After the disastrous financial losses of the 1930s, the Hearst Company returned to profitability during the Second World War, when advertising revenues skyrocketed. Hearst was born in San Francisco to George Hearst, a millionaire mining engineer, owner of gold and other mines through his corporation, and his much younger wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst, from a small town in Missouri. All of Hearst's sons went on to work in media, and William Randolph, Jr. became a Pulitzer Prize winner. When Hearst died, the castle was purchased by Antonin Besse II and donated to Atlantic College, an international boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn in 1962, which still uses it. [64] The grant encompassed present-day Jolon and land to the west. When Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press, Hearst retorted: "Because Americans believe in democracy, and are averse to dictatorship. As Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted in their 1990 book Unreliable Sources, Hearst "routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events". While World War II restored circulation and advertising revenues, his great days were over. Not especially popular with either readers or editors when it was first published, in the 21st century, it is considered a classic, a belief once held only by Hearst himself. Citizen Kane has twice been ranked No. William Randolph Hearst Sr. (/hrst/;[2] April 29, 1863 August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. The dead childs birth certificate was altered and the baby, named Patricia, became the daughter of Rose and George Van Cleve. What was for decades one of Hollywoods juiciest rumorsthe kind of scoop Walter Winchell and Hedda Hopper whispered about but never dared dishunceremoniously surfaced this month in a newspaper death notice three paragraphs long, Page 14, Column 6. Hearst subsequently slipped into coma and passed away on August 14, 1951. Before leaving, John informed Violet he had to leave. He made a major effort to win the 1904 Democratic nomination for president, losing to conservative Alton B. [5] His Hearst Castle, constructed on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, has been preserved as a State Historical Monument and is designated as a National Historic Landmark. While there, he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and the Lampoon before being expelled. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendos. After his flameout in politics, Hearst returned full-time to his publishing business. It is unlikely that the newspapers ever paid their own way; mining, ranching and forestry provided whatever dividends the Hearst Corporation paid out. He furnished the mansion with art, antiques, and entire historic rooms purchased and brought from great houses in Europe. His sponsorship was conditional on the trip starting at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey. His antics had ranged from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).[8]. In 1937, Patricia Van Cleve married Arthur Lake under the watchful eyes of her "aunt" Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst. Within a few years, his paper dominated the San Francisco market. Hearst and Davies spent much of their time entertaining, and held a number of lavish parties attended by guests including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Winston Churchill, and a young John F. Kennedy. She told him that she was the illegitimate child of Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst. The couple had five sons: George Randolph Hearst, born on April 23, 1904; William Randolph Hearst Jr., born on January 27, 1908; John Randolph Hearst, born September 26, 1909; and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst and David Whitmire (n Elbert Willson) Hearst, born on December 2, 1915. William Randolph Hearst's Death. During this time, his editorials became more strident and vitriolic, and he seemed out of touch. Hearst's publication reached a peak circulation of 20 million readers a day in the mid-1930s. His friend Joseph P. Kennedy offered to buy the magazines, but Hearst jealously guarded his empire and refused. His collections were sold off in a series of auctions and private sales in 193839. [46] Hearst's papers were his weapon. Patricia Lake, long introduced as Davies niece, asks on death bed that record be set straight. On April 27, 1903, Hearst married 21-year-old Millicent Willson, a showgirl, in New York City. What her birth certificate did not reflect, her death certificate would. [49] These had been supplied in 1933 by Welsh freelance journalist Gareth Jones,[50][51] and by the disillusioned American Communist Fred Beal. Beginning in 1919, Hearst began to build Hearst Castle, which he never completed, on the 250,000-acre (100,000-hectare; 1,000-square-kilometre) ranch he had acquired near San Simeon. He still refused to sell his beloved newspapers. The proposed bond sale failed to attract investors when Hearst's financial crisis became widely known. [61], Millicent separated from Hearst in the mid-1920s after tiring of his longtime affair with Davies, but the couple remained legally married until Hearst's death. He was interred in the Hearst family mausoleum at the Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California, which his parents had established. Angered colleagues and voters retaliated and he lost both New York races, ending his political career. His wife refused to divorce him to let him marry Davies, so he dove shamelessly into an extramarital affair. Even after the obscure obituary was published, naysayers called her a fraud. In 1947, Hearst left his San Simeon estate to seek medical care, which was unavailable in the remote location. [9] Giving his paper the motto "Monarch of the Dailies", Hearst acquired the most advanced equipment and the most prominent writers of the time, including Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London, and political cartoonist Homer Davenport. But 10 hours before she died from complications of lung cancer in a desert hospital on Oct. 3, Patricia Van Cleve Lake told her son she wanted the world to know who she really was. "[25] The Journal's journalistic activism in support of the Cuban rebels, rather, was centered around Hearst's political and business ambitions. San Simeon itself was mortgaged to Los Angeles Times owner Harry Chandler in 1933 for $600,000.[79]. Hearst "stole" cartoonist Richard F. Outcault along with all of Pulitzer's Sunday staff. Much of what happened afterward is a matter of debate. Although Hearst shared Smith's opposition to Prohibition, he swung his papers behind Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election. By 1880, the James Brown Cattle Company owned and operated Rancho Milpitas and neighboring Rancho Los Ojitos. Born in San Francisco, California, on April 29, 1863, to George Hearst and Phoebe Apperson Hearst, young William was taught in private schools and on tours of Europe. Tammany Hall exerted its utmost to defeat him. Her other daughter, Lydia Marie Hearst-Shaw, was born three years later, on September 19, 1984, in New Haven, Connecticut. This reporting stoked outrage and indignation against Spain among the paper's readers in New York. [citation needed], In 1865, Hearst bought all of Rancho Santa Rosa totaling 13,184 acres (5,335ha) except one section of 160 acres (0.6km2) that Estrada lived on. In 1918, Hearst started the film company Cosmopolitan Productions and signed a contract with Davies, putting her in a number of serious movie roles. [77][78] Hearst also sponsored Old Glory as well as the Hearst Transcontinental Prize. He poorly managed finances and was so deeply in debt during the Great Depression that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s. He was hired by the Hearst Newspapers in 1936 as a police and city hall reporter for The New York. He ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, and for Governor of New York in 1906. After watching John with Sara, Violet lured John away from the party to have sex. He was embarrassed in early 1939 when Time magazine published a feature which revealed he was at risk of defaulting on his mortgage for San Simeon and losing it to his creditor and publishing rival, Harry Chandler. The picture above is Arthur Lake and on the left is his wife, Patricia Van Cleve Lake (and an unidentified woman). [34] He also owned INS companion radio station WINS in New York; King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyrights of a number of popular comics characters; a film company, Cosmopolitan Productions; extensive New York City real estate; and thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, along with timber and mining interests inherited from his father. William Randolph Hearst dominated journalism for nearly a half century. Due to their efforts, hemp would remain illegal to grow in the US for almost a century, not being legalized until 2018.[83][84][85]. The US Army used a ranch house and guest lodge named The Hacienda as housing for the base commander, for visiting officers, and for the officers' club. The journey didn't last long. Hearst probably lost several million dollars in his first three years as publisher of the Journal (figures are impossible to verify), but the paper began turning a profit after it ended its fight with the World. He is the godfather to Violet Hayward, John Moore 's fiance. On her deathbed, Patricia Van Cleve Lake- ten hours before her death in 1993, told her son, Arthur Lake, Jr., what had been only rumored for years. The Hearst paperslike most major chainshad supported the Republican Alf Landon that year. By the 1930s, Hearst controlled the largest media empire in the country - 28 newspapers, a movie studio, a . Indeed, the skeptics have a point. Contents 1 Character Overview 2 Biography 3 Memorable Quotes 4 Appearances 5 Notes 6 References Character Overview Hearst was particularly interested in the newly emerging technologies relating to aviation and had his first experience of flight in January 1910, in Los Angeles. Millicent built an independent life for herself in New York City as a leading philanthropist. Violet described how all her life it was as if the whole New York would whisper whenever she walked by. Violet assured her godfather, Hearst that John would be joining them for dinner. William Randolph Hearst has 161 books on Goodreads with 112 ratings. She lived with the Van Cleves but Hearst paid the bills, sending her to Catholic schools in New York and Boston. Gallery Photo by Kata Vermes. He also ventured into motion pictures with a newsreel and a film company. From that point, Hearst was reduced to being an employee, subject to the directives of an outside manager. By the mid-1920s he had a nationwide string of 28 newspapers, among them the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Washington Times, the Washington Herald, and his flagship, the San Francisco Examiner. Marion Davies was a former Ziegfeld girl who wanted to be an actress and William Randolph Hearst was a man who made things happen. In part to aid in his political ambitions, Hearst opened newspapers in other cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. Hearst's support for Franklin D. Roosevelt at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, via his allies William Gibbs McAdoo and John Nance Garner, can also be seen as part of his vendetta against Smith, who was a Roosevelt opponent at that convention. michael taylor attorney,