Sept. 22, 1961 - Marion Davies (pictured in 1936), a star of the old Hollywood, died today of cancer. A friend said that Miss Davies, early in her illness, had been told she had cancer but tried not to believe it. Her age has been given variously as 61 or 64. As a teenager, she appeared in several Broadway musicals and one film, "Runaway Romany" (1917). She soon became a featured performer in the Ziegfeld Follies. While performing in the 1916 Follies, the 19-year-old Marion met the 53-year-old newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst and became his mistress. Hearst took over management of Davies' career and promoted her as a motion picture actress. Following the decline of her film career during the Great Depression, Davies struggled with alcoholism, and she retired from the screen in 1937.
