Mae West: January 1926

In January 1926, MAE WEST - - determined to succeed on stage after over a dozen years of mostly negative reviews and stinging hand-slaps by Variety's columnists - - brought Sex to Poli's Theatre in Bridgeport, Connecticut for a try-out. She had written the melodrama under the pseudonym Jane Mast.
• • Her mother's gangster friends funnelled in the money for the show. Sex was the story of a prostitute's revenge upon a society mother who sent her to jail . Almost instantly, the 32-year-old wannabe had her first financially flush hit, although every critic in New York savaged the production.
• • Tuned into this lucky strike at the box office, soon the producers involved in the 1926-27 theatrical season filled the playhouses with more Sex-like "dirt shows" than the legitimate stage had seen before.
• • "There were sporadic agitations, mostly in the press," recalled Burns Mantle in his annual Best Plays volume, provoking New York's District Attorney and even Governor Al Smith to clamor for an end to the spreading smut on Broadway.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West • • Lyons Wickland • • 1926 • •
NYC
Mae West.