Critics generally agree that Citizen Kane’s
protagonist, Charles Foster Kane, is based on William Randolph Hearst,
who built a media empire in the late 1800s
and early 1900s. Though Citizen
Kane is fiction, the number of parallels between Kane and
Hearst make the connection between the two undeniable.
William Randolph Hearst was born on April 29, 1863,
in San Francisco, California to multimillionaire George Hearst and Phoebe
Apperson Hearst. Hearst was an only child, and his mother adored
and indulged him. Mother and son often traveled to Europe while
George stayed home to oversee his empire. Hearst went to Harvard
but never applied himself seriously to his studies. On the verge
of flunking out for his rowdy behavior, he decided he’d like to try
his hand at the newspaper business. George had taken over a small
paper, the San Francisco Examiner, as payment for
a debt, and Hearst was determined to run it. He greatly admired
Joseph Pulitzer and wanted to emulate his sensationalist style of
journalism. Hearst went on to purchase the New York Journal and
wooed much of Pulitzer’s staff away from him, much as Kane purchased
the staff of his paper’s rival, the Chronicle,
in the film. On this foundation Hearst built a national media empire.
Hearst let neither money nor the truth stand in the way
of his quest to be the most successful newspaper publisher of all
time. For him, the Cuban Revolution of 1895 offered
a perfect opportunity to sell more papers. His sensationalist and
often false reports from Cuba are widely credited with pushing American
intervention and sparking the Spanish American War. One famous anecdote,
which made its way into Citizen Kane, tells of
Hearst ordering the legendary artist Frederic Remington to send
dispatches about the war from Cuba. Remington sent Hearst a telegram
saying there was no war. Hearst replied that if Remington furnished
the pictures, Hearst would furnish the war. Hearst made up stories
about politicians, advocated political assassinations in an editorial
just a few months before McKinley was assassinated, staged crimes
so his reporters could write about them, and generally took “yellow
journalism” (sensationalist journalism) to new depths of irresponsibility.
Around 1918,
Hearst met silent movie actress Marion Davies and began what would
become a life-long affair. At the time, Hearst was married and had
five sons. He and his wife, Millicent Veronica Willson, a former
showgirl turned society matron, separated in 1926.
Hearst and Willson never divorced, and Hearst and Davies lived together
openly even though they never married. Hearst built the magnificent
castle San Simeon for Davies, which was the inspiration for Xanadu
in Citizen Kane. Hearst's estate differed from Kane's—unlike
the lonely fortress Xanadu, San Simeon was full of laughter and
parties. Like Kane, however, Hearst was a rapacious collector who
filled his castle with possessions, without regard to aesthetics
or suitability. When Hearst began to suffer financially in the late 1930s,
Davies saved his enterprises by selling off a million dollars in
jewelry and real estate and turning the money over to Hearst. Her
actions leave no doubt about the strength of their relationship,
unlike the shaky bond between Kane and Susan Alexander.
Hearst and Welles probably never met, although each certainly knew
of the other. Welles surely felt that Hearst had tried to crimp his
early theatrical career. The two men occupied opposite ends of the
political spectrum as well. Hearst was wealthy and conservative, hated
minorities, distrusted Jews, supported the Nazi party, was an isolationist
and an anti-communist, loathed President Roosevelt, and hated the
New Deal. Welles’s first big directing job, meanwhile, was with
the New York Federal Theatre Project, which was part of the New
Deal and supplied acting jobs for unemployed black actors. Welles
tended toward liberalism and was accustomed to accepting people
for their talents rather than their religion or ethnicity. However,
although Hearst and Welles were polar opposites politically and
socially, both were smart, egotistical, and indulged by those around
them. Welles both loathed Hearst and identified with him, and portraying
Kane required him to reconcile these conflicting feelings.
