Lara Gabrielle

Lara Gabrielle is a film writer, historian, and biographer, acknowledged as “the reigning expert on Marion Davies.” Her work on Davies’s life and legacy has been featured in publications such as Alta, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Missouri Review, The Wall Street Journal, and on PBS’s American Experience. Gabrielle speaks at festivals and retrospectives worldwide, and frequently consults on books, dissertations, and film projects about Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst. She has collaborated on screenings and initiatives with the American Film Institute, the New York Public Library, Film Forum, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Gabrielle’s biography, Captain of Her Soul: The Life of Marion Davies, has been included on many top book lists, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Northern California Book Award. Leonard Maltin describes it as “the book Marion Davies has always deserved.” Currently, Gabrielle serves as curator and host of Movies at Mechanics’, a weekly classic film series at the Mechanics’ Institute of San Francisco.