Citizen Hearst
Leslie Iwerks Productions, 90 minutes
Before there was Citizen Kane, there was his larger-than-life model, William Randolph Hearst. Son of a tycoon-turned-senator, Willie dove deep into the dark side of the social pool when he left high society to pioneer yellow journalism. He started tiny with the San Francisco Examiner, a rag his father won in a poker game. It became the flagship of his national newspaper chain—and more. For the power-loving Hearst, his audience of millions became a club he used to beat anyone or anything he opposed. Academy Award–nominated director Leslie Iwerks has plenty of meaty material to work with during the Hearst empire’s first 50 years, and does it justice. Hearst popularized newspaper comics, feuded with fellow mogul Joseph Pulitzer, and backed offbeat ventures in magazines (like Cosmopolitan) and animation. After that, even with interviewees like Oprah Winfrey, Ralph Lauren and assorted Hearst family members and editors, it’s like watching a documentary about News Corp after the death of Rupert Murdoch— interesting, but nowhere near as much fun.
Originally published in the October 2013 issue of American History. To subscribe, click here.
