Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Mae West: Muralist

The bedroom walls in Mae West's Los Angeles apartment were decorated by George Quaintance, a tall, handsome blond artist who often included his own image in his paintings.
• • Born in the month of June 3 June 1902 to a farming family in Virginia, by 18 years old he had enrolled at the Art Students' League in New York City.
• • Around 1947 gorgeous George had moved to Los Angeles and his flair for painting and photography began to attract attention among the Hollywoodites.
• • However, his career was short lived. At age 55, George Quaintance died of a heart attack on 8 November 1957.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
Mae West.

2 comments:

  1. I would question the claim that George Quaintance painted a mural in Mae West's bedroom at the Ravenswood. When Life magazine published a fish eye view of her bedroom in a photo spread in 1969, it certainly wasn't in evidence.
    However, your source of information may have confused the homoerotic mural that was painted on the sweeping staircase leading up to the second floor bedrooms of West's Santa Monica beach house.
    That mural depicted nude Roman gladiators and suspended golden phallus. Unfortuantely the beach house has been remodeled several times from the time it was sold in the last 1970's. I have yet to see detailed photographs of the murals, but have met men who were part of Mae West's entourage in the sixties and seventies and they recall the mural quite vividly.

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  2. Anonymous3:31 PM

    You are correct. The painter of that staircase mural was Leslie Allen grimes, a professional wrestler and Hollywood set painter and muralist who also painted tropical scenes in Vic Tanny's gyms. He is best known for his gigantic mural on the Farmer John Pork Packing plant. Mae called it "Great art" and was sorry to sell the home.

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