The couple had five sons, but began to drift apart in the mid-1920s, when Millicent became tired of her husband's longtime affair with actress Marion Davies.

After a six-year courtship, the publisher and aspiring politician Hearst married 20-year-old Millicent Willson on April 28, 1903.

[1] W.R.'s mother Phoebe Apperson Hearst, at first dismayed by Millicent’s humble origins, warmed to her daughter-in-law with the birth of the grandchildren.

Hearst also served on wartime committees to raise funds for the rebuilding of France and the relief of French orphans.

[1] Millicent Willson Hearst died on December 5, 1974, more than two decades after the death of her husband, and was buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.