• • Perhaps you remember seeing the lanky Englishman when he played the female impersonator Rene Valentine in "Mae West" [1982], a made for tv bio-pic. McDowall also received credit for [gulp!] "Technical Details" — — which is astonishing since his choices in his scenes with the Brooklyn bombshell all seem false.
• • Moreover, his rift on the elegant Julian Eltinge misses the point; Roddy McDowall looks more like one of Cinderella's ugly step-sisters than the Broadway star of "The Fascinating Widow."
• • Shouldn't someone have noticed that the bawdy over-the-top drag queen Mae most adored was the campy cut-up Bert Savoy — — not the inscrutable Mr. Eltinge?
• • Anyway, one happy fella was Richard F. Shepard, whose New York Times review said: "Roddy McDowall is persuasive as a female impersonator who puts Miss West on the path to stardom by fixing her stage personality and appearance; he is almost scholarly and calm, the lifelong friend and confidant" [Richard F. Shepard, NY Times, 14 August 1984].
• • Directed by Lee Phillips, the 1982 bio-pic also featured Ann Jillian as Mae West, James Brolin as Jim Timony, et al.
• • Decide for yourself how watchable Roddy McDowall is in this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVZflfidfy4
• • The actor died of lung cancer in California on 3 October 1998.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
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NYC
Mae West.
Unfortunately, this biopic is the only movie to date “portraying” the life of the late, great Mae West. There isn t room enough in this comment space to correct the inaccuracies and falsehoods contained in this alleged bio pic. Too bad! Mae deserves much better. Whatever happened to the bette milder project?
ReplyDelete• • Yes, you're absolutely correct, Walter: many falsehoods, skewed casting [a handsome James Brolin as Jim Timony?], wrong-headed choices, etc.
ReplyDelete• • Yes, Mae West deserved better.
• • Bette Midler, born in 1945, is too old to play Mae West by now, in my opinion. That bio-pic project died awhile ago.
• • Dolly Parton, born in 1946, spent a lot of her own $$ preparing to play Mae West in 2003; Dolly learned to speak and move like Mae, etc. But ABC killed that project.