Following the decline of her film career during the Great Depression, Davies struggled with alcoholism, and she retired from the screen in 1937 to devote herself to an ailing Hearst and to charitable work. In Hearst's declining years, Davies remained his steadfast companion until his death in 1951. Eleven weeks after Hearst's death, she married sea captain Horace Brown, and their marriage lasted until Davies' own death due to malignant osteomyelitis (bone cancer) of the jaw in 1961 at the age of 64.