• • Consider Club Napoleon: 33 West 56th Street. Even before she read the script, Mae West was familiar with these premises on West 56th Street. No less familiar with Club Napoleon was George Raft, who had tangoed in speakeasies run by Texas Guinan and her brother, nightspots patronized by nighthawk Dorothy Parker along with literary "round table" types as well as trouble-makers, who had a gun in their pocket in case they weren't glad to see you.
• • It was Tommy Guinan and Sherman Billingsley who were the Pied Pipers of Club Napoleon, mixmasters who made the right ingredients pour in: bluebloods, showgirls, prizefighters, poobahs, punks, princesses, and pinky-ring types.
• • Club Napoleon’s escapades inspired a sly short story — — "Single Night" by Louis Bromfield — — which Mae West, Kathryn Scola, and Vincent Lawrence would fine-tune and finesse into a screenplay about a speak with the working title of Number 55.
• • An address change couldn’t fool New Yorkers. Those in the know realized this was about "that house on Fifty-Sixth Street," which had been owned by Charles Donahue, whose ambitious brother had wooed and wed heiress Jessie Woolworth, worth $70,000,000 thanks to her grandfather, founder of the five-and-dime chain.
• • When this elegant five-story nineteenth century limestone mansion became the lavishly appointed speakeasy Club Napoleon, a repeat attender was Pulitzer winner Louis Bromfield [1896-1956]. Whiling away an afternoon with a news man, Bromfield noticed a stranger who ordered a drink, then threw it on the floor. Headwaiter Albert Berryman protested, whereupon the gent raved about being born in this very house and resenting its downturn into an illegal gin mill. He left without revealing his name. Not long after, on April 24, 1931, the cousin and legal guardian of the 18-year-old heiress Barbara Hutton made a splash on the front page of The New York Times; deep in debt, millionaire broker James Paul Donahue, 44, had doffed a chemical cocktail and committed suicide.
• • Louis Bromfield stirred these bitters into a creamier concoction, which he resold to Hollywood. "Night After Night" was intended as a vehicle for George Raft, featuring Constance Cummings and Texas Guinan, whose baubles were so substantial that she could signal ships with her jewelry.
• • Though that part went to Mae West, the role of "Maudie Triplett" retained its Cartier cachet.
• • "Goodness!" cried the girl. "Are them diamonds real?"
• • "Yes, dearie," Mae West replied, "but goodness had nothing to do with it."
• • "Night After Night" began production on 22 August 1932.
• • Another film with a similar slant was "The House on 56th Street," starring Kay Francis.
• • Like a genie released from a bottle, fanciful legends rapidly took shape on West 56th Street — especially after bootlegger Larry Fay renamed the club Casa Blanca, and met a spectacularly crimson-soaked death there on January 1, 1933.
• • Preserve your Mae West memories 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.]
• • Only 8 more days until Mae's birthday!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Film poster: • • Mae West's co-star George Raft • • 1932 • •
NYC
Mae West.
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