Mae Murray (born Marie Adrienne Koenig; May 10, 1885 – March 23, 1965) was an American actress, dancer, film producer, and screenwriter. Murray rose to fame during the

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...

era and was known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen".

Early life

Murray was born in New York City, the second-oldest child of Joseph and Mary (née Miller) Koenig. Her maternal grandparents had emigrated from

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

while her paternal grandparents had emigrated from

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. She had two brothers, William Robert (born November 1889) and Howard Joseph (born January 1884). The family eventually moved to an apartment in the Lower East Side. In May 1896, Joseph Koenig, Murray's father, died from acute

gastritis Gastritis is inflammation of the lining of the stomach. It may occur as a short episode or may be of a long duration. There may be no symptoms but, when symptoms are present, the most common is upper abdominal pain (see dyspepsia). Other possi ...

due to his alcoholism. To support the family, Mary Koenig took a job as a housekeeper for

Harry Payne Whitney Harry Payne Whitney (April 29, 1872 – October 26, 1930) was an American businessman, thoroughbred horse breeder, and member of the prominent Whitney family. Early years Whitney was born in New York City on April 29, 1872, as the eldest son ...

Career

Stage

Murray began acting on the Broadway stage in 1906 with dancer

Vernon Castle Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers and dance teachers who appeared on Broadway and in silent films in the early 20th century. They are credited with reviving the popularity of modern dancing. Castle was a st ...

. In 1908, she joined the

chorus line A chorus line is a large group of dancers who together perform synchronized routines, usually in musical theatre. Sometimes, singing is also performed. Chorus line dancers in Broadway musicals and revues have been referred to by slang terms ...

of the

Ziegfeld Follies The ''Ziegfeld Follies'' was a series of elaborate theatrical revue productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 to 1931, with renewals in 1934 and 1936. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as ''The Ziegfeld Follies of the Ai ...

, 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 Webb Parmelee Hollenbeck (November 19, 1889 – October 13, 1966), known professionally as Clifton Webb, was an American actor, singer, and dancer. He worked extensively and was known for his stage appearances in the plays of Noël Coward, i ...

, Rudolph Valentino, and John Gilbert as some of her many dance partners. Broadway Rose 1922

Films

Murray made her motion picture debut in '' To Have and to Hold'' in 1916. She became a major star for

Universal Universal is the adjective for universe. Universal may also refer to: Companies * NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company ** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal ** Universal TV, a ...

, starring with Rudolph Valentino in ''

The Delicious Little Devil ''The Delicious Little Devil'' is a 1919 American silent comedy-drama film starring Mae Murray and Rudolph Valentino. A 35 mm print of the film is housed at the EYE Film Instituut Nederland,Big Little Person'' in 1919. At the height of her popularity, Murray formed her own production company with her director,

Robert Z. Leonard Robert Zigler Leonard (October 7, 1889 – August 27, 1968) was an American film director, actor, producer, and screenwriter. Biography He was born in Chicago, Illinois. At one time, he was married to silent star Mae Murray with the two formin ...

. Critics were sometimes less than thrilled with her over-the-top costumes and exaggerated emoting, but her films were popular with movie-going audiences and financially successful. In 1925, Murray, Leonard, and Stahl produced films at

Tiffany Pictures Tiffany Pictures, which also became Tiffany-Stahl Productions for a time, was a Hollywood motion picture studio in operation from 1921 until 1932. It is considered a Poverty Row studio, whose films had lower budgets, lesser-known stars, and overall ...

, with ''Souls for Sables'' (1925), starring

Claire Windsor Claire Windsor (born Clara Viola Cronk; April 14, 1892 – October 24, 1972) was an American film actress of the silent screen era. Early life Windsor was born Clara Viola Cronk (nicknamed "Ola") in 1892 in Marvin, Phillips County, Kansas to ...

and Eugene O'Brien, as the first film made by Tiffany. For a brief period of time, Murray wrote a weekly column for newspaper scion

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...

. At her career peak in the early 1920s, Murray, along with such other notable Hollywood personalities as

Cecil B. DeMille Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American film director, producer and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cine ...

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including '' The Thi ...

William S. Hart William Surrey Hart (December 6, 1864 – June 23, 1946) was an American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is remembered as a foremost Western star of the silent era who "imbued all of his characters with honor and inte ...

, Jesse L. Lasky,

Harold Lloyd Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, and stunt performer who appeared in many silent comedy films.Obituary '' Variety'', March 10, 1971, page 55. One of the most influential film c ...

Hal Roach Harry Eugene "Hal" Roach Sr. Skretvedt, Randy (2016), ''Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies'', Bonaventure Press. p.608. (January 14, 1892 – November 2, 1992) was an American film and television producer, director, and screenwriter, ...

Donald Crisp Donald William Crisp (27 July 188225 May 1974) was an English film actor as well as an early producer, director and screenwriter. His career lasted from the early silent film era into the 1960s. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor ...

Conrad Nagel John Conrad Nagel (March 16, 1897 – February 24, 1970) was an American film, stage, television and radio actor. He was considered a famous matinée idol and leading man of the 1920s and 1930s. He was given an Academy Honorary Award in 1940 and ...

and

Irving Thalberg Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather productio ...

was a member of the board of trustees at the

Motion Picture & Television Fund The Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF) is a charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries and their families with limited or no resources, including services such as tempo ...

– a charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries without resources. Four decades later, Murray herself received aid from that organization. In the early 1920s, Murray was painted by well-known Hollywood portrait painter

Theodore Lukits Theodore Nikolai Lukits (November 26, 1897 – January 20, 1992) was a Romanian American portrait and landscape painter. His initial fame came from his portraits of glamorous actresses of the silent film era, but since his death, his Asian-inspir ...

. This work titled ''Symphony in Jade and Gold (The Actress Mae Murray)'' (1922, private collection, northern California) depicted Murray nude, gazing in a mirror. It was exhibited at the Pacific Asia Museum in 1999 and two other venues as part of the exhibition ''Theodore Lukits, An American Orientalist''. Mae Murray Photoplay August 1916

Decline

Murray appeared in the title role in the Erich von Stroheim-directed film ''

The Merry Widow ''The Merry Widow'' (german: Die lustige Witwe, links=no ) is an operetta by the Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt ...

'' (1925), opposite John Gilbert. When silent films gave way to

talkies A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

, she made an insecure debut in the new medium in '' Peacock Alley'' (1930), a remake of her earlier 1921 version '' Peacock Alley''. In 1931, she was cast with newcomer

Irene Dunne Irene Dunne (born Irene Marie Dunn; December 20, 1898 – September 4, 1990) was an American actress who appeared in films during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She is best known for her comedic roles, though she performed in films of other gen ...

, leading man

Lowell Sherman Lowell J. Sherman (October 11, 1888 – December 28, 1934) was an American actor and film director. In an unusual practice for the time, he served as both actor and director on several films in the early 1930s. He later turned exclusively to d ...

, and fellow silent screen star

Norman Kerry Norman Kerry (born Norman Hussey Kaiser,"United States World War II Draft Registration Cards,registration for Norman Hussey Kaiser, Los Angeles, California, April 27, 1942 This document lists his full name as Norman Hussey Kaiser, noting the na ...

in the talkie ''

Bachelor Apartment Bachelor Apartment is a 1931 American pre-Code romance film directed by and starring Lowell Sherman as a bachelor/playboy, Wayne Carter, who falls in love with Irene Dunne's honest working girl, Helene Andrews. The credits for the film, and a ...

''. The film was critically panned at the time of release and Murray made only one more film, ''High Stakes'' (1931), also with Sherman. A critical blow to her film career occurred after she married her fourth husband, David Mdivani, a

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

man of minor aristocratic roots, whose brothers Serge and Alexis married actress

Pola Negri Pola Negri (; born Apolonia Chalupec ; 3 January 1897 – 1 August 1987) was a Polish stage and film actress and singer. She achieved worldwide fame during the silent and golden eras of Hollywood and European film for her tragedienne and femm ...

and the heiress

Barbara Hutton Barbara Woolworth Hutton (November 14, 1912 – May 11, 1979) was an American debutante, socialite, heiress, and philanthropist. She was dubbed the "Poor Little Rich Girl"—first when she was given a lavish and expensive debutante ball in 1930 a ...

respectively. The couple married on June 27, 1926, and Mdivani became her manager, suggesting that his new wife ought to leave MGM. Murray took her husband's advice and walked out of her contract with MGM, making a powerful foe of studio boss

Louis B. Mayer Louis Burt Mayer (; born Lazar Meir; July 12, 1882 or 1884 or 1885 – October 29, 1957) was a Canadian-American film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) in 1924. Under Mayer's management, MGM became the film industr ...

. Later, she would swallow her pride and pleaded to return, but Mayer would not rehire her. In effect, Mayer's hostility meant that Murray was blacklisted from working for the Hollywood studios.Program Note for "High Stakes" issued by Films on the Hill, Washington DC (June 13, 2009). Meanwhile, in 1927, Murray was sued by her then-masseuse, the famous Hollywood fitness guru

Sylvia of Hollywood Sylvia Ulback (6 April 1881 – 2 March 1975), known as Sylvia of Hollywood, was an early Hollywood fitness guru. Between 1926 and 1932, "Madame Sylvia", as she was also known, specialized in keeping movie stars camera-ready through stringent ...

, for the outstanding amount of $2,125; a humiliating and detailed court case followed.

Later years

In the 1940s, Murray appeared regularly at Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe, a nightclub which specialized in a "Gay '90s" atmosphere, often presenting stars of the past for nostalgic value. Her appearances collected mixed reviews: her dancing (in particular the Merry Widow Waltz) was well received, but she was criticized for her youthful costumes and heavy makeup application, trying to conceal her age. In 1946, she taught ballroom dancing to young teenagers at a dance studio in Los Angeles. It was located on Crenshaw Blvd., near 48th Street. Murray's finances continued to collapse, and for most of her later life she lived in poverty. She was the subject of an authorized biography, ''The Self-Enchanted'' (1959), written by Jane Ardmore, that has often been incorrectly called Murray's autobiography. On the evening of February 19, 1964, 78-year-old Murray was found disoriented in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, thinking that she had completed a bus trip to New York. Murray explained to a Salvation Army officer that she had become lost trying to find her hotel, which she had forgotten the name of. She also refused bus fare back to Los Angeles as she claimed to have a ticket for the remainder of the journey in her purse, "if she could find it."

Personal life

Prince David Mdivani and Mae Murray, 1926

In September 1908, in

Hoboken, New Jersey Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,690 i ...

, while she was appearing in the ''Follies of 1908'', Murray married William M. Schwenker Jr. (born 1885), the unemployed son of a brewery-supply dealer, who cut off his son's allowance upon news of the wedding; they divorced in 1910. On December 18, 1916, she married former dancer and future Olympic bobsled champion Jay O'Brien. He had been married to

Irene Fenwick Irene Fenwick (born Irene Frizell; September 5, 1887 – December 24, 1936) was an American stage and silent film actress. She was married to Lionel Barrymore from 1923 until her death in 1936. Fenwick has several surviving feature films fr ...

. After divorcing O'Brien in 1918, Murray wed movie director

on August 18, 1918; they divorced on May 26, 1925. Murray married her fourth husband, David Mdivani, on June 27, 1926. They had one child, Koran David Mdivani (1926-2018), before divorcing in 1933. Koran was later raised by Sara Elizabeth "Bess" Cunning of Averill Park, New York, who began taking care of him in 1936, when the child was recovering from a double

mastoid The mastoid part of the temporal bone is the posterior (back) part of the temporal bone, one of the bones of the skull. Its rough surface gives attachment to various muscles (via tendons) and it has openings for blood vessels. From its borders, ...

operation (Cunning's brother Dr. David Cunning was the surgeon). When Murray attempted to regain custody of her son in 1939, Cunning and her other brothers, John, Ambrose, and Cortland, refused, according to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', at which time Murray and her former husband, Mdivani, entered a bitter custody dispute. It finally ended in 1940, with Murray being given legal custody of the child and the court ordering Mdivani to pay $400 a month maintenance. However, Koran Mdivani continued to live with Bess Cunning, who adopted him in 1940 under the name Daniel Michael Cunning. Reportedly, Mdivani had managed to drain nearly all of Murray's money.

Death

Many years later, Murray moved into the Motion Picture House in Woodland Hills, a retirement community for Hollywood professionals. She died there on March 23, 1965 at the age of 79. She is interred in

Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery is located at 10621 Victory Boulevard in North Hollywood and Burbank, California. The cemetery has an entrance called the Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation that is the final resting place for aviation ...

North Hollywood, California North Hollywood is a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, the El Portal Theatre, several art galleries, and the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences. The North ...

. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Mae Murray has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6318 Hollywood Blvd. She was one of three actresses (

and

Theda Bara Theda Bara ( ; born Theodosia Burr Goodman; July 29, 1885 – April 7, 1955) was an American silent film and stage actress. Bara was one of the more popular actresses of the silent era and one of cinema's early sex symbols. Her femme fatal ...

were the others) whose eyes were combined to form the

Chicago International Film Festival The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the comp ...

's logo, a stark, black and white close-up of the composite eyes set as repeated frames in a strip of film.About Our Logo – The Chicago International Film Festival.
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Filmography

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * Jane Kesner Morris Ardmore, ''The Self-Enchanted: Mae Murray, Image of an Era.'' (New York:

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes refere ...

, 1959) * "The Rise to Stardom of Mae Murray" by Jimmy Bangley in ''Classic Images'' August 1996 (Muscatine, Iowa: Muscatine Journal, 1996) * F. Cugat, "Mae Murray's Victory", ''Movie Weekly'' (August 19, 1922) *

Frances Marion Frances Marion (born Marion Benson Owens, November 18, 1888 – May 12, 1973) was an American screenwriter, director, journalist and author often cited as one of the most renowned female screenwriters of the 20th century alongside June Mathis a ...

, ''Off With Their Heads!'' (New York:

The Macmillan Company Macmillan Inc. is a defunct American book publishing company. Originally established as the American division of the British Macmillan Publishers, the two were later separated and acquired by other companies, with the remnants of the original A ...

, 1972) *

Adela Rogers St. Johns Adela Nora Rogers St. Johns (May 20, 1894 – August 10, 1988) was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. She wrote a number of screenplays for silent movies but is best remembered for her groundbreaking exploits as "The World's Grea ...

, "Mae Murray-A Study in Contradictions", ''Photoplay'' (July 1924), 43

External links

* *
Mae Murray
at the Women Film Pioneers Project * * Mae Murray a

* Mae Murray Biography a

Mae Murray
at Virtual History

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Murray, Mae 1885 births 1965 deaths 20th-century American actresses Actresses from New York City American film actresses Film producers from New York (state) American people of German descent American people of French descent American silent film actresses American stage actresses Burials at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract players American women screenwriters Ziegfeld girls Women film pioneers Screenwriters from New York (state) American women film producers 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American screenwriters