Reine Davies (June 6, 1883 – April 5, 1938) was an American singer and actress.
Contents |
Davies was born Irene Douras in Brooklyn, New York. She was the eldest sister of the 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 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 (1862–1938) (divorced 1912), and later to the actor George Regas. She had one son with Lederer, the director/writer Charles Lederer (1906–1976), and a daughter, Josephine Rose ("Pepi") Lederer (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, and was on the Vaudeville 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, 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 from a heart attack in the swimming pool.[1] 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.