Irene (Douras) Davies (1886 - 1938)

Born 6 Jun 1886 in Montclair, Essex, New Jersey, United States

Ancestors

Wife of George Washington Lederer — married 12 Jan 1907 (to 1912) in Indiana, United States

Died 5 Apr 1938 at age 51 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA

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Biography

Reine (Douras) Davies is Notable.

Birth and Youth

Davies was born on June 6, 1886, in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Judge Bernard J. Douras of New York City, and his wife, Rose (Reilly.) Douras.

The eldest sister of actress Marion Davies, Reine was the first of the Douras daughters to start using the name Davies. One day she was driving through the Brooklyn neighborhood, and saw the office sign of Valentine Davies. She liked the name and adopted it, and the other sisters followed suit.

Career

Reine Davies lived for many years in Chicago, and was on the Vaudeville circuit as a singer and actress and later appeared in the movies Sunday (1915) and The Sin Woman (1917). She was known as "The New American Beauty," and, by her friends as, "The True Blue Girl".

She was also a popular subject on sheet music covers, most famously for "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland," "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).

Marriage and Family

Davies married twice, first to director George Lederer with whom she had two children, from 12 Jan 1907^[1] until they divorced in 1912.

In August 1920, Irene made application for a passport to allow her to travel to Europe and France for the purpose of finding plays to bring back for her and her sister, Marion Davies. In her application she was described as standing 5' 4", with a fair complexion, grey eyes and auburn hair, an oval face, a straight forehead, a straight nose, a small mouth and a round chin. She also had a broken clavicle. Her home address was then 331 Riverside Dr. in New York City. Irene gave her birthday as June 6, 1892 (and her father confirmed it in a supplemental affidavit), but like so many actresses, she had likely shaved several years off her actual age. ^[2]

She married second actor George Regas. For many years she edited the gossip column in the Los Angeles Examiner, and in 1935, began writing a column about Hollywood social events for The San Francisco Examiner.

Death

Reine died on April 5, 1938, in Beverly Hills, California, from a heart attack in a swimming pool. She was buried with a Requiem Mass at St. Augustine's Church in Culver City, California, and interred in the Douras Mausoleum in what is now Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Sources

1. ↑ Indiana Marriages, 1810-2001, Ancestry.com (database online). Marriage of George W. Leaderer [sic] to Irene Dowras [sic] (1907)
2. ↑ U.S. Passport applications, 1795-1925. Ancestry.com (database online with images) Application #79948 for Irene Douras Lederer (1920), Roll 1329.

• Wikipedia contributors, "Reine Davies," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reine_Davies&oldid=726346130 (accessed August 2, 2016).
• "New Jersey Births and Christenings, 1660-1980," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FZ32-YZL : 12 December 2014), Irene Douras, 06 Jun 1885; citing , reference 2:G2K2G2; FHL microfilm 1,378,202.