William Randolph Hearst (/hɜrst/;[1] April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher who built the nation's largest newspaper chain and whose methods profoundly influenced American journalism.[2] Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father. Moving to New York City, he acquired The New York Journal and engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World that led to the creation of yellow journalism—sensationalized stories of dubious veracity. Acquiring more newspapers, Hearst created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, for Governor of New York in 1906, and for Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1910. Nonetheless, through his newspapers and magazines, he exercised enormous political influence, and was famously blamed for pushing public opinion with his yellow journalism type of reporting leading the United States into a war with Spain in 1898. His life story was the main inspiration for the development of the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane.[3] His mansion, Hearst Castle, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, California, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, was donated by the Hearst Corporation to the state of California in 1957, and is now a State Historical Monument and a National Historic Landmark, open for public tours. Hearst formally named the estate La Cuesta Encantada ("The Enchanted Hill"), though he typically referred to it simply as "the ranch." Citizen Kane is one of the most influential films of all time and is loosely based on Hearst's life. Welles and co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz created Kane as a composite character of multiple men, among them Harold McCormick, Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes. Hearst, enraged at the idea of Citizen Kane being a thinly disguised and very unflattering portrait of him, used his massive influence and resources in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the film from being released—all without his ever even having seen it. Welles and the studio RKO Pictures resisted the pressure, but Hearst and his Hollywood friends ultimately succeeded in pressuring theater chains to limit showings of Citizen Kane,[59] resulting in mediocre box-office numbers and seriously harming Welles's career. Nearly sixty years later, HBO offered a fictionalized version of Hearst's efforts in its picture RKO 281. Hearst is portrayed in the film by James Cromwell. Citizen Kane has twice been ranked No. 1 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (1998 and 2007). The character of Gail Wynand in Ayn Rand's 1943 novel The Fountainhead is based on Hearst. Hearst is a major character in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire historic novel series. The Cat's Meow is a 2001 drama film inspired by the mysterious death of film mogul Thomas H. Ince. The film takes place aboard publisher William Randolph Hearst's yacht on a weekend cruise celebrating Ince's 42nd birthday in November 1924. Hearst is portrayed by actor Edward Herrmann. The novel Goliath (2011) by Scott Westerfeld depicts Hearst in World War I. Hearst is portrayed during the time of the Roscoe Arbuckle trial in the 2009 novel Devil's Garden by Ace Atkins The character Kristjan Benediksson the main protangonist in Olaf Olafsson's 2003 novel Walking into the Night, is a fictional butler to William Randolph Hearst. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst