Reine Davies was an American singer and actress.

Biography

Davies was born Irene Douras in Brooklyn, New York. She was the eldest sister of the actress Marion Davies

Marion Davies

Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....

. Reine was the first of the Douras daughters to start using the name, 'Davies.' One day she was driving through the Brooklyn neighbourhood, and saw the office sign of Valentine Davies. She liked the name, adopted it, and the other sisters followed suit. She married twice, first to the director George Lederer

George Lederer

George Lederer was an American producer and director on Broadway from 1894 to 1931. He was the husband of Reine Davies and father of Charles Lederer and Pepi Lederer....

 (1862–1938) (divorced 1912), and later to the actor George Regas

George Regas

George Regas was a Greek actor.Born in Sparta, Greece, he was the brother of actor Pedro Regas. He was a stage actor in Athens before coming to the U.S. In New York he played Romeo in a Grecian version of Romeo and Juliet.In 1921 Regas acted in his first motion picture: The Love Light with Mary...

. She had one son with Lederer, the director/writer Charles Lederer

Charles Lederer

Charles Lederer was a prolific and well-connected American film writer and director of the 30s to the 60s, from a prominent theatrical family with close ties to the Hearst dynasty.-Early life:...

 (1906–1976), and a daughter, Josephine Rose ("Pepi") Lederer

Pepi Lederer

Pepi Lederer was an American actress and writer. She was the niece of actress Marion Davies.-Early life & career:Josephine Rose Lederer was born in Chicago in 1910 and later formally adopted the name...

 (1910–1935).

She was known as "The New American Beauty," and, by her friends as, "The True Blue Girl". Reine Davies lived for many years in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, and was on the Vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 circuit as a singer and actress. She appeared in the 1915 movie Sunday as Sunday and in 1917 as Beth Winthrop in The Sin Woman. She was also a popular subject on sheet music covers, most famously for Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland

Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland

Meet Me To-night in Dreamland was one of the most famous and beloved popular songs of the twentieth century. This gentle waltz, with poignant lyrics, was written by Beth Slater Whitson and Leo Friedman. It was published in Chicago in 1909. Friedman and Whitson sold it to the largest publisher in...

, as well as "The Reine Waltz" (1910), "When I Kissed Your Tears Away" (1911), "Leaf by Leaf the Roses Fall" (1911), "When I Met You Last Night in Dreamland" (1912), "In the Palace of Dreams" (1914), and "Araby" (1915). For many years she edited the gossip column in the Los Angeles Examiner.

Davies died on April 5, 1938 in Beverly Hills, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 from a heart attack in the swimming pool. She was buried with a Requiem Mass at St. Augustine's Church in Culver City, CA., and interred in the Douras Mausoleum in what is now Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Hollywood Forever Cemetery, originally called Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles, California. It is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in the Hollywood...

.

External links