Doris Duke, the tobacco heiress, was one of the bridesmaids, and her husband of the moment, Jimmy Cromwell, one of the guests. Before the ceremony Curley changed his will in Mary’s favor; which later left her a rich widow. Marion was a bridesmaid on that occasion, as on many others. I knew how much she envied any bride.
I stayed in Hollywood largely because of her. When picture parts grew scarce as hen’s teeth, I holed up in a three-room basement flat with my son. I was ready to quit and return to New York when Marion heard about it from Frances Marion and put me into a picture of hers, Zander the Great, for which Frances wrote the script. That also opened the door to San Simeon for me. It was the springboard to more jobs, and that kept me, for better or worse, in the movies.
Wealth came to mean nothing to Marion except in terms of the good it could do. “You’re rich not because of money but only through what you give,” she used to say. She built a children’s wing on UCLA’s Medical Center, with a trust fund added to maintain it. With her wry humor that remained intact to the end, she shrugged off any fancy talk about the building being her memorial: “It won’t do me any good; I’ll be down below where I can’t see so high.”
This Lady Bountiful extended her warmth to Hearst’s close family and employees. She mothered John R., Jr., the Chief’s twelve-year-old grandson, nicknamed “Bunkie,” when he came to live at San Simeon after his parents were divorced. She interceded with the iron-willed man to save his sons—William, Jr., John, David, Randolph, and George—from their father’s wrath. She supported one of the five for years after he had spent his inherited money as if it would last forever.
For thirty years she protected the boys from W.R.’s anger and disapproval; covering up their sins in his eyes; lending them money when they needed it; taking them and their friends in under San Simeon’s roof and into her Santa Monica home. In return, the sons behaved as if she was one of their nearest and dearest friends. No hostility was ever shown until after W.R.’s death.
She bestowed the same kind of favors on Hearst’s staff. Thanks to Marion, Louella’s job was enlarged for her, with steady increases in salary. Through Marion, she got to know all the stars and greats of the world. Cobina Wright picked up her stint as society columnist by Marion’s pleading on her behalf with W.R.
Hearst’s staff treated Marion fondly during her protector’s lifetime. Richard Berlin, the organization’s strong man who emerged as president of Hearst Corporation, was one of the many who scrupulously saw to it that every birthday and similar anniversary in her life was marked by flowers and the cordial words of congratulations.
When W.R.’s fortunes crumbled and his empire faced sudden ruination, Marion came to the rescue. She lent him one million dollars. “You’ll be left without a penny,” said I, always the practical one, to her.
“What would you do?” she asked. “It came from him. Would you deny him when he needs it?”
In 1947 the two of them took refuge from the storms that blew increasingly around him—old age and an America entirely changed from the land he’d left his stamp on. They closed down San Simeon and moved into a Spanish stucco house on North Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. W.R. was reluctantly facing the fact that he was no more immortal than any other man.