And the Rest Is History by Marlene Wagman-Geller Page A

were together and that was all that mattered. William became Marion’s Svengali, and his tabloids praised her skills as an actress; she was once described as the bubbles in champagne. Marion’s comment on her lover’s promotion was, “With me it was 5% talent and 95% publicity.” In her autobiography she stated that had it not been for Hearst, she would have ended up as a Bertha, a sewing-machine girl.
    Soon the newsman himself became the news, and the public felt Ziegfeld’s folly had become Hearst’s own.
    Mrs. Hearst was enraged at her husband’s public display of adultery, which had become Hollywood’s worst-kept secret. However, the former showgirl had established herself as the grande dame of Manhattan and felt that her social position would not be enhanced with a divorce. Soon she absented herself from the West Coast, and Marion became the official belle of Hearst’s castle, which drew European blue bloods such as Winston Churchill and American royalty such as Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, John F. Kennedy, and Charles Lindbergh. Marion would later immortalize these heady days in her autobiography, The Times We Had.
    Hearst was a generous man, and when it came to Marion his largesse knew no limit. After spying a photograph of St. Donat’s Castle in Wales, he bought the property in 1925 and presented it as a token of his love. George Bernard Shaw told Hearst that his castle was “what heaven would be like if God had your money.” The titan also purchased for Marion a 118-room Santa Monica home, Ocean House (dubbed “the Versailles of Hollywood”), which today is worth $165 million. Anybody who was anyone, such as Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo, coveted invitations to Marion’s three-day, on-the-beach, stop-the-band-at-four-a.m. soirees. Hearst showered her with jewels, perhaps in guilt over never being able to give her the one jewel they both wished she could have worn: a wedding band.
    Unlike most “other women,” Marion never demanded that the mistress become the wife. She told him, “You are one of the most important men in the world. Now it’s all right for you to have a blonde ex-Follies girl for your mistress. That’s all right. But you divorce the wife and mother of your five sons to marry a much younger blonde, and you’re an old fool.” Marion knew she was W. R.’s wife of his heart; with that she was content.
    Although Hearst was omnipotent in his publishing empire, there were some things that even the Chief (the name his employees called him) could not control. Orson Welles’s movie Citizen Kane was a roman à clef based on the mogul; it portrayed his love interest as Sally, a talentless, drunken opportunist whose own ambitions were curtailed by her tycoon’s megalomania. Herman J. Mankiewicz, co-writer of Citizen Kane , heard the name Rosebud from the actress Louise Brooks at San Simeon; apparently it was Hearst’s pet name for a certain part of Marion’s anatomy. Citizen Hearst was not impressed. Marion was equally defensive; she told a reporter, “I don’t care what you say about me, but don’t hurt him. He’s a wonderful man.” Welles later commented on his film, “Kane was better than Hearst but Marion was better than Susan.”
    In 1937, the unthinkable happened: Hearst had run out of money. However, Marion came to his rescue. She liquidated everything she owned and presented W. R. with a check for a million dollars. Overcome with emotion, he asked why she made the sacrifice. Her answer was that the gold digger had fallen in love. Not only did Marion make the sacrifice of money; she also gave up her career to be with the man who now needed her more than ever. She explained, “I thought that the least I could do for a man who had been so wonderful and great ... was to be a companion to him.” She proved that her love had not been