Mae West: Hotel Delmonico

One day MAE WEST's icebox over-heated in springtime. Almost immediately, a German electrician ignited a spark in his life when he met the actress in her private suite at Manhattan's Hotel Delmonico in the mid 1950s. [At the time, Mae was performing at the Latin Quarter at 200 West 48th Street. The Hotel Delmonico, located at Park Avenue and 59th Street, was built in 1929.]
• • Now retired and living in Lakeland, Florida, former electrician George Kahn has many memories to share as he plans for his 105th birthday on Wednesday January 3rd.
• • Born in Darmstadt, Germany, in 1902, Kahn worked as a clerk until he traveled to the U.S. on 10 December 1926.
• • But having returned to his homeland in the early 1930s to seek employment, Kahn said he remembers the dark days when economic hardship and political unrest descended on Germany in the years after World War I.
• • "Conditions in Germany were bad at the time, practically hopeless," Kahn said.
Kahn said his mother was Jewish and he describes himself as half-Jewish. And for Jews it was a dangerous time. . . .
• • Kahn's brother Ludwig and sister Erna were sent to concentration camps. A stroke of good fortune got Ludwig released and he emigrated to America. ...
• • Kahn became a United States citizen in 1933. He said America has been good to him over the years.
• • Kahn moved to New York in 1953. Kahn spent 12 years as a licensed electrician in New York City, including some time working at Hotel Del Monico [sic], where he once fixed actress Mae West's refrigerator. ... In 1965, when he remarried, he left New York and moved to Colombia in South America. ...
- - brief extract from this interview - -
• • Source: The Ledger, Lakeland, Florida
• • Byline: SARAH STEGALL, Special to The Ledger
• • Published on: Monday, 1 January 2007
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
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Mae West.