Mae Murray (May 10, 1889 – March 23, 1965) was an American actress and dancer, who became known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" [1] and "The Gardenia of the Screen." is the 130th day of the year (131st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1889 (MDCCCLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 82nd day of the year (83rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. ... Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ... A contemporary dancer rehearsing in a dance studio Dance generally refers to human movement either used as a form of expression or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting. ...

Early life and rise to fame

Born Marie Adrienne Koenig in Portsmouth, Virginia, she first began acting on the Broadway stage in 1906 with dancer Vernon Castle. In 1908, she joined the chorus line of the Ziegfeld Follies, moving up to headliner by 1915. Map Political Statistics Founded 1752 County Independent city Mayor Dr. James W. Holley III Geographic Statistics Area  - Total  - Land  - Water 120. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... For other uses of Broadway, see Broadway. ... For other usages see Theatre (disambiguation) Theater (American English) or Theatre (British English and widespread usage among theatre professionals in the US) is that branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle — indeed... Year 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Vernon and Irene Castle in 1914 Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers of the early 20th century. ... Year 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... A chorus line is a substantial group of dancers who together perform synchronized routines, usually in musical theatre. ... This article is about the Ziegfeld Follies Broadway shows . ... Year 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday[1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...

Murray became a star of the club circuit in both the United States and Europe, performing with Clifton Webb, Rudolph Valentino, and John Gilbert as some of her many dance partners. Clifton Webb (November 19, 1889 – October 13, 1966) was an American actor, dancer and singer. ... Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926) was an Italian actor, sex symbol, and early pop icon. ... John Gilbert John Gilbert (July 10, 1899 - January 9, 1936) was an actor and major star of the silent film era. ...

Her motion picture debut was in To Have and to Hold (1916). She became a major star for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, starring with Rudolph Valentino in The Delicious Little Devil and Big Little Person in 1919. At the height of her popularity, Mae formed her own production company with her director, John Stahl. Critics were sometimes less than thrilled with Mae's over-the-top costumes and outsized emoting, but her films were financially successful. This article is about motion pictures. ... To Have and to Hold is a 1900 novel by American author, Mary Johnston. ... // Events November 19 - Samuel Goldfish (later renamed Samuel Goldwyn) and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Company (the company later became one of the most successful independent filmmakers). ... A movie star or film star is a celebrity who is a person known for his or her roles in motion pictures. ... For alternate meanings of MGM, see MGM (disambiguation). ... Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926) was an Italian actor, sex symbol, and early pop icon. ... The Delicious Little Devil is a 1919 black-and-white silent film starring Mae Murray and Rudolph Valentino. ... See also: 1918 in film 1919 1920 in film years in film film // Events February 5 - Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists Oscar Micheaux releases The Homesteader, becoming the first African-American to produce and direct a motion picture. ...

At her career peak in the early 1920s, Murray, along with such other notable Hollywood personalities as Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., William S. Hart, Jesse L. Lasky, Harold Lloyd, Hal Roach, Donald Crisp, Conrad Nagel and Irving Thalberg was a member of the board of trustees at the Motion Picture & Television Fund - A charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries without resources. Four decades later, Mae herself received aid from that organization. Cecil Blount DeMille (August 12, 1881 – January 21, 1959) was one of the most successful filmmakers during the first half of the 20th century. ... Douglas Fairbanks (May 23, 1883–December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. ... Wiliam Surrey Hart Movie poster for Harts 1916 western The Aryan in which he played a white (Anglo-Saxon) member of a Mexican gang, having turned against his own people. ... Lasky in 1915. ... Harold Clayton Lloyd (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American film actor and director, most famous for his silent comedies. ... Harold Eugene Roach, Sr. ... Donald Crisp (July 27, 1882 – May 25, 1974) was an Academy Award winning English film actor. ... Conrad Nagel (March 16, 1897 - February 24, 1970) was a successful American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. ... Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. ... The Motion Picture & Television Fund is a charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries without resources. ...

Slow career decline

Murray's most-famous role was probably in the Erich von Stroheim directed film The Merry Widow (1925), opposite John Gilbert. However, when silent movies gave way to talkies, Murray's voice proved to be not compatible with the new sound, and her career began to fade. In 1931 she was cast opposite fellow silent screen star Norman Kerry in the talkie Bachelor Apartment. The film was critically panned at the time of release and both Murray and Kerry's careers in the new medium of sound sputtered further. Erich von Stroheim (September 22, 1885 – May 12, 1957) was an Austrian - American star of the silent film age, lauded for his directional work in which he was a proto-auteur. ... The Merry Widow is a 1925 American MGM romantic drama film and black comedy directed and written by Erich von Stroheim. ... See also: 1924 in film 1925 1926 in film 1920s in film years in film film Events Top grossing films Ben-Hur His People The Unholy Three The Freshman Movies released Movies released in 1925 include: Ben-Hur, starring Ramon Novarro. ... A silent film is a film which has no accompanying soundtrack. ... 1902 poster advertising Gaumonts sound films, depicting an optimistically vast auditorium A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. ... Norman Kerry Norman Kerry (June 16, 1894 - January 12, 1956) was an American actor whose career spanned over twenty-five years in the motion picture industry beginning in the silent era at the end of World War I. Born Arnold Kaiser in Rochester, New York of German parentage, he changed...

Her career was injured even further when her fourth husband, "Prince" David Mdivani (a Georgian faux-nobleman whose brothers, Serge and Alexis, married actress Pola Negri and the heiress Barbara Hutton respectively), became her manager and suggested that his new wife leave MGM. Unfortunately, Mae took her husband's advice and unceremoniously walked out of her contract, making a powerful foe of studio boss Louis B. Mayer. Later, Mae would swallow her pride and plead to return; Mayer would have none of it. Eventually, Mae and David, who married in 1926, divorced; they had one child, Koran David Mdivani (February 1927-). She was previously married to William M. Schwenker Jr. (1908-1909), stockbroker and Olympic bobsled champion J. Jay O'Brien (1916-1917), and the movie director Robert Z. Leonard (1918-1925). Mdivani (Georgian - მდივანი) is the name of a family of the aznauri, or minor nobility, originating from the nation of Georgia. ... Georgia (Georgian: საქართველო Sakartvelo), known from 1991 to 1995 as the Republic of Georgia, is a country to the east of the Black Sea in the southern Caucasus. ... Pola Negri Pola Negri [1] (December 31, 1894 - August 1, 1987) was a Polish film actress who achieved notoriety as a femme fatale in silent films between 1910s and 1930s. ... Barbara Hutton (November 14, 1912 – May 11, 1979) was an American socialite dubbed by the media as the Poor Little Rich Girl because of her troubled life. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

For a brief period of time, Murray wrote a weekly column for newspaper scion William Randolph Hearst. For other people named William Randolph Hearst, see William Randolph Hearst (disambiguation) William Randolph Hearst I (April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper magnate. ...

In the 1940's Murray appeared regularly at Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe, a nightclub which specialized in a "Gay '90s" atmosphere, often presenting stars of the past for nostalgic value. Her appearances collected mixed reviews: her dancing (in particular the Merry Widow Waltz) being well received, but Murray refused to acknowledge her age, wearing heavy layers of makeup and fitting her mature figure into short skirted costumes with plunging necklines.

In her later years a sort of dementia seemed to overcome her. Richard Griffith wrote in The Movie Stars, “Her appearance eventually became an outlandish caricature of the superstar, rather a dangerous caricature. She would walk down Fifth Avenue with her head bent back as far as it would go, as if gazing at the heavens. The concerned observer realized that she was trying to present a youthful chin line to passersby, and he hoped that she wouldn’t fall flat on her face at the next curbstone. She was said to have wangled invitations to charity balls, which she attended all the time, she would command the orchestra to play the theme tune from The Merry Widow and waltz to it solo, compelling the paying customers to withdraw from the dance floor.”

“And what has become of those beautiful young faces that graced the screen and our lives so long ago – if measured in time?” asked Francis Marion in Off With Their Heads. “Year after year the church bells have been tolling ….some lie in mausoleums, flower bedecked at Easter……others in graves that bear only their names, long forgotten by the public that once idolized them. Many are living, secure in their homes, with children and grandchildren. Quite a few are at the Motion Picture Country Home, where old friends meet to peer at faded photographs or to read aloud their favorable notices, the newspaper clippings yellowed with age. Here there is companionship, not loneliness…Mae Murray never knew that she had found her way home; her disturbed mind was aware of nothing beyond her pitiful vanity. ‘Step aside, peasants! Let the Princess Mdivani pass!’ she demanded imperiously of the nurses who came forward to help her into the hospital. ‘Where are the cameras? Where are my flowers? I must be photographed with flowers! Get them before I’m surrounded by cameramen!’ A doctor came forward. ‘If you’re a Hearst reporter, be sure to mention that I’ve just finished my memoirs.’ She wheeled on the nurses. ‘Music! I always make my entrance with music! Have your orchestra play The Merry Widow Waltz. That’s the number I made famous.’ She held out her hand to the doctor. ‘May I introduce myself? I’m Mae Murray, the young Ziegfeld beauty with the bee-stung lips – and Hollywood is calling me.’ He caught her in his arms as she slumped forward. ‘Poor old thing,’ said one of the nurses...”

Murray's only son, Koran David Mdivani, was raised by Sara Elizabeth "Bess" Cunning of Averill Park, N.Y., who began taking care of him in 1936, when the child was recovering from a double mastoid operation (Cunning's brother Dr. David Cunning was the surgeon). When Murray attempted to regain custody of her son in 1939, Cunning and her other brothers, John, Ambrose, and Cortland, refused, according to the New York Times, at which time Murray and her former husband, Mdivani, entered a bitter custody dispute. It finally ended in 1940, with Murray being given legal custody of the child and the court ordering Mdivani to pay $400 a month maintenance. However, Koran Mdivani continued to be raised by Bess Cunning, who adopted him in 1940 as Daniel Michael Cunning.^[1]

Murray's son married, in 1950, Patricia Ann Maloney of Cohoes, New York.Together, they had two children, Pamela and Cynthia. Mae's great-granddaughter, daughter of Cynthia, is named Elizabeth Mae after her great-grandmother. ^[2]

Retirement

Murray's finances continued to collapse, and for most of her later life she lived in poverty. She was the subject of an authorized biography, The Self-Enchanted written by Jane Ardmore that has often been incorrectly called Murray's autobiography.

It has been speculated that the character Norma Desmond of Sunset Boulevard, a washed-up silent superstar living in self-delusion, was based on Mae Murray. Writer/director Billy Wilder, however, never revealed his inspiration for the character. Sunset Boulevard (officially known as West Sunset Boulevard, except in Beverly Hills) is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades. ... Billy Wilder (June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-born, Jewish-American journalist, screenwriter, film director, and producer whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. ...

She later moved into the Motion Picture House in Woodland Hills, a retirement community for Hollywood professionals. The Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital is a motion picture and television industry complex complete with a retirement community, with individual cottages, and a fully licensed, acute-care hospital, located at 23388 Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills, California. ... Woodland Hills is a community within the City of Los Angeles. ...

Mae Murray died at age 75. She is interred in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery, North Hollywood, California. Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery is located at 10621 Victory Boulevard in North Hollywood, California. ... North Hollywood is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. ...

References

• The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era by David W. Menefee. Connecticut: Praeger, 2004. ISBN 0-275-98259-9.
• The Self-Enchanted: Mae Murray, Image of an Era. By Jane Kesner Morris Ardmore. ew York: McGraw-Hill, 1959.
• The Rise to Stardom of Mae Murray. by Jimmy Bangley in Classic Images, August, 1996. Muscatine, Iowa: Muscatine Journal, 1996.
• Mae Murray’s Victory. By F. Cugat in Movie Weekly, August 19, 1922.
• Off with Their Heads! By Frances Marion. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972.
• Mae Murray-A Study in Contradictions. By Adela Rogers St. Johns in Photoplay, July 1924, 43.

External links

• Mae Murray at the Internet Movie Database
• Mae Murray at Silents Are Golden
• Mae Murray Photo Galleries at Silent Ladies & Gents
• Mae Murray Biography at New York Times Movies
• Mae Murray Biography at Classic Images