By 1937, Hearst was $126 million in debt. Consequently, when Hearst's Cosmopolitan Pictures folded in 1938, Davies left the film business and retreated to San Simeon. Davies would later publicly claim in her autobiography that, after many years of work, she had become bored with film acting and decided to devote herself to being Hearst's "companion." However, Davies was intensely ambitious, and she faced the harsh reality at the age of forty that she could no longer play young heroines as in her earlier films. Consequently, when drunk at parties in San Simeon, Davies often lamented her retirement and "cursed everyone who felt she had contributed to her ruined career."