Before Mae West came along in the early sound era, sex symbol Mae Murray sashayed onto the silent screen in the late 1910s. Starting as a talented dancer, the beauty and the sensuality she projected to audiences drew the attention of dancer Vernon Castle, with whom she first appeared and later, Florenz Ziegfeld, who featured her in his legendary Ziegfeld Follies.
Mae Murray was born Marie Adrienne Koenig on May 10, 1885, in New York City, and not the city of Portsmouth, Virginia as she often stated. She died in Los Angeles on March 23, 1965.
Mae Murray, early in her career, came under the tutelage of director Robert Z. Leonard, whom she eventually married. Third husband Leonard carefully crafted the sensuous persona she projected. It has been written that the close-up photographed through a layer of gauze was created specifically for Mae Murray by Robert Z. Leonard. That same technique was later used by French Impressionist directors like Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac and Marcel L’Herbier.
“Princess Virtue,” “A Mormon Maid,” “The Delicious Little Devil,” “Mademoiselle Midnight,” and “Circe the Enchantress” are but a few of the Leonard films that starred Mae Murray in which she was able to showcase her many charms, and for which theatre goers had an eager appetite. Eventually Murray and Leonard divorced.
During the silent film era, some publicity-seeking stars, notably Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson, opted to marry European royalty, and thus gain a title. Not to be outdone, in 1926, Mae Murray married one of the questionable Mdivanis of Georgia – the country of Georgia that is, not the U.S. state.
Regrettably, Prince David Mdivani of Georgia became the manager of his Princess, thus signaling the beginning of the end of her career. He persuaded her to leave MGM Studios, thus offending the powerful Louis B. Mayer, who had her blacklisted. Mdivani also managed to squander the millions of dollars Mae had earned through her successful starring roles. An attempt at transitioning to sound roles with her 1930 remake of “Peacock Alley” proved futile.
Mae Murray did not go down in defeat, however. Before this dramatic fall from grace, she had been cast in the leading role of Erich von Stroheim’s 1925 film, “The Merry Widow.” The film turned out to be the jewel in her crown. Yet it was no longer 1925, it was now 1930 and sound was here to stay! Mae Murray had lost favor with the Hollywood moguls, with the public at large, and thus began Mae’s retreat into her own world of make-believe.
‘The Merry Widow’, directed by Erich Von Stroheim for MGM.
Mae Murray’s penchant for living in a fairytale world only grew worse with age, and she eventually morphed into a Norma Desmond-like character. Many believe the inspiration for Billy Wilder’s famous 1950 film “Sunset Boulevard” was Mae Murray’s overly extravagant sense of self-worth and her steadfast refusal to accept that she was no longer a star.
The 1959 biography of Mae Murray called “The Self Enchanted,” written by Jane Ardmore, is the source for many of the photographs featured here. Unfortunately, a lot of the material Miss Ardmore cites was provided by Mae Murray. There is no mention of her childhood growing up in New York City, the daughter of an alcoholic father. Additionally, the book simply leaves blank a 20-year period from the 1930s through 1959, when the book was released. A much better source of information is from her second biographer, Michael Ankerich, who authored “Mae Murray: the Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips.”
I urge you to search out on YouTube the 1950 video “Mae Murray Speaks on Heart Throbs of Yesterday” as well as one of the many Mae Murray films that are posted. If you can find a copy of “The Merry Widow,” it is a must-see film. Currently, TGZ Classic Movies has this film posted on YouTube. There is also a 3-part radio interview with Mae Murray from 1960, which is worth listening to. I am listing a Wikipedia link to a February 24, 1964 Ottowa Citizen newspaper article, which reported that the former star was found wandering in a state of confusion in St. Louis, Missouri, mistakenly believing she was on her way to New York.
Yes, Mae Murray had hit rock bottom, wandering hither and yon in a state of delusion.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YrMyAAAAIBAJ&pg=990,1605441
The dancing, frolicking sex symbol who danced with Vernon Castle, starred in the Ziegfeld Follies, went on to be a major silent screen idol, Mae Murray…who had all the right curves in all the right places…the girl with the bee-stung lips…Once at the top of the world, her millions had been squandered, and Mae Murray died in obscurity.
