- With me, it was 5% talent and 95% publicity.
- When asked by a reporter about the opulent library of books in her Riverside Drive residence in Manhattan, Davies reportedly said, "I'll r-read all these when I'm an old woman.".
- Silent pictures were right up my alley.
- I did a lot of pictures. I worked harder than I thought I did, but it was a very happy experience. The parties, the dinners, not much rest. But sleep wasn't important. It was one big merry-go-round.
- I didn't know Mr. Hearst then, but he always sat in the front row at the "Follies." [Davies was a featured player in Ziegfeld's 1916 "Follies."
- I really had a good time at MGM. I liked it there. I was very fond of Irving and of L.B. And we had no quarrels, much, except that once i a while I'd go up to the front office and say I thought i should be doing something big ... like washing elephants.
- Ziegfeld thought I looked like the "Spirit of Spring." I was supposed to walk down a staircase in a gorgeous costume of blue tulle with sparkles on it and a marabou hat and say, "I am the spirit of spring."
- [talking about her famous costume parties] We had one at the beach house. I was a character from Little Old New York (1923). Norma Shearer came in her Marie Antoinette costume even though it was supposed to be an All-American party.
- Once I was doing two pictures at the same time. On one set I worked from nine in the morning until six. Then at seven I'd go to work on the other set and work until four in the morning. I'd sleep in between. I did that for about six weeks. There were two different crews, because the crews wouldn't work that long. And two different casts. I could take it then; it didn't bother me at all.
- [about her talkie screen test] We looked at the test, and W.R. started to cry. He said, "My god, it's marvelous." So they got me right into production, immediately. In Marianne (1929) they asked me to do everything but stand on my head. I danced, I sang, I did Chevalier imitations in a French accent. I was dramatic and comic at the same time in my first talkie.
- When I was at MGM, I'd leave the beach house early and do my makeup in the automobile. I used very little, just the greasepaint, the powder, and the lipstick. The eyelashes were hard to do while the car was going.
- When I first went into motion pictures, I thought it was very drab and dull. It was nothing like the stage, so I was very unhappy doing pictures. I just kept thinking about the stage, the stage.
- I don't think Louis B. Mayer minded losing me so much. He did mind losing Mr. Hearst, if you know what I mean. Later he said to me, "We have lost our queen!" What he meant was he had lost the power of the chess game--the visitors--and the press. [Davies' nickname was Queen of the Screen]
- W.R. made me the president of Cosmopolitan Films, and I was supposed to get half of the profits.
- Life in California got to be very gay. There was work and some sort of a party every night. And I got to love MGM, I really did; but I didn't realize it until I left. I was ten years at the studio and I knew everyone.
- We could have made Little Old New York (1923) in less time, but the whole studio had burned down, with my costumes and everything. We had to move over to Fort Lee in New Jersey and I had to get new costumes.
- I would invite the whole cast to luncheon, and the studio executives, and maybe some other stars who were working on other sets--Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford and the rest of them. Not Garbo.
- He [Hearst] thought I should have won an Oscar for Peg o' My Heart (1933), but I thought it was a corny story to begin with.
- I started working at MGM around 1924, and that was the first time I ever went to San Simeon [Hearst Castle]. I think Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon were along, and Constance Talmadge.
- Marie Antoinette (1938) was the straw that broke the camel's back at MGM.
- When we went to San Simeon we'd take the train and then the car from San Luis Obispo. Sometimes we went by plane. W.R. had three planes, and if I was working late on a Saturday I would fly up.
- I didn't want to quit at five ... I would stay and do close-ups. That was kind of smart of me anyway. Then I'd look at the rushes and talk with the director and the writer, and I wouldn't get home before ten or eleven. [Davies was the producer on almost all of her films]
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