Mae West: In Chinatown

MAE WEST was fascinated by New York City's Chinatown and the Bowery. And a hundred or so years ago, other authors were also intrigued and inspired by these neighborhoods.
• • Charles H. Hoyt, for instance, who was born in Concord, New Hampshire in July — — on 26 July 1859 — — wrote the immensely popular musical comedy "A Trip to Chinatown" (featuring a score by Percy Gaunt). Fifty years later, "A Trip to Chinatown" was turned into a silent film that starred the beautiful Anna May Wong. And that's not all. In 1891, the play premiered at Broadway’s Madison Square Theater and enjoyed a run close to two years (or 657 performances). Two of the most popular numbers from the show are still known: "The Bowery" and "Reuben and Cynthia."
• • The plot of "A Trip to Chinatown" is centered on a widow who connives and contrives to bring romance to several couples and herself in a big city restaurant [think of "Hello, Dolly!].
• • Still capitalizing on the "Trip to Chinatown" craze, clever showmen reworked the play again and presented it under a new title: "A Winsome Widow." Nineteen-year-old and fresh-faced Mae West was featured in the show "A Winsome Widow" as La Petite Daffy in 1912.
• • This extravaganza was produced by Flo Ziegfeld, and this time the Eastside musical was relocated to the West Coast — — to San Francisco's Chinatown.
• • As La Petite Daffy, Mae West won acclaim for her vivacity and sauciness. "Mae West assaults the welkin vigorously," applauded the New York Dramatic Mirror from their tony offices on West 42nd Street right opposite the New York Public Library.
• • Drawing inspiration from her past and the NYC neighborhoods that she always loved, Mae West set her hit play "Diamond Lil" [1928] along the entertaining stretch of the Bowery closest to Chatham Square, the liveliest mile in New York at one time. The song "The Bowery" was featured, performed by the character Ragtime Kelly.
• • In Mae West's novelization of "Diamond Lil," she situates scenes right on Chinatown's exotic side streets, for instance, Mae's amusing chapter "A Night on Division Street."
• • Not through yet with Chinatown's local color, Mae West opens her screenplay for "Klondike Annie" in Chinatown. The Paramount Pictures film set the mood in San Francisco's Chinatown, however, not in New York.
• • To learn more about Mae West's eastside productions, come walk on the WEST side, starting right on Broadway on Friday evening 17 August 2007, when a guided tour will explore Manhattan's WEST-side during the "Mae West Side Story" walking tour. The event — — open to the public — — is timed to salute Brooklyn's own sexpot on her birthdate. [See the Annual Mae West Gala posting below for details and ticket pricing.]
• • Only 17 more days until Mae's birthday!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West immortalized Suicide Hall at 293 Bowery • • 1914 • •
NYC
Mae West.