Mae Murray
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."
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.
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.
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
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.
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 decadeslater, Mae herself received aid from that organization.
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. Her career was injured even further when her fourth husband, "prince"
David Mdivani (a
Georgian nobleman whose brother, Serge, married actress
Pola Negri), became her manager and suggested that she leave MGM. Eventually, the pair divorced, and Murray lost custody of their son in a bitter court battle. For a brief period of time, Murray wrote a weekly column for newspaper scion
William Randolph Hearst.
Murray's finances continued to collapse, and for most of her later life she lived in poverty. She was the subject of a not-particularly-successful
authorized biography,
The Self-Enchanted written by
Jane Ardmore that has often been incorrectly called Murray's autobiography.
She later moved into the
Motion Picture House in
Woodland Hills, a retirement community for Hollywood professionals.
Mae Murray died at age 75. She is interred in
Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery,
North Hollywood, California.
Mae's great granddaughter, Elizabeth Mae Anastasia, is named after her. She is fifteen years old.
* 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
