Mae Murray: The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips

Introduction

Introduction “How are you going to introduce me?” the woman in the blonde wig and picture hat asked through her red bee-stung lips. She lifted her head and waited for him to speak. It was in the early 1960s, and Miles Kreuger had collected the former star from the ramshackle Royalton Hotel on Forty-Fourth Street in Manhattan half an hour before. They were now seated around a microphone at the WBAI-FM radio station, where Kreuger was preparing to interview her live in five minutes. He had had difficult guests in the past, but this one was making him particularly nervous. Kreuger was accustomed to taping his interviews, rather than chatting with his guests live over the airwaves. This subject, however, had kept postponing the interview, and he now had no choice but to put her on live. Kreuger had been so distracted by pinning her down to an interview that he had given little thought to how he would introduce his subject. “I’m going to say you were in the Follies of 1908 and . . .” She stopped him midsentence as he scribbled notes. “Oh, honey, don’t mention the Follies,” she said in a childlike tone. “That was so long ago.” “Well, then I’ll say you made your film debut after appearing in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1915.” “Why don’t you just take out any mention of the Follies altogether,” she suggested. “Now, what does it say?” “OK, I’ll start by saying you were a star in silent pictures and . . .” “Oh, honey,” she interrupted. “Please don’t refer to me as a silent picture star. I made thirteen talkies.” 2 Mae Murray “She appeared with John Gilbert in The Merry Widow,” Kreuger suggested. The former star lifted her head higher and, through pursed lips, voiced her objection. With outstretched hand, as if she was pointing to a marquee, she said, “Oh, honey, you should say, ‘Mae Murray in The Merry Widow with John Gilbert.’ I was the star of the picture; he was my leading man. Why don’t you say this: the merry widow of the silent screen.” And so it was. A compromise was reached only seconds before going on the air. When I set out to document the life story of Mae Murray, I was met with raised eyebrows and a number of interesting reactions. Several questioned how a true accounting of her life could be written if no one had uncovered her birth certificate to find out exactly when and where she was born. Such a book would not be complete without input from her son, who had remained silent since the battle for his custody in the early 1940s. Silent film historian Kevin Brownlow, long fascinated by the star, said this about tackling Mae: “I will be most interested to know what sort of character you make of her.” Perhaps the most ominous warning came from Duke Dukesherer, who chronicled the history of Playa del Rey, where Mae built her castle on the beach when she was living the life of a princess. He said simply, “Be careful; she can absolutely entrance you, even from the grave.” Almost half a century after her death, Mae Murray has the ability, as she did almost a century ago, to spark interest and wonder in those who encounter her in her surviving films. Her image is used today on greeting cards and in books to epitomize the reckless Jazz Age. To get an idea of how a movie star should appear and behave in the silent era, look no further than Mae Murray. Like other extravagant Hollywood movie actresses of the 1920s (Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Norma Talmadge, and Pola Negri, for example), Mae was intoxicated on money, power, and fame. From the height of her fame in the 1920s, when she was earning $7,500 a week (almost $92,000 in 2010 dollars), to her pitiful existence in the 1960s, Mae, while only five feet, three inches tall, was hard to miss. She developed an image and stuck with it. With her Introduction 3 famous Cupid’s bow lips, shadowed eyelids, and tousled blonde mane, no one could look past her without first noticing her exaggerated appearance. Who could wrap themselves so luxuriously in ermine or parade around in expensive beaded gowns like Mae? Who could affect such a pose while cameras rolled? The pose that Mae perfected constantly...