The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People (81 page)

But it was the gorgeous Marion Davies who stole his heart.

Born in Brooklyn on Jan. 1, 1897, Marion Davies (née Douras) was educated in a Hastings, N.Y., convent. She followed her three older sisters onto the stage and pursued a dancing career. While she was performing as a chorus girl in
Stop! Look! Listen!
in 1915, her affair with Hearst began.

Hearst, 34 years her senior, installed Marion as his protégée and mistress.

She entertained his guests at San Simeon (except when presidents or royalty visited, on which occasions Millicent was flown in to preside as hostess). Marion

starred in a slew of Hearst-funded films, including
The Cardboard Lover
(1928),
Show People
(1928), and
Blondie of the Follies
(1932). Hearst never allowed her to play any roles that would tarnish his virginal image of her. It was for this reason, not particularly for her lack of talent, that he lost $7 million on her films.

Throughout their relationship there was widespread belief that Hearst was

“keeping” other women and had fathered a number of children born out of wedlock. And there were rumors that perhaps Hearst’s twin sons by Millicent were really Marion’s. Marion once even recommended to a friend, whose girl friend was in need of an abortion, the name of a doctor who, she said, “took care of all mine.” Though she enjoyed their early sexual encounters, Marion and Hearst slept in separate bedrooms and she referred to him as “Pops.” Marion often formed a “crush” on her leading men, and Hearst, aware that he couldn’t always satisfy her sexually, “allowed her an occasional truancy from fidelity,” according to Marion’s biographer Fred Guiles. Sex, for Marion, was just another pleasurable pastime, “less exhilarating than a fast Charleston or even a particularly gamey joke.” An irrepressible romantic, she always tried to be discreet in her affairs. Marion, who called herself “just another dumb blonde,” shared her intimate love with actor Dick Powell and had a brief romance with actor Leslie Howard, but it was her fling with Charlie Chaplin that aroused the most interest.

Approximately 15 celebrities, including Chaplin and producer Thomas Ince, were aboard Hearst’s yacht
Oneida
on Nov. 18, 1924, for an impromptu party. Within a few days, Hollywood was mourning Ince’s death. Most experts contended that Ince died from heart failure brought on by acute indigestion.

However, stories surfaced that during the celebration Ince slipped off with Marion and tried to seduce her. Hearst, pistol in hand, discovered them in a dimly lit cabin below deck, mistook Ince for Chaplin, and unloaded a bullet in Ince’s head. The scandalous story was denied by those on board, Ince’s body was cremated, and Hearst, it was said, provided Ince’s widow, Nell, with a trust fund.

Acutely jealous of his winsome blond beauty, on numerous occasions Hearst hired detectives to spy on her. A thinly veiled reconstruction of their 36-year-affair served as the story line for the 1941 cinema classic
Citizen Kane
.

Hearst and Davies were outraged by the depiction of their romance, but all attempts to purchase and destroy the prints of the Orson Welles film failed.

Several times Hearst attempted to secure a divorce from Millicent. Once he even hired a detective in the hope of catching her in an adulterous affair.

Millicent responded to his pleas for a divorce by purchasing a pearl necklace priced in six figures from Tiffany’s and ordering the clerk to “send the bill to my husband’s office.” Hearst and Marion resigned themselves to a lifetime affair. Though Hearst could never give Marion a wedding ring, he lavished jewels and money on her, which she parlayed into a vast fortune in real estate.

Hearst, who spent half a billion dollars in his lifetime, once had to borrow a million dollars from his mistress.

During his last four years, after the onset of illness, Hearst lived with Marion in her Beverly Hills mansion. Two months after Hearst died, on Oct.

31, 1951, Marion ran off to Las Vegas and married merchant marine Capt.

Horace Brown, a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to the younger-day Hearst. It was Marion’s first marriage. Ten years later, at the age of 64, Marion succumbed to cancer.

QUIRKS:
Hearst loved to see Marion in costumes. Once, after a long separation, she received this message from an exuberant, randy Hearst: “Patient is on the blink … [bring] your nurse’s uniform.”

—A.K. and V.S.

The Sex Investor

HOWARD HUGHES (Dec. 24, 1905–Apr. 5, 1976)

HIS FAME:
American billionaire

Howard Hughes gained fame as a business entrepreneur, Hollywood film

mogul, pioneer airplane designer, and

record-breaking experimental aviator.

Later in life, he achieved notoriety as a

recluse who lived in near isolation for

more than one and a half decades.

HIS PERSON:
The son of a millionaire

who manufactured oil-drilling equip—

ment, Howard Hughes was born in

Houston, Tex. An only child, he was

spoiled by both of his parents but especially by his mother Allene, who

Hughes with Ava Gardner

worried and fretted over the young

Hughes constantly. Allene instilled in her son her own phobias, including a profound fear of germs, which years later would dominate Hughes’ life. During his childhood, Hughes had only one close friend and rarely took part in any group activities at school. A loner even as an adolescent, the thing he liked most was to ride his horse around the countryside.

As a teenager, Hughes was a poor student who appeared to have little ambition or direction. But after his mother died suddenly when he was 16 and his father died two years later, the orphaned Hughes revealed a strong-willed personality. He had a court declare him legally an adult, bought out his relatives’

shares of the Hughes Tool Company, and thus took over total control of the

family business. A millionaire at the age of 19, he moved to Hollywood, where he directed and produced films, including the WWI aerial epic
Hell’s Angels
.

By the early 1930s Hughes had a new passion—aviation. He founded the Hughes Aircraft Company, bought control of Trans World Airlines (TWA), and personally designed new, experimental aircraft. Serving as his own test pilot, he set a new airspeed record in 1935, and within three years broke the transcontinental and transworld records. He also crashed three times, suffering serious injuries.

As early as 1944, Hughes suffered his first nervous breakdown. While his economic empire grew over the next two decades, Hughes’ mental condition deteriorated dramatically. Surrounded by aides who never suggested he seek psychiatric help, Hughes withdrew into bedrooms in mansions and penthouses where he used box after box of Kleenex—spreading the tissues over everything he came in contact with—in his obsessive war against germs. For at least the last decade of his life he was a chronic paranoid, addicted to codeine and Valium. Weighing less than 100 lb., with long shaggy hair, Hughes died at the age of 70 while en route from Acapulco, Mexico, to a hospital in Houston, Tex. He left an estate valued at $2.3 billion.

SEX LIFE:
A very shy teenager, Hughes had few if any dates and little experience with women. After his father’s death he decided to marry, choosing Ella Rice, a young Houston socialite. A vivacious extrovert, Ella turned down his proposal. However, Hughes had his aunt, who had married into the Rice family, intervene on his behalf. Finally Ella’s mother agreed that Hughes would be an asset to the family and arranged the marriage.

After the wedding Hughes and his bride moved to Los Angeles, where the marriage proved to be a disaster. Intoxicated with the excitement of Hollywood, Hughes paid little attention to his new wife, while spending an increasing amount of time in the company of people involved in the film industry. After three years Ella left for Houston and sued for divorce. (This was but the first of many times that Hughes proved himself incapable of maintaining an intimate, permanent relationship with a woman.) Hughes’ reaction to Ella’s rejection set a pattern for the future; feeling betrayed, he never saw or spoke to her again.

After Ella’s departure Hughes began a pursuit of Hollywood film stars which was to continue for 30 years. Actress Billie Dove was his first conquest, but Hughes did not want their affair publicized. When he learned that Dell Publications had printed a one-shot “magazine” featuring himself and Billie on the cover, Hughes bought the entire printing before it could be distributed.

Billie Dove was genuinely in love with the 6-ft. 4-in., dark-skinned, lanky young Texan. This was unfortunate, since he dropped her for no apparent reason after a short affair and never spoke to her again. Katharine Hepburn was another love. When she went on the road with a show, Hughes followed her across the country in his private plane. In the end, Hepburn terminated the romance after explaining to a friend that Hughes bored her.

Ginger Rogers was also linked with Hughes. But their relationship ended when she found Hughes in bed with another actress. One actress widely assumed to have been romantically involved with Hughes was Jane Russell.

Although they had a close relationship for a number of years, they never made love. Hughes was particularly concerned, however, with Jane Russell’s breasts and how they appeared on screen. After viewing rushes of the film
Macao
starring Russell, Hughes wrote a three-page memo describing in detail the kind of brassiere she should wear to enhance her assets. “What we really need is a brassiere of a very thin material…. This brassiere should hold her breasts upward but should be so thin that it takes the natural shape of her breasts.”

Other movie actresses associated with Hughes included Marian Marsh, Hedy Lamarr, Jean Harlow, Ida Lupino, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Terry Moore, Yvonne Schubert, and Carole Lombard.

Probably no other person in history invested as much money in his sex life as did Howard Hughes, who obsessively searched for the woman with the perfect face, body, and especially breasts. For besides his heavily publicized affairs with well-known actresses, Hughes established another outlet for his sexual urges. Over the years he developed a system for procuring young women for what was to become a veritable harem. Hughes operatives across the country were told of their boss’ need for new faces and bodies. These agents found likely candidates, promised them screen tests and movie careers, and then shipped them off to Los Angeles. At one time Hughes owned or leased five houses in different areas of Los Angeles. Each one was occupied by a hopeful starlet or show girl, who was kept on salary. Thus, whichever neighborhood Hughes found himself in, he would have privacy and a girl.

Hughes, himself, was constantly looking for talent in magazines, on television, and on the streets. He set up his own detective agency to research and contact these prospects. One friend, studio executive William Fadiman, was sent to check out the star of the Ballet de Paris, Zizi Jeanmaire, after Hughes saw a picture of her. When Fadiman heartily approved of what he saw, Hughes bought the entire ballet company and installed it on the second floor of the RKO Writers Building. He hired a writer to do a screenplay for the company and set about to seduce Jeanmaire. After two years of failure, Hughes abruptly dropped the ballet and the planned film project.

Another victim of Hughes’ obsessional desire was Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida. When she was approached by a Hughes agent and asked to go to Hollywood to act, she was thrilled. But when she arrived, she was whisked off to the Town House Hotel, where she was kept a virtual prisoner; she had a 24-hour guard and was permitted to see no one. Happily married to a dentist in Italy, she wanted no part of Hughes’ advances. Lollobrigida finally escaped and returned to Italy, commenting, “I was not free in the time I spent there.”

Beauty contests were always a good source for Hughes’ reconnaissance missions. In 1960, after viewing the Miss Universe pageant on television, Hughes ordered his detectives to contact seven of the finalists, who were sub-412 /
Intimate Sex Lives

sequently registered in Los Angeles hotels. The operation failed, however, when the seven became suspicious of the promises of stardom and bolted for home. At one point during the 1950s, a Hughes aide claimed there were 108

active files on various candidates for Hughes’ bedroom. After reading the files and looking over the photographs of these women, Hughes decided which were to be contacted—his favorites being teenage brunettes with large breasts.

The case of one Riverside, Calif., 15-year-old who won a local beauty contest was typical. She was investigated, contacted, moved to Los Angeles, and given a house in Coldwater Canyon. Chauffeured by Hughes’ drivers, she was given singing, voice, acting, and dancing lessons. At the same time, she was cut off from old friends, especially men. Forced to live a life of seclusion, she became lonely. Hughes waited for that vulnerable moment, stepped into her life, and began taking her to dinner. Soon they were lovers. But the girl from Riverside realized that, although she lived in luxury, her movie career was still nonexistent. It took her five more years to realize that Hughes had never intended to make her a star.