Marvin H. Davis was an American industrialist and philanthropist. He was born on August 31, 1925 in Newark, New Jersey, USA.

He graduated from New York University in 1947. He became part of the oil exploration business of his father and was later nicknamed “Mr. Wildcatter.” The Davis Oil Company started by drilling oil and gas in the Midwest in the 1940s. It was incorporated as Davis Petroleum in 1986 and his son, Gregg Davis, took over as the president of Davis Petroleum and Davis Offshore in 1997.

A well-known philanthropist, Davis co-founded the bi-annual Carousel of Hope ball to raise money for juvenile diabetes. He is also a long time supporter of medical research and a research building at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles is named after him. He and his wife, Barbara Levine, are major donors and fundraisers for the Democratic Party for many years already.

Marvin Davis has been married for 53 years and he had five children with fourteen grandchildren including celebrity Brandon Davis. On September 25, 2004, he died of natural causes in Beverly Hills, California. He is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in LA.