The self-enchanted : Mae Murray : image of an era (1959)

cabarets, at hotels, at millionaires' homes. Harry Payne Whitney, George }. Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Astors and the Stotesburys all gave lavish parties. Society was show-businessminded. Cornelius Vanderbilt had a theatre built behind his house at Newport and had been known to transport a show in toto for private performances. The Four Hundred had the money to pamper their tastes, and the taste to live as they pleased. The Goulds still kept their butlers in satin knee breeches. Diamond Jim Brady gave extravagant parties; so did William Randolph Hearst. Tall, distinguished Mr. Hearst, with his deep-set eyes, hair parted in the center, was an excellent dancer with vitality and zest. Often he would come backstage to say he'd engaged a ballroom, and he'd send his car and secretary for Mae and Olive, for Ann Pennington, and Marion Davies who was working upstairs on the Roof. Hearst adored Marion. The girls wore evening dress every night, were called on at the parties to do their specialties, and were much admired. Mae found a rich sustaining vibrance in this world, she loved these peoples' individuality. She asked Hearst if he minded the awful things said about him (they said he was an exploiter of sensationalism), and he laughed. She asked him why he used only paper napkins — the most exquisite glass and china, caviar in great blocks of ice, the serviettes were especially made, but why of paper? Because he wanted only sterile things to touch his lips, he said, and laughed again. "You are a curious little girl.'' "How else would I ever know anything?" "I could use a dozen reporters with just that point of view." "Very well. If the theatre ever grows dull, I'll work for you." One day at an auction she bid against him for a small statue of Jesus, the Infant of Prague. She didn't realize it was a holy figure but she loved it. Mr. Hearst bid four hundred dollars, she bid four hundred and twenty-five. "How will you ever pay for it?" he asked. 44