At Ciro’s, probably early 1950s, from Left: Horace Brown and his wife, Marion Davies; Davies’ illegitimate daughter with William Randolph Hearst, Patricia Van Cleve; and Van Cleve’s husband Arthur Lake.
From the Los Angeles Times, Oct. 31, 1993:
What was for decades one of Hollywood’s juiciest rumors–the kind of scoop Walter Winchell and Hedda Hopper whispered about but never dared dish–unceremoniously surfaced this month in a newspaper death notice three paragraphs long, Page 14, Column 6.
Patricia Van Cleve Lake, “the only daughter of famed movie star Marion Davies and famed (publisher) William Randolph Hearst,” was dead.
Hollywood of the 1920s once buzzed with rumors that a child had been born of the scandalous affair so publicly conducted by Hearst and Davies–the eccentric newspaper monarch and his actress mistress. But the little blond girl who lived in the margins of the publishing dynasty was always introduced as “the niece of Miss Marion Davies.”
Patricia grew up mingling with the likes of Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson and Jean Harlow at the parties Davies threw inside Hearst’s hilltop castle at San Simeon. If anyone noticed the striking resemblance the young girl bore to Hearst, they did not mention it aloud.
She carried the secret around for more than 60 years, even after the deaths of Hearst in 1951 and Davies a decade later. But 10 hours before she died from complications of lung cancer in a desert hospital on Oct. 3, Patricia Van Cleve Lake told her son she wanted the world to know who she really was.
August 8, 2014 at 1:44 am
Patrica looks a lot like Hearst.
April 10, 2015 at 4:18 am
Yep…the same horse face like her dad….lol…….not attractive at all…..maybe the way she was concieved……..out of wedlock….made her look that way….yikes!!!!.
October 7, 2019 at 4:28 pm
how stupid to say.
December 12, 2019 at 11:38 am
what do you mean, she’s stunningly beautiful
February 24, 2021 at 11:20 pm
She is/was surely a nice lady. But “stunningly beautiful”? Cut it out!
January 30, 2020 at 7:29 am
Wow ..what a nasty mind you have ..wonder what you look like.
December 8, 2020 at 7:22 pm
After 50 years, I recently discovered that my twin and I were born from an affair. No one has ever described us as ugly. Words hurt, and the circumstances of Patricia Lake’s birth are not her fault. You can blame her parents for their selfish behavior, but your words are irresponsible.
November 22, 2023 at 6:07 pm
Words cn’t hurt if you don’t listen to them, and realize what a worthless person is who states them.
February 24, 2021 at 11:18 pm
Yes, she bears the mark of evil, here birth not sanctioned by the Inquisition.
March 5, 2021 at 3:25 pm
You are a mean man to say something like that
You should respect the dead and her family
December 2, 2023 at 4:31 pm
What a mean-spirited comment.
Makes me wonder what YOU look like.
February 9, 2016 at 8:38 am
Marion and WR lived together over 30years
And loved Patricia dearly
Shame on you
May 16, 2016 at 2:57 pm
Toni,
Your remark was crude! I agree with T, shame on you!
August 31, 2017 at 12:34 am
I’m simply stunned they named her Patricia! After all it’s ALSO the name of his legitimate daughter (the infamous Patty Heart!). Perhaps WRH thought that NOBODY would guess she was their love-child if she bore that name?? Weird! I agree she looks like WRH and bears NONE of that “rosebud” pout her mother was adored for. ( Actually, my sister just told me that “rosebud” did NOT refer to her lips, but was a secret pet name for a very private part of Marion’s anatomy!) -see movie Citizen Kane where the (stolen) term of endearment was used for a child’s sled by Orsen Welles and was yet another JAB at WRH. Hollywood still knows no limits!
December 7, 2017 at 11:47 am
Patty Hearst was William’s grand-daughter, not his daughter.
December 12, 2019 at 11:41 am
Welles backed way off on the innuendo of Kane referring to Hearst and Davies to the point that he wrote a forward to Davies’ posthumously published autobiography.
December 30, 2017 at 7:48 pm
Your “sister just told” you what rosebud means…? I see….well who is your sister? The Hollywood yenta?
June 26, 2018 at 5:18 pm
I assume rosebud is vaginas’ ringing Bell during porganic release ?
August 5, 2019 at 2:46 am
yall are stupid
December 12, 2019 at 11:35 am
Patricia’s facial similarity to WR Hearst just leaps out at you.
December 30, 2019 at 10:06 am
My friend grew up from age 16 til she moved at 20 in that mansion it was her left to my friends father Gates Brown by his father. I stayed in it in the 60s it had three pools cascading down the front you would pass as you went up the long steep driveway. It was in Beverly Hills. Marions picture hung in the long hall. Gates did some acting also in the 50s. Why nothing ever said about Gates i do not understand. He was his fathers and Marions son.
January 30, 2020 at 7:33 am
Are you on the right page?
July 26, 2020 at 4:32 pm
Marion davies wasn’t all that attractive she was a Drunken fulsy and hearst was a old guesser if l wa there.l would not.Date no 50 0r 80 year old man
February 24, 2021 at 11:21 pm
She is/was surely a nice lady. But “stunningly beautiful”? Cut it out!
December 2, 2023 at 4:36 pm
My God! Your spelling and grammar are so low class that you cannot be taken seriously.
November 5, 2020 at 1:15 pm
Are we sure the Tramp wasn’t the real father. I’m being 💯 serious & not some troll like the brainless idiot who suggested having a child out of wedlock was on par with sleeping with an alien. I’m sure most of the people who would end up here to begin with have heard the rumors. Hell maybe they’ve at least seen Drunk n’ History lol. But i can’t help but wonder. Not like DNA was known back then and Marion wasn’t about to divulge to WHR even if she knew it was true or at least possible. Or on the small chance she would, it’s not like WHR & Marion haven’t talen their share of secrets to grave. It was once said back then that for all the big stories WHR pumped out, he had twice as many skeletons in his closet. Hell, idk, maybe the timeline doesn’t even work out, but man would that be something if Marion & The Tramp really did consummate. If true, WHR prob sry he missed out Chuckie Chaplin on that yacht.
March 26, 2021 at 4:02 pm
You sound like a crazy ugly b*tch Toni
October 6, 2022 at 12:38 am
I just realized that Arthur slake was Dagwood in the Dagwood and Blondie movies. I’m sure all of Hearst’s children were cared for and about. He and his wife had five sons. He must have cared deeply for Marion and Patricia.
October 6, 2022 at 12:38 am
Sorry, bad typing. Arthur Lake!
January 25, 2023 at 7:03 am
Calling a woman that loved the same man all her life, is ridiculous. His wife would not grant him freedom from her, bitter woman. Its a love story, now your going to say she was with him only for money, but she was very rich on her own, and when he went broke, she lent him money to start over. And if they could have married the girl would have been legitimate. Stop being so darn cruel. Hope they all were happy!!
November 22, 2023 at 6:02 pm
Hearst and Davies’ love child was common knowledge in Hollywood’s inner circles, just like the child Loretta Young had with Clark Gable. Needless to say, no one mentioned it, for fear of Hearst’s retaliation. People do not realize the power Hearst wielded in his peak years of 1920 – 1950. He could make or break careers, and everyone knew it.