Charming Marion Davies

Last night, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) featured a biography of Marion Davies. In her lifetime, she was judged rather harshly, for her relationship with the arch-conservative William Randolph Hearst, for her drinking, for her ambition.

But it is clear, looking at movie clips, that she was really a gifted actress, a classic Broadway Showgirl, a generous person who deserved all the happiness she could gather. It's important to remember not to judge too quickly or harshly other people - something Orson Welles should have remembered before cementing history's harsh judgments of Marion Davies with his accusatory masterpiece, Citizen Kane: history will certainly judge Welles more harshly than Davies.