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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."

Early life and rise to fame

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 decades later, Mae herself received aid from that organization.

Slow career decline

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, who married in 1926, divorced; they had one child, Koran David Mdivani (February 1927-). She was previously married to William M. Schwenker Jr. (1908-1909), stockbroker and Olympic bobsled champion J. Jay O'Brien (1916-1917), and the movie director Robert Z. Leonard (1918-1925).

For a brief period of time, Murray wrote a weekly column for newspaper scion William Randolph Hearst.

Murray's only son, Koran David Mdivani, was raised by Sara Elizabeth "Bessie" Cunning of Averill Park, N.Y., who began taking care of him in 1936, when the child was recovering from a double mastoid 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, 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 be raised by Bessie Cunning, who adopted him in 1940 as Daniel Michael Cunning."Mae Murray Sues for Son's Custody: Asserts Up-State Family Refuses to Give Up Mdivani", The New York Times, 14 September 1939, p. 28; "Mae Murray Opens Fight for Her Son", The New York Times, 29 September 1939, p. 20; "Mae Murray Wins Case", The New York Times, 5 March 1940, p. 24.

Murray's son married, in 1950, Patricia Ann Maloney of Cohoes, New York."Prince's Son to Wed Phone Girl", The New York Times, 11 July 1950, p. 33; "Mae Murray's Son Weds", The New York Times, 8 October 1950, p. 72. By him, Murray has two granddaughters, Pamela and Cynthia, and a great-granddaughter, Elizabeth Mae Anastasia.

Retirement

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.

References

External links

• 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

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