Inspired by the wit of MAE WEST, Dorothy Parker, and other women, Paul Gemignani and Lonny Price have developed a limited engagement revue exclusively for a Colorado theatre festival held in September.
• • Background: Each year, the Colorado Festival of World Theatre chooses one person to receive the Donald Seawell Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre (the "Donny" award), and this year's honoree is the acclaimed Stephen Sondheim, notes reporter Matthew Schniper in the latest issue [30 August 2007] of the Colorado Springs Independent.
• • Maestro Paul Gemignani, who has collaborated with Stephen Sondheim for the past 36 years, and acclaimed Broadway director Lonny Price, along with Broadway stars Marin Mazzie, Jenn Colella. and a surprise guest star, will hold two performances of Beautiful Girls: A Sondheim Tribute on September 22 - 23, 2007.
• • The Independent interviewed Price and Gemignani via long-distance.
• • Indy: The Festival of World Theatre contacted you and asked you to come up with a show to honor Stephen. Why a show about songs written for female characters?
• • Lonny Price: Stephen writes great for men and women. But a lot of the seminal songs — "I'm Still Here," "The Ladies Who Lunch," "Broadway Baby" — are for women. I've always felt that there are these incredible show-stoppers, and wouldn't it be interesting to have an evening of just female performers singing these female characters. . . .
• • Indy: So there's a central storyline about a woman's journey through stages of her life as reflected by Sondheim works — — not just a mixtape, best-of on stage?
• • Lonny Price: . . . Essentially, it's "Girl grows up, girl leaves home, girl finds guy, girl falls in love with guy, girl gets guy, girl loses guy, girl gets bitter and sits at the end of a bar and drinks." I am using quotes from female writers such as Mae West, Maya Angelou, and Dorothy Parker — kind of other women's take on this situation or these particular stages, and Steve's as well. ...
— — — excerpt — — —
• • Beautiful Girls: A Sondheim Tribute
• • The Festival Pavilion at the Pikes Peak Center: 190 S. Cascade Ave.
• • For info or tickets: call 227-0086.
• • Source: Colorado Springs Independent — — www.csindy.com/
• • Byline: Matthew Schniper
• • Published on: 30 August 2007• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1932 • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST [1893 — 1980] returns to California soon when her pages take the stage.
• • Did you know that the San Francisco Chronicle just published their fall arts preview? Entertainment reporter Steven Winn reminded his readers that, in November 2007, a local playhouse the Aurora Theatre will offer a production of Mae West's controversial play "Sex."
• • When she wrote it in 1926, Mae West deliberately distanced her characters from the American way of life by setting the action in a Montreal brothel.
• • This play confronts the issue of women who are separated by class and their attitudes about sexuality. West's character Margy learns the painful lesson that women are not bound in sisterhood simply because they have both shared the betrayal of men.
• • Happily, these plays finally appeared in printed form [on 13 August 1997] a decade ago.
• • This might be a good time to get Three Plays by Mae West: Sex, The Drag, and Pleasure Man edited by Professor Lillian Schlissel [Routledge, August 1997].
— — Excerpts from editorial reviews: — —
• • This volume gives a glimpse of the real Mae West by publishing her three radical, melodramatic, but quite hilarious plays for the first time. — Booklist
• • No mere strutting sexpot, West's capacity for scathing satire comes into full view in Three Plays by Mae West, edited by Lillian Schlissel... Filled with the saucy argot of the New York streets, the plays still crackle and cook. — Publisher's Weekly
• • These plays are important, original and fun. Anyone interested in theatre and gender is going to have a new and bold face to deal with. — Michael Cadden, Director of the Program in Theatre and Dance, Princeton University
• • Mae West was many things — — sexual outlaw, wildcat feminist, actress, icon. The publication of these plays proves that she was more complex than her movies suggest. The only thing she did straightforwardly was to insist that her convictions were worth fighting for... She was as close as any woman has ever come to being one of the great American queens. ... we can look back at Mae West with new eyes, and admire the fun she had with sex and the control she exercised on her image and her career. — The Boston Book Review
• • I would recommend this book to anyone interested either in the history of gay theatre in America or in how gays were perceived in the early decades of the twentieth century. — Marsh Cassady, Lambda Book Report
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West in "Sex" • • 1926 • •
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Mae West.
Go WEST, young men has been their clarion call for fifteen years now. In Los Angeles, California a group of Mae West celebrants are among the faithful who congregate, annually, on August 17th to remember her unique presence. 
• • Usually the festivities are organized by Hollywood resident Ramfis Diaz — — a 45-year-old musician adorned by a Fu Manchu mustache and impressively sculpted sideburns that snake around his jaw. A lifelong hoarder of Mae West memorabilia, Diaz has his walls peppered with spicy images of the movie queen at her most liquorous.
• • The merrymakers — — about 40 to 50 guests — — track back to the "come up and see me sometime" gal via various connections.
• • Los Angeles Times reporter Kevin Thomas, a close comrade of the late actress, always attends along with Chris Basinger (a good buddy of Mae's during the 1970s, who worked at the Ravenswood and lived across the street from her), and Damon Devine, a Mae-West-iana collector since age 11 and, like Mae, born under the zodiac sign of Leo.
• • According to the divine Mr. Devine, "The rest of the revellers are mostly there out of curiosity, or attracted by the food, cake, and booze. Also a red-headed nudist seems to show up each year!"
• • A toast to Mae West — — and the memories she stage-managed for each of her fans.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo courtesy of Damon Devine: • • Mae West's birthday cake • • 2007 • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST came up halfway through Seth Rudetsky's column "Onstage and Backstage" in the latest Playbill.
• • Rudetsky was rehashing a career crisis: he had been booked to film a commercial on the West Coast, and needed to ask actor Kevin Chamberlin to fill in for him at a gig in Manhattan. Then they got to chatting about the Brooklyn bombshell and how she was never at a loss for a punchline.
• • Kevin Chamberlin shared a story about how quick-witted Mae West was, despite her age.
• • According to Kevin Chamberlin, one night Mae was walking through a casino in Las Vegas, and a guy called out from the craps table: "Hey, Mae! I'll lay 'ya ten to one!"
• • Without missing a beat, Mae West replied: "It's an odd time — — but I'll be there."
• • Source: Playbill
• • Columnist: Seth Rudetsky
• • Published: 27 August 2007
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST's co-star in "Belle of the Nineties" was a handsome native New Yorker Roger Pryor who came into the world (like Mae) in August; he was born on 27 August 1901. 
In Tinseltown, Roger Pryor was considered the "poor man's Clark Gable." Certainly he seems to sweep Ruby Carter [Mae's character] off her feet in his role as the prizefighter Tiger Kid.
• • Hollywood's censors, however, were a more formidable opponent than any palooka Tiger Kid faced in the ring. The Hays Office sparred with the studio over Mae's one-liners and many plot points. Perhaps the least harmful suggestion the censors made was that Mae's character — — entertainer Ruby Carter — — had to wed her boxer-lover, showing a touch of conventional respectability by the finale. Mae-mavens know that Mae always gets her man — — even if church bells don't chime.• • On September 21, 1934, this is what the Los Angeles Evening Herald Express had to say about Mae West's new picture.
• • MAE WEST’S LURE HOLDS IN NEW FILM • •• • By Harrison Carroll
• • After seeing Mae West’s new picture Belle of the Nineties, one can only borrow a current slogan and advise the censors: ”Next time, get Ethyl.”
• • The blonde star has played the game according to their rules and emerged with a much funnier film than her last effort, I’m No Angel, which paid a profit that would make your eyes bulge. Belle of the Nineties, now playing at the Paramount, is a typical Mae West film about a St. Louis burlesque queen who went south to New Orleans and did everything but make the Mississippi run backwards. [Note: Frankie Baker, of "Frankie and Johnny" fame, also was a St. Louis woman who went down to New Orleans, where she met a young mack named Johnny. Coincidence. . . ?]
• • Mae has cleaned up some of her gags, that’s a fact. But even her warmest admirers will admit they could stand a little cleaning.
• • The important thing is that the star’s personality is unimpaired.
SPIRIT IS SAME
• • The spirit of the new picture is the same as She Done Him Wrong, which took the cinema world by storm.
• • Another smart move on Mae’s part is to give other players a chance in Belle of Nineties. Roger Pryor, who plays the prize-fighter sweetheart in the new film, is a splendid actor and his part is more than a listening post.
• • Johnny Mack Brown (a New Orleans blue-blood), John Miljan (owner of the gambling palace), Katherine DeMille (Mae’s enemy), James Donlon (the boxer’s manager), and Warren Hymer (the palooka) also have definite identities in the tale.
• • It is a story of swaggering gallants, two-fisted fighters, and warm-blooded beauties that unfolds in Belle of the Nineties. Ruby Carter, the heroine, is a smart dame with a weakness for prize-fighters, particularly the Tiger Kid.
• • But she gives up her love rather than hinder his career, and moves south for more worlds to conquer. It isn’t her fault that Ace La Mont, her new employer, falls for her and wants to get rid of his old favorite, the tempestuous Molly.
MUCH EXCITEMENT
• • Between Molly’s plan for revenge, Ace’s double-crossing and the arrival of the Tiger Kid, there is plenty of excitement before Ruby and her fist-slinger tell it to a minister. This tag is undoubtedly for the benefit of the censors [true enough!], but it doesn’t hurt the story a bit.
• • Belle of the Nineties has a number of songs, some of them very amusing. “My Old Flame,” “When a St. Louis Woman Comes to Town” and “Memphis Blues” are in the list.
• • Leo McCarey’s direction of the film has a nice pace. What few slow spots there are seem to have developed in the cutting [or, more likely, due to the censors' objections].
• • You can write Belle of the Nineties down as a hit.
• • The Paramount Theatre shows it along with a Betty Boop color cartoon, a newsreel and the Fanchon and Marco revue, "Dance Follies."
• • Source: Los Angeles Evening Herald Express
• • Published: 21 September 1934• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
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Mae West.
In August 2001, one of the best MAE WEST biographies was released: Mae West: An Icon in Black and White — — by Jill Watts [NY: Oxford University Press].
• • In November 2001, The London Independent printed a review by critic Julie Wheelwright.The title of her review is "The sex goddess who understood spin" and here are her comments.
• • • • Julie Wheelwright wrote:
• • BY THE 1930s, Mae West had established her reputation as a sexual liberator and camp vaudeville actress who had conquered Hollywood to star alongside WC Fields, Cary Grant, and Lowell Sherman. But her camping was not confined to the screen. Her black maid Bea Jackson (who doubled as an actress) would conduct visitors into a room emptied of furniture, except for a bed with a mirror emblazoned with the words "Mae West - SEX - Diamond Lil". After a few suspenseful moments, West would appear with one hand on her hip and sway past the visitor to recline on her silken bedspread. Male guests were invited to make themselves comfortable next to her.
• • From the earliest days, when Mae West cut her teeth on the vaudeville circuit in New York's roughest theatres, she understood the rudiments of spin. The new century's saucy sex goddess was born into a working-class Brooklyn family in 1893, in a neighbourhood where her father "Battling Jack" West was a well-known boxer and showman. Her sister remembered that "even as a little girl, Mae's character songs were risque." Through her twenties, Mae West became adept at reinterpreting other artists' acts for a more mainstream audience, and made her name by pushing the envelope of respectability.
• • This new biography argues that West became an icon not only because she plugged into the period's sexual zeitgeist, but because she offered a new interpretation of race. Jill Watts suggests that West's paternal grandfather may have been an African-American, and this could account for the "preoccupation with blackness that eventually dominated her work".
• • Her early novel Babe Gordon (originally entitled Black and White) shockingly featured a white woman who falls in love with an African-American "Apollo"; this stunningly beautiful couple become a magnet for Harlem celebrities. The novel drew on West's experience of downtown dancefloors during the 1920s, when white couples from Manhattan would seek out the exotic experience of shimmying alongside African-Americans. Watts suggests that the novel functioned as a "very personal statement" for West who, a few months before she began writing it, had told a journalist that she was planning an autobiography.
• • West's plays The Drag and SEX also blurred the boundaries between art and reality. The characters discussed transvestism, homosexuality and prostitution, in lines often delivered by West's gay friends. The 10 days she served at the Jefferson Market Women's Prison [sic] after being prosecuted for obscenity in 1927, proved a mine of stories. Watts writes that the experience "returned her to reality, reminding her of the destructiveness of poverty, discrimination, and sexual exploitation of women". The public responded, and although The Drag was forced to close on the grounds of decency, SEX proved extremely popular and ran for several more weeks.
• • Diamond Lil — — her best-known play, and later a Hollywood film — — was also inspired by an authentic New York character. A front-desk manager at a local hotel began reminiscing about his younger days as a police officer in the Bowery district, and about the area's most famous female con artist. The play represented the culmination of the years in which West had crafted her performance. "Lil was a composite of almost all the trends present in the previous 50 years of American popular entertainment — — a pastiche of a Bowery girl, Lillian Russell, George M Cohan, Eva Tanguay, a drag queen, Bert Williams, a shimmy dancer, and a blues singer".
• • Mae West is a fascinating character for contemporary audiences, particularly because her performance was so deeply ironic and sexually playful. But Watts often subjects her to an over-rigorous analysis that takes away from, rather than adds to, an understanding of her life. She regards West's memories of boxing in the ring with her father as tantamount to "abuse", while a family trip to the Coney Island circus becomes "the struggle between animalistic brutality and human intellect".
• • Jill Watt's Mae West may be only for the cogniscenti.
• • Source: Independent Newspapers UK Limited — — www.independent.co.uk
• • Book Reviewer: Julie Wheelwright• • Published on: 8 November 2001 • • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1947 • •
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Mae West.
In 1927 Mae West was prosecuted here on Sixth Avenue for obscenity — — particularly because of the homosexual content of her shows. 
But more recently the nineteenth century landmark was about to be raped by the pencil-pushers who rule The New York Public Library. Fortunately, Greenwich Village residents rallied in the name of justice and won.
• • The Villager recently published this news about the beloved Jefferson Market Courthouse turned library.
• • In his front page feature "Long-overdue library facade repairs finally fully funded," staffwriter Albert Amateau explained the cause for jubilation. He wrote: "Villagers who have long been demanding the renovation of the Jefferson Market Library’s exterior celebrated the announcement on Tuesday [21 August 2007] that new city funding has assured the project.
• • Council Speaker Christine Quinn joined State Senator Tom Duane, New York Public Library President Paul LeClerc and Village leaders in the community room of the landmarked library to announce that the new funding brings the total allocation to more than $7 million for renovating the facade, windows, roof, and tower of the landmarked building erected in 1877 as a courthouse.
• • The beginning of construction is planned for June 2009 and is expected to be completed in two years. A two-month design phase includes review by the Landmarks Preservation Commission because the building is a designated New York City landmark. A final design and development of construction documents will follow and be submitted to contractors for bidding.
• • Several Greenwich Village Block Associations ... renewed the call for preserving the deteriorating exterior of the library. Since 2003, the Sixth Avenue and West 10th Street sides of the library have been obscured by a sidewalk shed erected to protect people from fragments of limestone and brick falling from the facade.
• • “We all know that the Jefferson Market Library is one of the great library buildings in the city,” Quinn said. “In 1880, it was cited as one of the 10 most beautiful buildings in the country. But in the past few years you had to squint to see it because of the scaffold.”
• • Quinn recalled that when Duane was city councilmember for the Village in 1992 — — and she was then on his staff — — he was able to get more than $700,000 allocated for restoring the building. Added to that, Quinn this year allocated $2.7 million in addition to $1.39 million she earmarked in previous years. Also this year, Mayor Bloomberg provided matching funds of $2.2 million for the library restoration.
• • It was uncertain last year whether previous funds appropriated for a redesign of the library’s interior could be reallocated for facade and structural work. But in February 2007, LI/ Salzman Architects completed a report funded by Quinn and Duane that concluded that because of significant deterioration of the sandstone and brickwork, plus open mortar joints and cracked stone, water had penetrated the facade causing the stonework to shift and settle and allowing the building’s iron structure to rust.
• • In addition, it was found that the Sixth Avenue portico has detached slightly from the facade and leans slightly toward the street.
• • All but $184,000 — — spent for interior design work [a design that would have reconfigured the library's reference room into a music lounge for teens] — — of more than $2 million previously funded will be transferred to the exterior project. The work includes shoring up deficiencies that contributed to the deterioration and returning the building to its original splendor.
• • Community Board 2 called the library "the most iconic building in the Village.”
• • Designed by Frederick Clark Withers and Calvert Vaux in 1875 and completed two years later, the courthouse was where Harry K. Thaw was found guilty of murdering the architect Stanford White and where Mae West was prosecuted for the sexual content of her shows.
• • The courthouse was erected on the site of the Jefferson Market, where a 100-foot-tall wooden fire tower kept watch over the Village. The courthouse tower is also 100 feet tall and holds the original fire bell from its wooden precursor.
• • By 1945 the building was no longer used as a courthouse and other agencies had occupied it. A 1958 decision to demolish the building was fought by Village advocates . . .
— — excerpt — —
• • Source: The Villager — — www.TheVillager.com
• • Byline: Albert Amateau
• • Published on: 23 August 2007
• • Unfortunately, this landmark has not preserved the building's cultural history via a plaque nor a permanent exhibition inside, where there's lots of space for it — — and now the funding. MAE WEST and a heap of women's history-makers tramped through these corridors. Maybe. . . .
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Illustration: • • Mae West on trial • • 1927 • •
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Mae West.
Come up and see MAE today in Ohio. 
• • Trying an experiment, the Ohio Theatre will offer its first double feature.
• • On Friday 24 August 2007, the onscreen feature is She Done Him Wrong [1933], the gay 90s Bowery-in-Hollywood replay of Mae West's beloved Broadway comedy "Diamond Lil."
• • Reprising the famous Bert Savoy line, Mae West extends an invitation to Cary Grant: "Why don't you come up sometime and see me?"
• • Second on the bill is Cobra Woman [1944], one very campy flick starring the heavy-accented actress Maria Montez, who plays twins.
• • Don't miss this classic Mae West — — today at 7:30 PM.
• • Ohio Theatre [39 E. State St., Columbus, Ohio] — Tel: 614-469-0939.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1933 • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST was back on Broadway on 2 August 1944.
• • As the country was at war, Mae West was ruling over her audiences. Her cast wore Russian military uniforms. Their ammunition: laughter.
• • After trying for several years, she found a backer and staged her bawdy comedy Catherine Was Great. The play co-starred Mae West and her leading man, actor Gene Barry.
• • The play ran on the rialto for a total of 191 performances.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST never exposed her personal deficiences in order to plug her shows. Not so for small-screen swatter Kelsey Grammer, who is shameless when it comes to relying on 30-year-old info on his dead sister to attract viewers to his new TV series.
• • In an attempt to promote the debut of his TV show, here is the American actor Kelsey Grammer, blabbing about the chaotic relationships in his life that he blames for compounding his troubles with drug use.
• • KELSEY GRAMMER told interviewer Dotson Rader: "I'm attracted to threshold experiences — to chaos, insanity, mayhem," Grammer says, "so I was drawn to women who were dramatic, emotional, and unpredictable, with great sexual energy. I liked surprises. I liked women who could be demonstrative, demanding, socially unacceptable. While I was dealing with those desires, I was also trying to reconcile how I was actually living my life with how I thought my life should be lived — the traditional idea of a normal existence with a wife, a family." ...
• • After a string of failed marriages, Kelsey Grammer finally found a normal existence with his current wife Camille Donatacci, whom he met in 1996. ...
• • Kelsey Grammer is so unlike Mae West, who was never a "drama queen" and who shunned "demanding and jealous" boyfriends — — as much as she avoided over-indulging in alcohol, excuse-making, or a craving for bad-boy-lovers.
• • In an upcoming interview with Parade Magazine, Kelsey Grammer blames his drug use on his sister's murder [when she was 18 years old and he was 20].
• • Interestingly, the only persons Mae West ever "blamed" were the censors who cut the fun out of her films.
• • Do we prefer celebrities who are strong? Or do we prefer the troubled lost souls?
• • Is talking about a dead sister a career move in TV-ville?• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST adored ragtime. 
She performed a rag that she especially loved onstage in "Diamond Lil" and its Hollywood counterpart "She Done Him Wrong." The lyricist and composer of this song — — "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone" — — was Shelton Brooks [4 May 1886 — 6 September 1975], who published it about 1913.
• • Born in Canada, Shelton Brooks moved to Detroit in 1901 with his family; his parents were Native American and Black. His father was a preacher and Shelton and his brother would play the organ during services.
• • Surrounded by music, Shelton wrote his first big hit in 1910 — — "Some of These Days" — — using his own lyrics. He had already introduced the song in his own vaudeville act when Sophie Tucker's maid introduced both him and the tune to Sophie. The vaudevillian, who would eventually style herself as "the Last of the Red Hot Mamas," made this number her very own theme song.
• • His 1916 instrumental tune "Walkin' The Dog" inspired a dance that first swept dancehall-crazed New York City, and then the rest of the country. In 1917, Brooks had another hit with "The Darktown Strutter's Ball," for which he wrote both the words and music.
• • It was in August [on 21 August 1971] — — on a TV program called "The Anthony Newley Show" — — that "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone" was performed by Liza Minnelli. Was Mae West watching Liza on television that evening?
• • Four years later, Shelton Brooks died in Los Angeles in 1975 when he was 89 years old. He is buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West's songwriter • • Shelton Brooks • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST, with the rough baritone voice she had as a child, was often cast as a male in stock productions. She played the leading role of Little Lord Fauntleroy several times in Brooklyn theatres.
• • The British-born playwright and author Frances Hodgson Burnett [24 November 1849 — 29 October 1924] is best known for her children's stories, especially The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and (of course) Little Lord Fauntleroy.
• • Born in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in England, Frances emigrated to America (Knoxville, Tennessee) after her father died in 1865.
• • Following the death of her mother in 1872, Frances became the head of the household. Pressed with the demands of supporting herself and four younger siblings, she looked for income from writing assignments.
• • Serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1885, Little Lord Fauntleroy is a sentimental children's narrative that became a huge hit for the publication. In 1886, this work was separately published as a novel. The book was a commercial success for its author, and its fanciful sketches by Reginald Birch set fashion trends.
• • The Fauntleroy suit — — described by Frances Hodgson Burnett and sweetly illustrated via Reginald Birch's detailed pen-and-ink drawings — — created a major fad in formal attire for American middle-class children:
• • • • "What the Earl saw was a graceful, childish figure in a black velvet suit, with a lace collar, and with lovelocks waving about the handsome, manly little face, whose eyes met his with a look of innocent good-fellowship." — — Little Lord Fauntleroy
• • Clothing that Frances Hodgson Burnett popularized had been modeled on the garments she sewed by hand for her two sons, Vivian and Lionel. Under the influence of Birch's illustrations for Little Lord Fauntleroy, many middle-class American parents began dressing their sons in velvet suits with lace collars and sashes and short knee-pants, and to have their boys' hair curled into long ringlets like Cedric — — a mode that was considered aristocratic.
• • In 1921 a silent movie version was released starring Mary Pickford as Little Lord Fauntleroy.
• • Here is 15-year-old Mae West, costumed for the part in a theatrical production, in 1908 — — ninety-nine years ago.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1908 • •
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Mae West.
How many remember when Regis came up to see Mae West in "Sextette"?
• • Native New Yorker Regis Philbin was born in August — — on 25 August 1931. As with Mae West, Regis claims Irish descent on his father's side.
• • From 1975 to 1983, he co-hosted "A.M. Los Angeles," a local morning talk show in California on KABC-TV with female co-hosts. Supposedly, Philbin's participation boosted the ratings and it became a top-shelf show.
• • While he was based on the West Coast, he had a cameo, playing himself in Mae West's last film when he was 47 years old. "Sextette," a 1978 Crown International comedy/ musical motion picture starring Mae West, also looped in walk-on bits featuring Hollywood gossip-vixen Rona Barrett and Mae's former lover George Raft playing themselves.
• • Regis Philbin moved to New York City to do a locally-produced morning talk show, which became nationally syndicated in September 1988 as "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee." He has an apartment on West 67th Street not far from his show's TV studios.
• • Celebrating his 76th birthday this month, Regis Philbin — — TV-talk show host, game-show host, singer, author, and TV personality — — is still going strong on the small screen.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST cultivated her curves. Nevertheless, in Tinseltown THIN is in. 
• • Recently, an Associated Press headline focused on Hollywood's real bottom line: chicks with big buttocks rarely play the romantic lead in big budget flicks.
• • AP reporter David Germain nudged his readers with this come-on: "Hairspray" embraces big girls; can Hollywood handle the weight? Here is an excerpt.
• • According to David Germain's newspaper article, The ladies of "Hairspray" are a rarity in fat-phobic Hollywood, whose obsession with willowy women is so strong the idea of a corpulent heroine is almost unheard of.
• • Curvier women such as Mae West, Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, and Jane Russell were far more common in old Hollywood, but the outright portly like "Hairspray" lead character Tracy Turnblad have hardly ever gotten their day as lead characters.
• • "Growing up, all I saw were the really thin actors and pop singers of the world. Everybody was so thin and tall and blond — — and everything I was not," said Nikki Blonsky, the hefty 4-foot-10 newcomer who plays Tracy. ...
— — excerpt — —
• • Source: The Associated Press
• • Byline: David Germain
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1932 • •
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Mae West.
"You only live once," MAE WEST used to say, "but if you do it right, once is enough." And at least once every year on August 17th, certain MAE-mavens come together in her honor. 
• • There they are — — heavy with giftbags and light of heart — — standing in the lobby of Mae West's former residence on West 57th Street [New York, NY 10019].
• • This year's walking tour — — labelled the "Mae West Side Story" — — explored the actress's wild WESTside. Intrepid explorers set out with NYC historian LindaAnn Loschiavo, and visited three of Mae West's exotic former homes; a speakeasy where the actress socialized with bluebloods and red-blooded gun-toting gangsters such as Legs Diamond, Larry Fay, Owney Madden, "Feets" Edson, Texas and Tommy Guinan; ancient vaudeville theatres; venerable Broadway houses; and more.
• • Participants, who came from as far away as Great Britain and California, enjoyed the experience of being chez Mae where, after the final stop, the group returned to raise a flute of bubbly in her honor — — under her own roof. It was a special thrill for all, and a perfect finale to Mae's day.
• • Mae West always said, "I was born on a cool night on a hot month so I knew I could expect surprises." As the walking tour paused for a drawing of raffle prizes around the fountains at Columbus Circle, a sign flashed the New York City temperature: 62 degrees F — — on Friday 17 August 2007. Mae was in the air.
• • Photo courtesy of Mae-maven Conrad Bradford [not shown in the picture].• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West Gala fans • • 2007 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST: where was she born in Brooklyn — — and when?
• • Morons who look to Wikipedia for factoids, for instance, will note that one jokester recently burbled the bio-page on MAE WEST, weaving in even more inaccuracies [i.e., utter poppycock such as Mae West was born in Woodhaven (sic) in a comfortable middle-class neighborhood (sic)].
• • May cobras nest in the pillow of this clown. Cackle!
• • And though we are great fans of the venerable Brooklyn Eagle, 'tis sad to say that a less-eagle-eyed trainee in the newsroom belched out a tsunami of wild speculations — — alack and alas — — on the icon's birthday.
• • According to the Brooklyn Eagle staff: That she was born in Brooklyn, there is no doubt — — but exactly where is a subject of controversy. Even in her biography, she simply said “I was born on a respectable street in Brooklyn.” It is almost a certainty that she was born in the Greenpoint section at 184 Franklin Avenue, which would be the Astral Apartments. Another controversial question is when. Mae always claimed the year as 1893 — but ....
— — excerpt — —
• • On This Day in History: August 17
• • The Brooklynite That Made the Dictionary by Brooklyn Eagle
• • Source: The Brooklyn Eagle — — www.brooklyneagle.com/
• • Gee whiz! And we thought that everybody knew Mae West was born in Bushwick!• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1933 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST [17 August 1893 – 22 November 1980] — — the only actress who wrote the plays that she starred in on Broadway and who penned the motion picture dialogue she performed on the silver screen — — was never nominated for a "best actress" theatre award nor an Oscar. Ironically, this may have helped to assure some of Mae West's 1930s [and pre-Code] films an enduring cachet. 
• • Too complete a victory, after all, would have led to a loss of credibility. Hip is (by definition) an oppositional stance that the embrace of the establishment can only compromise.
• • Mae was hip. She was so cool-headed in her films: unflappable, in control, and one step ahead.
• • If Hollywood toasts Mae mainly for her celluloid side, then New Yorkers salute her also for the merriment the comedienne brought to the footlights — — along with the equal opportunity angling she tried to bring about for gays and blacks on the rialto.
• • A one-of-a-kind lady she was — — that industrial-strength Brooklyn accent and all.• • Meet the "wild WEST" side of Mae West on Friday evening 17 August 2007, when a guided tour will explore Manhattan's MAE 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.
• • On August 17th the tour begins on Broadway and West 50th Street [NE corner] at 7:00 PM. As participants visit over a dozen WESTside locations significant to Mae West, they will enjoy rare antique photographs that show how each building looked when the actress rehearsed, performed, socialized, or got into mischief there. These startling vintage views also show how Mae looked when she was inside.
• • [See the Annual Mae West Gala posting below for the tour price and details.]• • Today — — all day — — is Mae's birthday: August 17th!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1928 • •
NYC
Mae West.
Inspired by the wit of MAE WEST, Dorothy Parker, and other women, Paul Gemignani and Lonny Price have developed a limited engagement revue exclusively for a Colorado theatre festival held in September. 
