Hearst v. Brown

The tabloid Los Angeles Mirror and its morning sister the Times like nothing better than a free-swinging Hollywood brawl. Last week the papers got just what they wanted; across Page One the Mirror splashed the headline: BRAWL OVER MARION DAVIES. What was even better, they had a clean beat. The Times and Mirror were tipped off by none other than a friend of onetime Cinemactress Marion Davies herself. Rival Hearst-papers hushed up the story because one of the brawlers was the chain's publisher, William R. Hearst Jr.

Bill Hearst, 44, was on his way home from dinner in Hollywood when he stopped off to see his old friend Mike Romanoff at Mike's glittering Hollywood restaurant. He didn't find Mike, but he got an unexpected invitation. Horace Brown, 47, the ex-sea captain who married Marion Davies a year ago,* asked Hearst to stop by his table for a drink. Hearst, who has no love for Marion Davies (he refers to her only as "M.D."), said no. Then the trouble started.

As Mariner Brown told the story: "Well, very polite-like I said to Mr. Hearst why didn't he come be friendly and have a drink ... He just said he didn't want to have anything to do with my so-called wife. Well, I tell you, what else could I do but paste him?"

According to Hearst, things were slightly different: "It was only 10 o'clock and I was tired. On my way out, a waiter comes up and says Captain Brown wants me at his table ... I said no, I was going to bed. Then this guy, this Brown, follows me outside and starts yelling about treating his wife right and all this nonsense. I've known M.D. for a long time. I had enough of her when Dad was alive. I didn't want to sit at her table. After all, Mom is in town. Oh, it was murder."

Brown swung a haymaker. It missed and Hearst countered with a blow that flattened Brown. Complained Brown later: "All those people out there were holding me. One of them even pulled my ring off. I never saw it again . . . When they let go of me, I said 'Bill, you want to forget this whole thing and come in and have a drink?' He said 'Nope.' I said, 'Then you want to fight some more?' He said 'Nope,' and he drove off."

*After eight months she filed for divorce, but changed her mind. Admitted Brown: "I don't know why she took me back, because I'm a beast. I bought a monkey as a pet and the mon ey bit her. I pulled the phone out by the roots . . . pushed her in the swimming pool . . . turned the fire hose on her friends . . ."

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