party in New York City; as she turned to leave, Hearst shook her hand. When he departed, she opened her palm; on it was a diamond wristwatch.
    Eventually the fifty-eight-year-old tycoon and the teenaged showgirl began a romantic relationship. When he asked her why she was going with a married man twice her age and the father of five, she replied, “Because I’m a gold digger.” Hearst, forever surrounded by sycophants, found her forthright words refreshing. Besides, he was in the throes of infatuation.
    As time went by, despite their huge differences, the two fell in love. William felt pain that he could not make her Mrs. Hearst; to comfort W. R., as she called him, she said, “Love is not always created at the altar. Love doesn’t need a wedding ring.” She felt they