William Randolph Hearst

Diagnoses

Personal

Vocation

Lifestyle

Notable

Traits

Family

American industrialist who was the founder of the Hearst Chain of publications and a creator of sensationalism in journalism. His dad, a U.S. Senator, gave him the San Francisco Examiner as a start; by 1937 he owned 37 other papers. When he made an attempt to move into politics, he was unsuccessful. Hearst, at the peak of his career, was as powerful a figure in the new, 20th century world of mass communications as Carnegie was in steel, Morgan in banking and Rockefeller in oil. He built the nation's first media conglomerate by acquiring or establishing newspapers in nearly all of the country's largest cities, and then expanded his holdings horizontally into magazines, movie pictures and radio. He operated his own news service, his own syndicated feature and comic strip services, and the most successful Sunday newspaper supplement. He was a pioneer in newsreels and feature films, producing, for example, "The Perils of Pauline," and in 1919, founding Cosmopolitan Pictures in New York. In the late '20s and '30s he took on the new medium of radio and eventually controlled 13 stations. He himself set the topics and tone of his media and edited the editorials. He wrote the major opinion pieces himself and had them prominently displayed on his front pages. He was married and had five sons. His wife, Millicent Willson, was a former chorus girl whose aspirations for a place in New York society he did not share. Leaving the family in a palatial home in New York, he embarked on a new life, spending more and more time in California. He first spotted Marion Davies in 1915 in an Irving Berlin stage production number. She was a slender blonde with flawless complexion, 34 years younger than he and a cut-up, funny and irreverent. After 1924, they were together steadily for a 37-year relationship. One afternoon in April 1919, Hearst visited the offices of architect Julia Morgan in San Francisco. He was interested in having a simple bungalow built on land that the family owned in the Santa Lucia hills along the Pacific Coast. He was, at the time, deeply in debt and could afford nothing too elaborate. Within weeks, Hearst's mother died at the age of 76, leaving her son and only child the fortune that she had inherited from her late husband, the mining millionaire George Hearst. What had begun as a simple bungalow would end up as a Mediterranean-style city on a hill, with three guest villas, for a combined total of 46 rooms, linked by a series of elaborately landscaped Italian and Spanish gardens, esplanades, walkways, and plazas to the main house: Casa Grande, a towering 115-room castle-cathedral. Construction on the Hearst "ranch" began in the fall of 1919 and continued for nearly 30 years, never reaching completion. Though Orson Welles classic "Citizen Kane" was a thinly disguised portrait of Hearst, it was not a true picture of the man. What was true was the similarity of omnipotence from having achieved extraordinary success at a young age. San Simeon came to symbolize not only the immense reach of Hearst's power and wealth but his also massive ability to get things done. Irreplaceable treasures adorned the castle, imported art works from the old world, frescoes and carvings, tapestries and objects d'art as well as paintings and murals that were so priceless that no amount of money could ever replicate their value. An invitation to San Simeon was the most coveted ticket of the '30s and '40s. While Hearst ran his media empire from there, his guests rode horseback, played tennis and frolicked in one of the two magnificent pools, or played board games and visited before a great fireplace. At seven, guests would assemble for cocktails, which were tightly limited. Marion Davies was by then an alcoholic so neither she nor anyone else was served more than two drinks. She was always a delightful hostess, warm and gay. Hearst himself was actually quite shy and had an unexpected high pitched voice. Davies put everyone at ease. A friend later wrote that the relationship between them was one of the great love stories. One night while drinking, Marion was in tears. She said, "I started out as a gold-digger and ended up in love." They were deeply committed to each other, and their tenderness in private was overseen. Careful not to flaunt their relationship, they were never seen in public together, and Davies always insisted that Hearst take care of his wife and family. As the boys grew up, they began to visit the Castle, first with curiosity, and then comfortably with Davies. In 1936, Hearst had a disturbing secret hanging over his head. He was deeply, dangerously in debt. When he asked his friend Joseph P. Kennedy to help him reorganize his companies, Kennedy's accountants discovered that Hearst's corporations owed more than $80 million. For over a half century, Hearst had lived on the edge, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. He was running out of credit and deeply hurt by the tax laws established by Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, which he called the Raw Deal. In the summer of 1937, he placed his holdings in receivership and over the next five years, sold a sizable portion of his art collections, his castle in Wales, Millicent's Long Island estate and other various real estate holdings. It was not until the mid-'40s that he made financial recovery. Hearst's health began to fail in 1947 when he was in his 80s. He and Davies moved to Beverly Hills. He died there from a heart attack and stroke on 14 August 1951 at age 88. Link to Wikipedia biography