William Randolph Hearst
Categories: Newspapermen | 1863 births | 1951 deaths | Business leaders | Mass media owners | Socialites | Members of the U.S. House of Representatives | Newspaper publishers of the 20th century | Spanish-American War people | San Franciscans | Hearst family
William Randolph Hearst (April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper magnate, born in San Francisco, California.
William Randolph was the only child of George Hearst, a successful miner who became a multi-millionaire, and later U.S. Senator from California, and Phoebe Apperson Hearst, a former school teacher from Missouri. While his father was busy losing and re-gaining fortunes, young William toured Europe with his mother. He was enrolled in St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire at the age of 15.
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Business
William studied at Harvard University (1882–1885), but was expelled for sending faculty members chamber-pots with the recipient's picture adorning the inside bottom.
Searching for an occupation, in 1887 he took over management of a newspaper which his father had accepted as payment of a gambling debt, the San Francisco Examiner. Giving his paper a grand motto, "Monarch of the Dailies", he acquired the best equipment and the most talented writers of the time. A self-proclaimed populist, Hearst went on to publish exposes of municipal and financial corruption, often attacking companies in which his own family held an interest. Within a few years, his paper dominated the San Francisco market.
In 1895, with the financial support of his mother, Hearst bought the failing New York Morning Journal, hiring writers like Stephen Crane and Julian Hawthorne and entering into a head-to-head circulation war with his former mentor, Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the New York World, from whom he 'stole' Richard F. Outcault, the inventor of color comics. The New York Journal (later New York Journal-American) reduced its price to one cent and attained unprecedented levels of circulation through sensational and dishonest articles on subjects like crime and pseudoscience; the paper's bellicosity in foreign affairs was notorious — on the Cuban Insurrection, for example. Both Hearst and Pulitzer published images of Spanish troops placing Cubans into concentration camps where they suffered and died from disease and hunger. These images and stories were often fake or created to sell more newspapers. The term yellow journalism, which was derived from the name of "The Yellow Kid" comic strip in the Journal, was used to refer to the sensational style of newspaper articles that resulted from this competition.
In part to aid in his political ambitions, Hearst opened newspapers in other cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. By the mid-1920s he had a nation-wide string of 28 newspapers, among them the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Washington Times and Washington Herald. In 1924 he opened the New York Daily Mirror, a racy tabloid frankly imitating the New York Daily News. Among his other holdings were the magazines Cosmopolitan, and Harper's Bazaar; two news services, Universal News and International News Service; King Features Syndicate; 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.
Though he did serve two terms in the US Congress, Hearst's political ambitions were mostly frustrated. Conceding an end to his political hopes, from about 1917 he lived openly with the actress Marion Davies in California, while his wife and five sons remained in New York. Mrs. Hearst built a life for herself as a leading philanthropist, active in society, and creating in 1921 the Free Milk Fund for the poor. Beginning in 1919, Hearst built (and never completed) a spectacular castle on a 240,000 acre (970 km2) ranch at San Simeon, California, which he furnished with antiques and art-objects bought in Europe. He also bought another castle in St Donat's near Llantwit Major in South Wales. As with San Simeon, he spent a fortune renovating the castle, bringing electricity not only to the castle but to the surrounding area. The locals enjoyed having Hearst in residence at the castle; he paid his employees very well, and his arrivals always created a big stir in a community not used to American excesses.
He created an extensive armoury at St Donat's from pieces he collected from all over the world. Here he spent much of his time entertaining influential people. Unlike life in the U.S., Wales was a place where Marion Davies could appear openly as his partner. Reportedly Mrs. Hearst visited St Donat's once and never returned.
The Hearst news empire reached a circulation and revenue peak about 1928, but the economic collapse of the Great Depression and the vast over-extension of his empire cost him control of his holdings. It is unlikely that the newspapers ever paid their own way; mining, ranching and forestry provided whatever dividends the Hearst Corporation paid out. When the collapse came, all Hearst properties were hit hard, but none more so than the papers; adding to the burden were the Chief's now-reactionary politics, increasingly at odds with those of his readers. Refused the right to sell another round of bonds to unsuspecting investors, the shaky empire tottered. Unable to service its existing debts, Hearst Corporation faced a court-mandated reorganization in 1936. From this point, Hearst was just another (though exceedingly well-paid) employee, subject to the directives of an appointed manager. Newspapers and other properties were liquidated, the film company shut down; there was even a well-publicized sale of art and antiquities, which brought Hearst-purchased art to the nation's department stores. While World War II would restore circulation and advertising reveunes, his great days were over. Hearst died in 1951, aged eighty-eight, at Beverly Hills, California, and is buried at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California.
The Hearst Corporation continues to this day as a large, privately-held media conglomerate based in New York City.
Personal
Hearst was believed by many to have drummed-up the Spanish-American War of 1898 to encourage sales of his newspaper. His own political career suffered after the assassination of President William McKinley when a satirical poem by Ambrose Bierce he had published a few months earlier alluding to a possible McKinley assassination was unearthed.
In 1903, William married Millicent Veronica Willson (1882–1974), a beautiful 22-year-old chorus girl, in New York City. Nearly 20 years her senior, Hearst had been seeing her since she was 16. The couple had five sons: George Randolph Hearst (1904–1972), William Randolph Hearst Jr. (1908–1993), John Randolph Hearst (1910–1958), and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst (1915–2000) and David Whitmire Hearst (1915–1986). Though the couple stayed married until Hearst's death — they separated in 1926 — he was devoted to the popular movie actress and comedienne Marion Davies, (née Marion Cecilia Douras, 1897–1961), his mistress for more than thirty years.
A member of the United States House of Representatives (1903–1907), he failed in attempts to become mayor of New York City (1905 and 1909) and governor of New York (1906), being defeated for the governorship by Charles Evans Hughes. An opponent of the British Empire, Hearst opposed United States involvement in the First World War and attacked the formation of the League of Nations.
Hearst's reputation suffered in the 1930s as his political views hardened. The once-radical champion of the people seemed to some to be dangerously close to pro-Fascism. His newspapers carried paid-for columns by both Hitler and Mussolini, and Hearst was said to have entertained Mussolini's girl-friend Margherita Sarfatti during her tour of the US). But while he saw himself only as a staunch anti-Communist, Hearst was not the only non-German to find Nazism attractive. Eugene Schueller, the founder of French cosmetics giant L'Oréal, was also an open adherent during this period. Charles Lindbergh, car maker Henry Ford, and head of the Du Pont trust Irénée Du Pont, were also admirers of Hitler. While casually touring with Marion Davies, Hearst attended the Nuremberg rally of 1934, and struck a newsreel deal with Hitler.
He also, according to hemp-industry proponents, was instrumental in publicizing and orchestrating a 1937 oil-and-timber-industry-led media campaign [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] to discredit hemp (an inexpensive petroleum and paper substitute) and marijuana, which led within months to the drug and the plant being outlawed in the United States. Hearst himself reputedly profited due to his interests in the pulp-and-paper business.
The Hearst myth
A thinly-disguised version of Hearst's life is served up in Orson Welles' 1941 film Citizen Kane. (It should be noted that Welles and co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz put bits and pieces of the lives of other rich men of the time, among them Harold McCormick, Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes into Kane.) Hearst was aware of the film's production and used all his resources and influence in his attempt to prevent its release. While the film paints a dark portrait of Hearst, it was devastating to the reputation of Marion Davies, fictionalising her as a talentless drunk. Many years later, Orson Welles said his only regret about 'Kane' was the damage it had done to Davies. Fifty years on, HBO offered a fictionalized version of this event in its picture RKO 281. Welles and his studio, RKO, resisted the pressure, but Hearst and his Hollywood friends succeeded in getting the theater chains of the time to limit bookings of 'Kane' , resulting in poor box-office numbers and profoundly harming Welles's career. Now, fifty years after his death, Citizen Kane 's reputation seems secure, while Hearst's own image has largely been shaped by the film.
On November 19, 1924, silent film producer Thomas Harper Ince ("The Father of the Western") died of a heart attack while on a weekend yacht trip with Hearst, Davies, and other prominent Hollywood personalities. For years, rumours circulated that Hearst had shot Ince, and used his power to cover up the truth. A fictional 2001 film, The Cat's Meow is based on these rumours. General opinion seems to be that such a cover-up is highly unlikely.
As a newspaper publisher, Hearst promoted writers and cartoonists despite any apparent demand for them by his readers. The press critic A.J. Liebling reminds us how many Hearst stars would not be deemed employable elsewhere. One Hearst favorite, George Herriman, was the inventor of the dizzy comic strip Krazy Kat; not especially popular with either readers or editors, it is now considered by many to be a classic, a belief once held only by Hearst himself.
In 1974 Hearst's granddaughter, Patty Hearst, made front pages nationwide when she was kidnapped by a group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. She subsequently joined the organization and became involved in criminal activities that eventually led to her arrest and conviction for bank robbery. Thirty years on she has become a respectable family member, holding a seat on the Hearst Corp. board of directors and having been pardoned for her crimes by President Clinton on the last day of his term in 2001.
Notes on Sources
- Swanberg, W.A. Citizen Hearst. New York: Scribner & Sons, 1961.
- Nasaw, David. The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000.
- Hearst, William Randolph, Jr. and Jack Casserly. The Hearsts: Father and Son. Niwot, CO: Roberts-Rinehart, 1991.
- Lundberg, Ferdinand. Imperial Hearst. New York, Modern Library, 1937.
- Liebling, A.J. The Press. New York: Pantheon, 1981.
- St. Johns, Adela Rogers. The Honeycomb. Garden City: Doubleday, 1969.
See also
External links
- William Randolph Hearst biography
- San Simeon, or the Hearst Castle
- American Corporate Support for Nazis
- Holodomor (Ukrainian Famine) Exhibit At The United Nations
- William Randolph Hearst at the Internet Movie Database
de:William Randolph Hearst es:William Randolph Hearst fr:William Randolph Hearst he:ויליאם רנדולף הרסט it:William Randolph Hearst ja:ウィリアム・ランドルフ・ハースト sv:William Randolph Hearst