You knew you’d made it into the Hollywood A List if you scored an invite to one of Marion Davies’s parties. And she’d throw one for pretty much any reason. This one was thrown in the French room at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. The room was decorated like a Parisian Café and dubbed “Chez Marion” because the point of the party was to welcome her home after a three-month trip to Europe in 1928. Standing, left to right are
- Lorraine MacLean (actress and costume designer)
- Matt Moore (actor)
- Aileen Pringle (actress),
- Louis B. Mayer (head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
- Gloria Swanson (actress)
- Harry D’Arrast (director)
- Marion Davies (actress and mistress of William Randolph Hearst (but don’t use the “m” word out loud!)
- Louella Parsons (gossip columnist)
- Ricardo Cortez (actor)
- Charles Chaplin (actor/director)
- Norma Shearer (actress)
- Irving Thalberg (head of production at MGM)
- Harold Lloyd (actor)
- Robert Z. Leonard (director)
Seated in foreground are: Harry Crocker (actor), left, and William Haines (actor.)
The “A” list indeed.
My great aunt was supposedly a good friend of Davies. She told me they used to go gambling together in Las Vegas. She said one time she lost all her cash while on one of their Vegas runs. Her husband was so mad he refused to pay her way back to LA. Don’t know if Marion picked up the tab.
Wow. It’s hard to rate the talent in this photo. Surely, it must start at the top with Chaplin, Thalberg, Harold Lloyd, Gloria Swanson, Marion Davies… Parsons and Mayer? Fill in your opinion…
I think any of us would be hard-pressed to keep up with anybody in this crowd!