Introduction
We had the pleasure of sitting down recently with acclaimed Old Hollywood biographer Lara Gabrielle (Captain of Her Soul: The Life of Marion Davies) for a brief Q&A session to discuss movies, writing, as well as her experiences related to these topics.
Interview
Benjamin McVay:
What is it about Marion Davies that attracted you to her enough to write a biography on her?
Lara Gabrielle:
For many decades, Marion Davies’s own voice has been lost to history. She has often been seen as an appendage to William Randolph Hearst, or associated with the untalented opera singer Susan Alexander in Citizen Kane (1941) as if she had no mind, will, or identity of her own. We’re in an era now where women are finally valued for their stories, and the more I learned about Marion, the more I realized how much she needed her agency given back to her. She was a fiercely independent woman, who took charge of her life and career. She negotiated her own contracts, and established herself as a comedienne, completely on her own. Despite a sometimes debilitating stutter, she dove into the world of talking pictures, becoming one of only a few big stars of the 1920s to survive the transition to sound. She even did radio. This is a side of Marion that many people haven’t been aware of. She was, as my title says, the “captain of her soul.”
Benjamin McVay:
Describe Marion Davies in ten words or less.
Lara Gabrielle:
Generous, loving, talented, intelligent, literary (she loved books and read voraciously), vivacious, funny, witty, empathic, and humble.
Benjamin McVay:
How long did it take you to write and research your Marion Davies biography “Captain of Her Soul”? How did the process evolve from the inception of the idea of the book to the finished product?
Lara Gabrielle:
I started my research in late 2013, and the book was published in late 2022. Nine years of research, about three of which were spent solely researching. I began the writing process in 2016. When I started, I had no idea what this would become. I knew I wanted to do something larger than a blog post–whether it would be a coffee table book, an essay, or a full-length biography, I really had no idea. As I progressed, it quickly became clear that this would need to be a full-length biography. There was so much to say, and she’s been so wronged by history. She needed all the attention I could give her.
As a subject, Marion has been an absolute joy. She was a kind, genuine person who loved children and animals, and she was adored by all around her. Not a single person declined to talk to me. But Marion had complexities, and personal demons that haunted her throughout her life. I came away with a richly three-dimensional human being with a truly good soul. Biographers have to live with their subjects 24/7, and it was a real pleasure to “have her around.”
Benjamin McVay:
If you could attend a dinner party with 5 celebrities from the past who would they be and why?
Lara Gabrielle:
Well, aside from Marion, whose brain I’d like to pick for stories that I couldn’t get, I would probably say: Judy Holliday, Mary Astor, Josephine Baker, Carole Lombard, and Myrna Loy. All of those stars were complex women who had very interesting offscreen lives.
Benjamin McVay:
If you could travel back in time and live for 1 year what year would you choose and why?
Lara Gabrielle:
This is a hard question. Every year in history has its problems, and people tend to romanticize the past. I can’t really think of any year that I would desperately want to live in. Maybe somewhere in that brief period after the end of World War I—1921 or 1922? But there’s really no good answer.
Benjamin McVay:
What are your 5 favorite movies?
Lara Gabrielle:
I can tell you movies that I think are close to perfect. All About Eve (1950) has one of the greatest scripts ever written. Elevator to the Gallows (1958) has the perfect setup—and the perfect unraveling. It Happened One Night (1934) is devastatingly charming and deserved every Oscar it won. Personally, I adore Ball of Fire (1941) and to bring it back to Marion, Show People (1928) is a masterpiece of the silent era.
Benjamin McVay:
Who are your 5 favorite movie stars of the silent era?
Lara Gabrielle:
Obviously Marion, but also Clara Bow, Norma Shearer, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks.
Benjamin McVay:
What appeals to you about Old Hollywood?
Lara Gabrielle:
It was a time of great risk-taking, and after the Code came in, people had to use their creativity in getting around the Code to make the movies they want to make. Today, many producers are so risk-averse that the creativity of that era has been stunted. People think they have the formula for what works, and they don’t have the courage to stray from it and risk losing money. It’s really sad. But in the days of old Hollywood, they took bold chances on people and material.
It was also an era where stars were mythical and elusive. I heard an anecdote recently about a 95-year-old woman in Delaware, who still remembers the moment she saw Jean Harlow step off a train in her hometown when she was 6. They were demigods. Much of this had to do with the studio system—studios had a stake in building specific stars so that the public would go see “a Katharine Hepburn movie” or “a Clark Gable movie.”
The studio system was far from perfect, but one of its distinctive aspects was the building of stars who seemed somehow superhuman. There really aren’t any seemingly superhuman stars today the way there were in the 1930s. You can interact with everyone on Twitter. I could also go into the fact that perhaps tastes have changed—but that’s a much larger discussion!
Benjamin McVay:
You indicate in your website bio that you have “spoken at film festivals and retrospectives worldwide.” Based on this statement, is there a specific experience that was especially memorable to you at a film festival or retrospective?
Lara Gabrielle:
At a Marion Davies retrospective at the UCLA Film and TV Archive back in January, an elderly man approached me to say that his father knew Marion Davies. I asked what his father’s name was, and the man said “Carl Roup.”
Carl Roup is in my book. He was a newspaper boy outside of MGM, and Marion handpicked him to be one of the children in The Red Mill (1927). Later, she discovered that he dreamed of going to the Pacific Military Academy, and paid for all four years of his education. He graduated, went into the military, then later returned to the film industry as an assistant director/production manager, working on the sets of The Patty Duke Show and Trapper John, M.D., among others.
To meet Carl Roup’s son at a screening was very special. It’s a reminder of how Marion Davies’s legacy lives on, 62 years after her death.
Click Here to order a copy of Marion Davies: Captain of Her Soul.
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