# About Rosebud and Citizen Kane..it ain't the sled..:) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 29, 2001, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-rosebud-and-citizen-kane-it-aint-the-sled/78703 "2001-08-29T14:44:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-rosebud-and-citizen-kane-it-aint-the-sled/78703/1 "2001-08-29T14:44:53Z")
> [@](#): > > William Randolph Hearst was incensed by this movie, obviously based on his life. According to an essay written for the New York Review of Books by Gore Vidal (a close friend of Hearst’s) “Rosebud” was Hearst’s name for long-time mistress Marion Davies’ clitoris. [http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0033467](http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0033467) ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-rosebud-and-citizen-kane-it-aint-the-sled/78703/2 "2001-08-29T23:27:49Z")
oh my… ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-rosebud-and-citizen-kane-it-aint-the-sled/78703/3 "2001-08-29T23:33:37Z")
That is actually well known (relative term, I’m sure). But in the context of the movie, and perhaps to slip something past the censors, it was the sled. On a side note, - whoopee - I get to be a Cafe Society wonk and say that that’s where this thread belongs. Mods - clean up on aisle five. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-rosebud-and-citizen-kane-it-aint-the-sled/78703/4 "2001-08-29T23:57:34Z")
And once again The Batty-Man (nothing out of you , **JillGat** ) is vindicated. [sub]No, really, can I be a mod now. Did I pass the test?[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-rosebud-and-citizen-kane-it-aint-the-sled/78703/5 "2001-08-30T00:52:08Z")
I am a bit skeptical about the gore vidal explanation…how does he know? I think that he is one of the most brilliant writers that the earth has seen, but this one seems as if he is pulling someone’s leg. Did Marion davies tell someone? vidal seems to go for the easy ones quite too often for someone with his panache! ---
**Author:** ![Rosebud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rosebud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rosebud)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-rosebud-and-citizen-kane-it-aint-the-sled/78703/6 "2001-08-30T02:14:51Z")
I have nothing to add here 😉 ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/about-rosebud-and-citizen-kane-it-aint-the-sled/78703/7 "2001-08-30T07:36:06Z")
Something I posted in this thread: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=46940](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=46940) From [this page](http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/outsider.htm): > [@](#): > > " . . . Welles has admitted that the final scene, with Welles himself playing Charles Foster Kane, is a ‘gimmick.’ … Welles described it as ‘rather dollar-book Freud.’" … > > “…Mankiewicz came up with the concept of ‘Rosebud’”… Film critic Roger Ebert reports that some sources in Hollywood indicate that " . . . Mankiewicz, used ‘rosebud’ as an inside joke, because as a friend of Hearst’s mistress, Marion Davies, he knew ‘rosebud’ was the old man’s pet name for the most intimate part of her anatomy." Welles biographer Frank Brady, also reports “… It was claimed that Hearst’s pet name for Marion Davies’ pudenda (external genital organs) was ‘rosebud.’” Again, this entire episode really represents an example of an old-time Hollywood writer who had been around, taking advantage of a young first-time director and trying to use the young director’s first film as a vicious and revengeful attack on William Randolph Hearst. Mankiewicz succeeded in that regard.