{"product_id":"the-times-we-had-life-with-william-randolph-hearst","title":"The times we had: Life with William Randolph Hearst","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"He took a beautiful  warm-hearted girl and made her the best-known kept woman in America and the butt of an infinity of dirty jokes. and he did it out of love and the blindness of love\" So wrote Pauline Kael of William Randolph Hearst  one of the most extravagant men the world has ever seen  and Marion Davies  the charming  guileless comedienne with whom he fell in love. The wealthy publisher kept Marion as his mistress and idolized her for more than three decades. While his wife remained in the East  Marion reigned with him in the midst of incredible splendor at his estate in San Simeon. He launched her into an ill-fitting career of movie stardom  and before he was through she had made more than 45 films -- each of which received floods of publicity from his empire of newspapers. Here is the fabulous story  never told before  of Marions life at the top during Hollywoods heyday  told in her own words! Before she died  Davies made an extensive series of tape recordings  which were discovered a year before this book was published. She talked freely about the years she shared with Hearst  about her career  about the charismatic world of glittering and talented celebrities who populated their life  and about the lifestyle they created  which made them one of the most notorious couples of their time. With becoming modesty  she says: \"I was no actress.\" Through her commentary runs a mixture of gratitude and resentment toward Hearst  of awe and contempt  of warmth and frustration. There is arrogance  and there is love. She is refreshingly simple and direct. Her wit scathes. With countless photographs  never before published  recording the parties and people  the public and most private moments  and crowded with faces we instantly recognize  here is a love story  a Pygmalion story  the story of a woman exploited and fighting back by exploiting in turn  a fable of power  an idyll of Hollywood kings  bringing alive a unique time and place that will never be again.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44959859114037,"sku":"ByrdShop_0672521121","price":52.05,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780672521126.jpg?v=1770376639","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-times-we-had-life-with-william-randolph-hearst","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}