Mae West: Risqué

The radio appearance was supposed to promote MAE WEST's latest comedy for Paramount Pictures — — Every Day's a Holiday — — a motion picture which begins on New Year's Eve in 1899.
• • Close to Christmas — — on 12 December 1937 — — Mae West appeared in two separate sketches on ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's radio show, The Chase & Sanborn Hour, that shocked and outraged both the listening audience and NBC executives. Since Mae was promoting her latest film, the studio felt that this popular weekly program would give her free exposure — — and Edgar Bergen [1903-1978] had attracted his own substantial fan base.
• • Gowned and bejeweled, Mae appeared as herself, flirting very heavily with Charlie McCarthy, Bergen's dummy, utilizing her usual brand of wit and risqué sexual references.
• • As if to be extra-cautious, Mae donned eyeglasses and also wore a fancy lornette on a chain around her neck, not unlike the extra-careful gentleman who wears suspenders and a belt. Then she stepped up to the microphone and threw caution to the wind.
• • Here's a portion of the banter between Mae West and Charlie McCarthy:
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• • Charlie: Could you even like Mr. Bergen?
• • Mae: Ah, Mr. Bergen. He’s very sweet. In fact, he’s a right guy. Confidentially, yuh’ll have to show me a man I don’t like.
• • Charlie: That’s swell! Bergen’s your man. You know, he can be had.
• • Mae: On second thought, I’m liable to take him away from yuh.
• • Charlie: Well, if you take Bergen away, I’m speechless. (Laughter.)
• • Mae: Why don’t you come up … uh, home with me now, honey? I’ll let you play in my woodpile. (Laughter.)
• • Charlie: Well, I’m not feeling so well tonight. I’ve been feeling nervous lately. I think I’m gonna have a nervous breakdown. Whuup! There I go.
• • Mae: So, good-time Charlie’s gonna play hard to get? Well, yuh can’t kid me. You’re afraid of women. Your Casanova stuff is just a front, a false front.
• • Charlie: Not so loud, Mae, not so loud! All my girlfriends are listening.
• • Mae: Oh, yeah! You’re all wood and a yard long …
• • Charlie: (weakly): Yeah.
• • Mae: Yuh weren’t so nervous and backward when yuh came up to see me at my apartment. In fact, yuh didn’t need any encouragement to kiss me.
• • Charlie: Did I do that?
• • Mae: Why, yuh certainly did. I got marks to prove it. (Snickering from audience) An’ splinters, too. (Laughter). ...
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Blustering with bile, The Chicago Tribune called NBC's program “vomitus” — — quote unquote.
• • The New York Sun wrote: “On any other day of the week the skit would have justified the severest criticism from the standpoint of good taste, but on Sunday such a broadcast represents the all-time low in radio. The most charitable explanation is that the producers were mesmerized by the reputed glamour of the entertainer.”
• • The uproar got Mae West banished from the airwaves for over ten years.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.