Celebrity Grave: Harry Chandler - L.A. Times Publisher

Harry Chandler (May 17, 1864 – September 23, 1944) was an American newspaper publisher and investor who became owner of the largest real estate empire in the U.S.

Biography

Born in Landaff, New Hampshire, Chandler attended Dartmouth College. On a dare, he jumped into a vat of starch that had frozen over during winter, which led to severe pneumonia. He withdrew from Dartmouth and moved to Los Angeles for his health.

In Los Angeles, while working in the fruit fields, he started a small delivery company that soon became responsible for also delivering many of the city’s morning newspapers, which put him in contact with Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis. Otis liked this entrepreneurial young man and hired him as the Times’ general manager. Harry’s first wife had died in childbirth and he went on to marry Otis’s daughter, Marian Otis. Upon Otis’s death in 1917, Harry took over the reins as publisher of the Times, transforming it into the leading newspaper in the West and at times the most successful: for three straight years in the 1920s, under his leadership, the Times led all other American newspapers in advertising space and amount of classified ads.

Much of his boundless energy and dreams were however directed to transforming Los Angeles. As a community builder and large-scale real estate speculator, he became arguably the leading citizen of Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century. Chandler was directly involved with helping to found the following: the Los Angeles Coliseum (and bringing the 1932 Summer Olympics to L.A.), the Biltmore Hotel, the Douglas Aircraft Company, the Hollywood Bowl, The Ambassador Hotel, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the Auto Club of Southern California, KHJ radio station, Trans World Airlines, the San Pedro Harbor, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the California Club, The Pacific Electric Cars, the Los Angeles Art Association, the Santa Anita Park racetrack, the Los Angeles Steamship Company, the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, and the restoration of downtown’s Olvera Street and Chinatown.

As a real estate investor, he was a partner in syndicates that owned and developed much of the San Fernando Valley, as well as the Hollywood Hills (Hollywoodland), where he borrowed the idea for an electric sign from H J Whitley, the Father of Hollywood. Whitley had the first electric sign in Hollywood that read "Whitley Heights." The Hollywoodland sign was used to promote the development. Chandler's other real estate projects included Mulholland Drive, much of Dana Point, the Tejon Ranch (281,000 acres (1,140 km²) in Southern California), the Vermejo Park Ranch (340,000 acres (1,400 km²) in New Mexico), and the C and M ranch (832,000 acres (3,370 km²) in northern Baja, Mexico). At one point these investments made him the largest private landowner in the U.S., while at the same time, he was an officer or director in thirty-five California corporations, including oil, shipping, and banking.

Harry Chandler was a notable eugenicist during his time as President of the Los Angeles Times, and was a member of the Human Betterment Foundation, an organization headed by Ezra Gosney.[1]

He and Marian had eight children;, his oldest son, Norman, followed him as publisher of the Times.

Harry Chandler died on September 23, 1944 from a heart attack. He and Marian are buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Santa Monica Boulevard. Harrison Gray Otis's memorial is nearby.

Chandler Boulevard, a major street in the San Fernando Valley, is named for Harry Chandler.

City Politics

Chandler used the influence of his newspaper in efforts to sway political decisions, with mixed success. In 1949, Chandler attempted to use his influence with the Los Angeles Police Department to ensure that Thad Brown was named the next chief of police. His efforts were foiled, however, when a commissioner thought to be under Chandler's control died shortly before the vote. Instead, William Parker was selected.[2]

Sources

1.^ Gosney, E.S. (1929). Twenty-eight Years of Sterilization in California. Pasadena, California: The Human Betterment Foundation. p. 38.
2.^ Buntin, John (2009). L.A. Noir. New York: Harmony Books. pp. 419. ISBN 978-0-307-35207-1.

Further reading

The Powers That Be, David Halberstam, Dell Books, 1986
Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L.A. Times Dynasty, Dennis McDougal, Perseus Publishing, 2001
The Ancestry of Harry Chandler by Gwendolyn Garland Babcock

Celebrity Grave: Marion Davies - Film Actress

Marion Davies (January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career.

Hearst and Davies lived as a couple for decades but were never married, as Hearst's wife refused to give him a divorce. At one point, he reportedly came close to marrying Davies, but decided his wife's settlement demands were too high. Hearst was extremely jealous and possessive of her, even though he was married throughout their relationship. Davies was aboard the Hearst yacht when film producer Thomas Ince took ill, and died.

An "urban legend" having to do with a rumored relationship with Chaplin has endured since 1924 surrounding Hearst; Chaplin (among other actresses and actors) and Davies were on board. Despite the lack of evidence to support them, rumors have circulated since that time that Hearst mistook Ince for Chaplin and shot him in a jealous rage. The rumors were dramatised in the play The Cat's Meow, which was later made into Peter Bogdanovich's 2001 film of the same name starring Edward Herrmann as Hearst, Kirsten Dunst as Davies, Eddie Izzard as Chaplin, Joanna Lumley as Eleanor Glyn, Jennifer Tilly as gossip columnist Louella Parsons, and Cary Elwes as Ince. Patty Hearst co-authored a novel with Cordelia Frances Biddle titled Murder at San Simeon (Scribner, 1996), based upon the death of Ince.

The factual record shows that Thomas Ince suffered an attack of acute indigestion while aboard the yacht and was escorted off the boat in San Diego by another of the guests, Dr. Daniel Carson Goodman. Ince was put on a train bound for Los Angeles, but was removed from the train at Del Mar when his condition worsened. He was given medical attention by Dr. T. A. Parker and a nurse, Jesse Howard. Ince told them that he had drunk liquor aboard Hearst's yacht. Ince was taken to his Hollywood home where he died the following day of a heart condition.

By the late-1930s, Hearst was suffering financial reversals. After selling St Donat's, Davies bailed him out by writing out a check for $1 million to him. Hearst died on 14 August 1951.

The California State Parks staff at Hearst Castle now report at the time of his death, 51% of his fortune had been willed to Davies.

Ten weeks after Hearst's death, Davies married Horace Brown on October 31, 1951 in Las Vegas. It was not a happy marriage; he allegedly encouraged her drinking. Davies filed for divorce twice, but neither was finalized.

In her last years, Davies was involved with charity work: in 1952 she donated $1.9 million to establish a children's clinic at UCLA, which still bears her name. She also fought childhood diseases through the Marion Davies Foundation. Part of the Medical Center at UCLA is named the Marion Davies Clinic.

She suffered a minor stroke in 1956, and was later diagnosed with cancer of the jaw. She had an operation which appeared to be successful; she soon after fell and broke her leg, however. The last time Davies was seen by the American public was on January 10, 1960 on an NBC television special called Hedda Hopper's Hollywood.

Davies died of cancer on September 22, 1961 in Hollywood, California. Her funeral at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Hollywood (donations to the church were from Hollywood celebrities such as Louis B. Mayer and Bing Crosby) was attended by many Hollywood celebrities, including Mary Pickford and Mrs. Clark Gable (Kay Spreckels), as well as President Herbert Hoover. She is buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood. She left an estate estimated at more than $30 million.

After the death of Davies' niece, Patricia Lake (née Van Cleeve), Lake's family announced that she was in fact the birthdaughter of Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst. Prior to the announcement, it had been said that Lake was the daughter of Rosemary Davies (Marion's sister) and her first husband, George Van Cleeve.