Tycoon Davies

A onetime Hollywood queen and longtime friend and helpmate of Newspaper Tycoon William Randolph Hearst last week talked about her "current consuming interest": real estate. Said Marion Davies, now fiftyish: "Land is the most important thing in the world because it's God-given, and should be developed."

Her most recent action proving her words is the purchase of Palm Springs' $2,000,000 Desert Inn (TIME, July 25). She believes that "Palm Springs is growing like Florida grew, is ripe for ... development," expects to build "a miniature Rockefeller Center" around the inn that will include small department stores, a theater, possibly a nightclub.

Financial Advice. A liking for revenue-producing land is nothing new with Marion (says she of jewelry: "All you do is pay insurance"). She remembers her first purchase: around 1936, "I was walking down Park Avenue with Arthur Brisbane [onetime Hearst editor and partner-in-real-estate with his chief], and he pointed to a big piece of land and said, 'Marion, you should buy that; it will bring you $500,000 a year.' " The advice prompted Marion to start buying real estate, with funds from her Cosmopolitan Productions, the company that Hearst had set up to make her films.

Her reasons for buying were not always dictated by potential profits. "I went on a house-buying spree one day, bought about eight houses in one day. I don't know why I did it; I didn't like most of them." But she liked the comparatively small, 27-room house in Beverly Hills that she now lives in. Says she: "It's quiet and cool, and 'W.R.' liked this house. It reminded him in a small way of San Simeon."

Riding the Boom. Soon after Hearst died (TIME, Aug. 20, 1951), Marion took notice of the postwar building boom, decided that the time had come to develop her holdings. She hired the law firm of Bautzer, Grant, Youngman & Silbert, thereby got the services of Hollywood Lawyer-Bachelor-About-Town Gregson Bautzer and Manhattan Lawyer Arnold Grant. "I do what they tell me," says Marion. "Greg has a great mind for real estate. He's smarter than I am."

Shrewdly advised by Grant and Bautzer, she tore down some old brownstones at 57th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan that were bringing her $8,000 a year, got the Tishman Realty & Construction Co. to put up and lease the 22-story, aluminum-sheathed Davies Building. It pays her about $120,000 a year. Down came a block of flats on her property at 55th Street and Madison Avenue, and now abuilding is the 17-story Douras Building, named for her father, onetime Manhattan Judge Barney Douras, which will bring her about $50,000 a year. By improving property she owns on 57th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, she added still more to her revenues, bought control of Fifth Avenue's Squibb Building. Still to come are improvement of two pieces of property in Los Angeles near the "Miracle Mile" and development of residential acreage in Bel Air, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.

Marion appreciates the talents of her lawyers, whose guidance has helped her earn an estimated annual net income of $400,000 a year from real estate. But they also respect her business instincts. Says Bautzer: "She has a good sense of smell about a piece of land.''

Lawyer Grant estimated last week that "she could liquidate for spot cash right now for $12 million or $13 million, I suppose. If these holdings were mine, I wouldn't sell for $20 million."

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