Mae Murray

About Mae Murray

Who is it?: Actress, Writer, Producer
Birth Day: May 10, 1885
Birth Place:  Portsmouth, Virginia, United States
Died On: March 23, 1965(1965-03-23) (aged 79)\nWoodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Birth Sign: Gemini
Resting place: Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery
Occupation: Actress, dancer, film producer, screenwriter
Years active: 1916–1931
Spouse(s): William M. Schwenker, Jr. (m. 1908; div. 1910) Jay O'Brien (m. 1916; div. 1918) Robert Z. Leonard (m. 1918; div. 1925) David Mdivani (m. 1926; div. 1934)
Children: 1

Mae Murray Net Worth

Mae Murray was born on May 10, 1885 in  Portsmouth, Virginia, United States, is Actress, Writer, Producer. Dubbed "The Girl with the Bee Stung Lips", silent-era screen star Mae Murray began her career on stage partnered with ballroom dancing extraordinaire Vernon Castle in the 1906 Broadway show "About Town." Born the daughter of émigrés, she began studying dance at a young age. Two years later she joined the "Ziegfeld Follies" chorus line and moved up to headliner status by 1915. She played the top clubs in Paris and in America in an act that accentuated her dancing prowess. Other smooth dance partners would follow, including Clifton Webb, Rudolph Valentino and John Gilbert. The strikingly exotic beauty with the frizzy blonde hair moved to films with To Have and to Hold (1916) starring Wallace Reid and quickly became a top star for MGM, pairing up with the legendary Valentino in two films. Many of her films, containing dance sequences designed especially for her, were written and produced by her third husband, Robert Z. Leonard. Her most acclaimed film was The Merry Widow (1925) opposite matinée idol Gilbert. Married and divorced four times, Mae's movie career faded with the advent of sound, her voice being not particularly suited to talkies. Another contributing factor to her downfall was her marriage to her last husband, Prince David Mdvani, when she let him take control over her business affairs and he ill-advisedly got her to quit MGM. They divorced and she lost her son in a nasty custody battle. She grew more eccentric over the years and was eventually forced to declare bankruptcy, living in abject poverty for the better part of her later life. She managed to co-write an autobiography in 1959 entitled "The Self-Enchanted" and ended her days in the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, CA. Although forgotten for the most part, in retrospect, Mae was a popular and vibrant lady in her heyday, becoming one of the few Ziegfeld star-dancers to succeed in transferring from the stage footlights to big-screen stardom.
Mae Murray is a member of Actress

💰 Net worth: Under Review

Some Mae Murray images

Biography/Timeline

1889

She was born Marie Adrienne Koenig in New York City, the second-oldest child of Joseph and Mary (née Miller) Koenig. Her maternal grandparents had emigrated from France while her paternal grandparents had emigrated from Germany. She had two brothers, william Robert (born November 1889) and Howard Joseph (born January 1884).

1896

The family eventually moved to an apartment in the Lower East Side. In May 1896, Joseph Koenig, Murray's father, died from acute gastritis due to his alcoholism. To support the family, Mary Koenig took a job as a housekeeper for Harry Payne Whitney.

1906

She first began acting on the Broadway stage in 1906 with Dancer Vernon Castle. In 1908, she joined the chorus line of the Ziegfeld Follies, moving up to headliner by 1915. Murray became a star of the club circuit in both the United States and Europe, performing with Clifton Webb, Rudolph Valentino, and John Gilbert as some of her many dance partners.

1916

In September 1908, in Hoboken, New Jersey, while she was appearing in the Follies of 1908, Murray married william M. Schwenker, Jr. (born 1885), the unemployed son of a brewery-supply dealer, who cut off his son's allowance upon news of the wedding; they divorced in 1910. On December 18, 1916, she married former Dancer and Future Olympic bobsled champion Jay O'Brien.

1918

After divorcing O'Brien in 1918, Murray wed movie Director Robert Z. Leonard on August 18, 1918; they divorced on May 26, 1925.

1920

In the early 1920s, Murray was painted by the well known Hollywood portrait Painter Theodore Lukits. This work titled Symphony in Jade and Gold (The Actress Mae Murray) (1922, Private Collection, Northern California) depicted Murray in the nude, gazing in a mirror. It was exhibited at the Pacific Asia Museum in 1999 and two other venues as part of the exhibition Theodore Lukits, An American Orientalist.

1925

Murray appeared in the title role in the Erich von Stroheim directed film The Merry Widow (1925), opposite John Gilbert. When silent films gave way to talkies, Murray made an insecure debut in the new medium in Peacock Alley (1930), a remake of her earlier 1921 version Peacock Alley. In 1931, she was cast with newcomer Irene Dunne, leading man Lowell Sherman, and with fellow silent screen star Norman Kerry in the talkie Bachelor Apartment. The film was critically panned at the time of release and Murray made only one more film, High Stakes (1931) also with Sherman.

1926

Murray married her fourth husband, David Mdivani, on June 27, 1926. They had one child, Koran David Mdivani (born 1927), before divorcing in 1933. Koran was later raised by Sara Elizabeth "Bess" Cunning of Averill Park, New York, who began taking care of him in 1936, when the child was recovering from a double mastoid operation (Cunning's brother Dr. David Cunning was the surgeon). When Murray attempted to regain custody of her son in 1939, Cunning and her other brothers, John, Ambrose, and Cortland, refused, according to the New York Times, at which time Murray and her former husband, Mdivani, entered a bitter custody dispute. It finally ended in 1940, with Murray being given legal custody of the child and the court ordering Mdivani to pay $400 a month maintenance. However, Koran Mdivani continued to live with Bess Cunning, who adopted him in 1940 under the name Daniel Michael Cunning. Reportedly, Mdivani had managed to siphon off most of Murray's money.

1927

Meanwhile, in 1927, Murray was sued by her then-masseuse, the famous Hollywood fitness guru Sylvia of Hollywood for the outstanding amount of $2,125 during a humiliating and detailed court case.

1940

In the 1940s, Murray appeared regularly at Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe, a nightclub which specialized in a "Gay '90s" atmosphere, often presenting stars of the past for nostalgic value. Her appearances collected mixed reviews: her dancing (in particular the Merry Widow Waltz) was well received, but Murray refused to acknowledge her age, wearing heavy layers of makeup and fitting her mature figure into short skirted costumes with plunging necklines. In 1946, she taught ballroom dancing to young teenagers at a dance studio in Los Angeles. It was located on Crenshaw Blvd. near 48th St.

1959

Murray's finances continued to collapse, and for most of her later life she lived in poverty. She was the subject of an authorized biography, The Self-Enchanted (1959), written by Jane Ardmore, that has often been incorrectly called Murray's autobiography.

1964

In February 1964, Murray was found disoriented in St. Louis, thinking that she had completed a bus trip to New York. Murray explained to a Salvation Army officer that she had become lost trying to find her hotel, which she had forgotten the name of. She also refused bus fare back to Los Angeles as she claimed to have a ticket for the remainder of the journey in her purse, "if she could find it."

1965

Many years later, Murray moved into the Motion Picture House in Woodland Hills, a retirement community for Hollywood professionals. She died there on March 23, 1965 at the age of 79. She is interred in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery, North Hollywood, California.