After Irving Thalberg had given the role of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to his wife, Norma Shearer, a role Marion Davies wanted badly, Thalberg agreed she could have the role of Marie Antoinette as a consolation prize. But when William Randolph Hearst tried to set up a production for Davies at MGM (where she had been under contract since 1925), Louis B. Mayer flatly refused to finance such a project and said Hearst could make the film if Hearst would finance it. Hearst and Davies left MGM in 1934 and signed with Warner Bros. Thalberg died in 1936, and his wife, Norma Shearer finally made Marie Antoinette (1938), but it was a colossal flop, a fact loudly and frequently mentioned in Hearst's newspapers and magazines.