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Was MAE WEST in the rehearsal room yesterday on West 38th Street? 
• • The "Courting Mae West" cast had just run through a complex court scene set during April 1927 — — a trial that concluded when Judge George Donnellan entered and told Mae West that the jury found her guilty, that she is going to jail, and that on April 19th sentencing would be imposed.
• • Based on true events, this is an emotional scene, featuring Mae's German-born mother Matilda West reacting to the verdict by standing up and pleading with the judge not to jail her daughter again.
• • "Why do you make bad laws in this country that punish good people?" yells Matilda West before stumbling and falling. A melee begins as the reporters photograph and crowd around Mae West — — who is trying desperately to reach her mother. 
• • The cast had just paused for a food break and director Louis Lopardi was about to announce the time of the next rehearsal (which is tomorrow on Monday).
• • The windows in the rehearsal room are closed and covered with heavy paper and hidden behind heavy black curtains.
• • Suddenly, the thick black curtains moved — — and THREE empty CHAIRS and a TABLE moved in unison about 2 feet into the room.
• • The cast found this occurrence quite strange.
• • Mae West, was that you?• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 6 o'clock on Saturday night July 19, 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre [East 24th Street and Park Avenue South].
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — showtimes
• • July 19th, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 20th, 2008 — — 2:00 PM matinee
• • July 21st, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 22nd, 2008 — — 9:00 PM
• • Tickets to "COURTING MAE WEST" are $18 per adult.
• • Theatermania.com sells the tickets — — http://www.theatermania.com/content/show.cfm/show/144297
• • Questions? Phone 212-779-3051.
• • The play is 95 minutes.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae West, Texas Guinan, and the gang onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • "Sex" trial April 1927 • •
• • Photo: • • Mae West cast • • Eric Eastman plays Barry O'Neill • •NYC
Mae West.
Named for MAE WEST was a famous flotation device, a certain style of radio, a palm-size dessert made in Canada, a soda bottle, and also an old-fashioned gasoline pump.
• • "They called this style the Mae West. The yellow stand is tall and lean, with curves in all the right places. Kind of," writes Maria Canton.
• • It is a vintage gas pump, after all, but its name and shape give a nod to the iconic actress who lit Hollywood on fire in the 1930s and 40s, about the same time the pump earned its nickname on the gasoline scene.
• • The Mae West gas pump is just one of more than a hundred in Cornelius Vlielander's sizable collection that he keeps on display in the front yard of his 100-acre farm near Chatsworth. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Byline: Maria Canton
• • Published in: The Owen Sound Sun Times [Ontario, Canada] — — www.owensoundsuntimes.com
• • Published on: 20 June 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
In the first scene of "Courting Mae West" — — set in the speakeasy where MAE WEST became acquainted with drag queens that inspired "The Drag" — — MAE WEST rails against hypocrisy.
• • Hypocrites in City Hall and the "purity police" were, Mae felt, double dealers who overlooked their own sins even as they tried to chase "dirt plays" off the boards.
• • Landlady Peg Rourke (one of the play's fictional characters) runs a boarding house on West Ninth Street where her daughter is an unpaid maid, and where one lodger is the journalist who is "courting" Mae West. Peg has discounted the reporter's rent, which arouses Mae's suspicions. "Discounts start with reasons," says Mae. "Is she taking it out in trade?" 
• • News man Mario "Shortie" De Angelis insists Peg Rourke is "a pious prude."• • Portraying the complex landlady with a dark past is Gloria M. Buccino.
• • Gloria Buccino is a retired police sergeant. Having retired from law enforcement, Gloria decided to pursue her passion — — acting. "I always knew I wanted to act," she said. "It just took me a while to focus on it." Over the years, while "on the job," she studied at Susan Grace Cohen Studio, West Baron Studio, Acting Management. In 2006, now retired, she began studying with Howard Meyer at HM Acting Studio, a division of Axial Theatre [in Westchester, New York]. In 2007 Miss Buccino was seen in these HM Acting Workshop Productions: Girl Talk and Into the Deep. She is a member of The Axial Theatre Company, and was recently accepted into The Actor's Project NYC. Gloria is a member of AFTRA.
• • Slipping into Peg Rourke's Irish lilt was an interesting flashback for Gloria Buccino, who has come in contact with many an Irishman while in uniform.
• • A versatile thespian, Gloria Buccino also takes the role on the Prison Matron and Matilda West, Mae's beloved mother. As Mrs. Matilda West, the actress will deliver the poignant lines that (Marsha Norman predicted) will be talked about during Intermission.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 6 o'clock on Saturday night July 19, 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre [East 24th Street and Park Avenue South].
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — showtimes
• • July 19th, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 20th, 2008 — — 2:00 PM matinee
• • July 21st, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 22nd, 2008 — — 9:00 PM
• • Tickets to "COURTING MAE WEST" are $18 per adult.
• • Theatermania.com sells the tickets — — http://www.theatermania.com/content/show.cfm/show/144297
• • Questions? Phone 212-779-3051.
• • The play is 95 minutes.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae West, Texas Guinan, and the gang onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West play • • Ingrid Kullberg-Bendz • •
NYC
Mae West.
Collectors Book Store in Hollywood was a place MAE WEST used to visit.
• • Mark Willoughby, 51, worked there with collectibles dealer Malcolm Willits for 30 years.
• • Willoughby recalled how stars such as Mae West would come in to inspect the still photos of her that were stored in Willits' steel file cabinets.
• • "Mae West was so nice. She would trade us better pictures of herself for the ones that she didn't like. Janet Leigh was another one who was always nice. She would come in and sign things for fans."
• • An enormous stash of motion picture memorabilia, gathered over the last 43 years by film fan and collectibles dealer Malcolm Willits, now 74 years old and retired — — including original scripts and studio contracts signed by Oscar-winning actresses and actors — — had been housed in a storefront on Hollywood Boulevard near the Pantages Theater.
• • Experts consider this collection to be second in size only to that of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Six months from now, the entire lot will be auctioned off. Come back and see us for an up-date on this auction.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
Edith Head is one of several fashion costumers who whipped up wicked fashions for screen queen MAE WEST.
• • Soon to be opening in London's West End (and how appropriate) is the one-woman show "A Conversation With Edith Head" written by and starring Susan Claassen, who received her inspiration from a TV bio-pic about Edith Head. 
• • The Oscar-winning designing woman Edith Head [28 October 1897 — 24 October 1981] once told an interviewer that "Mae West taught me everything I know about sex, clothes-wise." Claassen, as her alter-ego Head, will be dishing her Hollywood dirt at the West End’s Arts Theatre this month. Previews begin 29 July. The run is scheduled from 31 July to 30 August 2008.
• • Certainly Edith Head would have a lot to talk about since she spent six decades in Tinseltown. Over 40 years were at Paramount Pictures, where Edith Head dressed Mae West, Clara Bow, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Bette Davis, and others.
• • Arts Theatre: 6-7 Great Newport Street, West End, Greater London WC2H 7JB.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Edith Head's design for Mae • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST appears (briefly) to lobby President Harding for Eugene Debs' release during the early 1920s in a new book.
• • Democracy's Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent by Ernest Freeberg [Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 380 pages] would certainly have struck a sympathetic chord with City Hall nose-thumber Mae West.
• • Book reviewer Peter Richardson writes: Before World War I, a radical journal could reach 700,000 American households, and socialism was what William James might call "a live hypothesis." The impassioned speeches of labor organizer, Socialist leader, and five-time presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs [5 November 1855 — 20 October 1926] were nothing short of evangelical in tone and effect. (He once called socialism "merely Christianity in action.") Debs inspired groups large and small, and his remarkable charisma is what most concerned the powers that were. For the historical parallel to hold, we must imagine a third-party presidential candidate today who could receive 1 million votes without leaving his prison cell — — and a roaring ovation from his fellow inmates when he finally did. According to historian Ernest Freeberg, it was precisely Debs' virtuosity that forced America to grapple with the limits of dissent. . . [selection from a book review in The Los Angeles Times, 15 June 2008].• • Ohio native Warren Harding [2 November 1865 — 2 August 1923] was a politician and the twenty-ninth President of the USA, serving from 1921—1923; his term ended when he died from a heart attack at age 57.
• • During World War I, Debs made an antiwar speech and got 20 years for violating the 1917 Espionage Act. President Warren Harding commuted the sentence to time served in 1921.
• • It is hoped that Ernest Freeberg got his Mae-facts straight — — unlike idiotic Niall Palmer who blissfully showed his dunder-headed side in his book The Twenties in America: Politics and History [Edinburgh University Press, 2006] with error-ridden sentences such as this one on page 57: "Hollywood 'vamp,' Mae West, took full advantage of her rising fame when she petitioned the White House for the release of Eugene Debs."
• • Please note, Niall Palmer, that Mae West did not make a motion picture in Hollywood until 1932, nine years after Pres. Harding died — — and eleven years after she wrote to him in the White House.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST utilized her friend Gene Austin's musical talents in her films "Belle of the Nineties" [1934]; "Klondike Annie" [1936]; and "My Little Chickadee" [1940].
• • In addition to writing the music and lyrics for "Klondike Annie," Gene Austin also appears as a vocalist and organ player during the church service. As the collection is in progress, Gene Austin and the parishioners sing "It's Better to Give Than to Receive."
• • Seven years younger than Mae, Gene Austin was born in the month of June in Texas on 24 June 1900.
• • World heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey came up to see Mae onstage at the premiere of "The Mimic World of 1921." One of the characters Mae played was "Shifty Liz."
• • After the performance, the champ and the actress enjoyed their own private performance in her dressing room. Jack Dempsey retained the title from 1919 —1926 but he may have held Mae's heart a little longer.
• • Two years younger than Mae, the dashing prizefighter was born in Colorado on 24 June 1895.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
Actress MAE WEST [1893—1980] wrote a book on ESP, consulted psychics, and was working on a manuscript about the remarkable Reverend Jack Kelly, her favorite Medium from Lily Dale Assembly, when she died in Los Angeles in 1980. None of this prevents Mae from attending rehearsals of the play "Courting Mae West," which will open in her hometown during July. 
• • The actress who will portray her mentioned distinctly feeling her presence during scenes.
• • The Assistant Director added, "You know, it's funny you should say that. I was just thinking after rehearsal today, that Mae West is around this project. I feel it, too.
• • In her book Mae West on Sex, Health, and ESP [London — New York: W. H. Allen, 1975; 237 pages], the Brooklyn bombshell explained that she did not feel limited by the standard notions about life and death.
• • Well, I don't live in the past, Mae West insisted — — "though I like t' see people from then. Cary Grant comes t' see me. Gilbert Roland, Bette Davis, Garbo. Jack LaRue, before he passed on, and George Raft. I almost married George. . . . An' I don't kid myself or have mystical illusions. I never drink or take anything."
• • In the play "Courting Mae West," the MAE WEST character encourages a newsman to write about her — — instead of devoting himself to his biography of Winfield Scott.
• • MAE WEST says, "I'm an actress with a future, see? History has no future."
• • It's been said that her benevolence continues to manifest itself around the production. More on that in a future column.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 6 o'clock on Saturday night July 19, 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre [East 24th Street and Park Avenue South].
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — showtimes
• • July 19th, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 20th, 2008 — — 2:00 PM matinee
• • July 21st, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 22nd, 2008 — — 9:00 PM
• • Tickets to "COURTING MAE WEST" are $18 per adult.
• • Theatermania.com sells the tickets — — http://www.theatermania.com/content/show.cfm/show/144297
• • Questions? Phone 212-779-3051.
• • The play is 95 minutes.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae West, Texas Guinan, and the gang onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West in court • • 3 October 1928 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST never met Bill Gates — — but, oddly enough, he controls the rights to certain aspects of her image.
• • And now one division of Bill Gates' image-licensing company, Seattle's Corbis Corp., is renaming itself in order to make its role clearer. Corbis' Rights Services division, which owns and licenses the rights to images of deceased celebrities — — including Mae West and Steve McQueen — — will change its name to GreenLight.
• • Working with talent agencies, GreenLight will also take on the business of linking living celebrities with brands seeking famous folks to give utterly meaningless items a bit of stardust.
• • Wonder what Mae West would think about Bill Gates managing her income via the afterworld? When he dies and encounters Mae by the Pearly Gates, Bill could be in for a heckuva surprise.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
• • According to Hollywood portraitist Michael Childers, MAE WEST knew the exact light in which she wanted to be photographed.
• • Michael Childers remembered meeting both Greta Garbo and Mae West at a party and asking Miss West if he could shoot her while she was filming "Myra Breckinridge."
• • Mae West agreed, said the lensman, as long as it wasn't on the set near Raquel Welch. When Childers entered her trailer, he noticed that Mae had pink spotlights lined up exactly where she wanted them.
• • "Now you can photograph me," the well-prepared actress announced.
• • The Friends of the Rancho Mirage Public Library in July will hold an opening reception for an exhibit featuring celebrity portraits by internationally known photographer Michael Childers.
• • His photographic collection includes Mae West, Clint Eastwood, John Travolta, Bernadette Peters, Bette Midler, and Cher.
• • An enormous influence on Michael Childers's career was his long-term lover John Schlesinger, an Oscar-winning director. For nearly 40 years, they were a gay couple in Hollywood from 1966 until the 77-year-old's death [in July 2003]. Naturally, they were invited everywhere together and this gave the newcomer easy access to Hollywood's best and brightest. He estimated he shot 60,000 Tinseltown photographs of cinema's most indelible icons — — including the most memorable Mae West.
• • On 8 July 2008 a free reception begins 5:30 p.m. at the Rancho Mirage Public Library, 71-100 Highway 111.
• • The exhibit runs through 31 October 2008. Info: 341-7323.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • by Michael Childers • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST, it's been said, was well acquainted with handsome John Carlyle, who was born in 1931 and coveted a place in the sun.
• • Published posthumously was this apologia pro vita sua: Under the Rainbow: An Intimate Memoir of Judy Garland, Rock Hudson & My Life in Old Hollywood (Carroll & Graf) by John Carlyle. His star-studded memory-book ferries readers through the uncertain underworld of gay Hollywood, where John rubs shoulders with everybody from Mae West to Hedy Lamarr, Raymond Burr, and Montgomery Clift. One reader called it, "Sometimes sad, other times salacious, but always riveting." Other book-buyers have been less charitable about his literary skills.
• • His reminiscences reveal his sexual liaisons with James Dean and Marlon Brando. He was friendly with Rock Hudson and Raymond Burr and tells of their double dates and he relates how Montgomery Clift sunk into drink and despair.
• • John Carlyle's female friends included the legendary Mae West as well as Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr, and Joan Fontaine.
• • Reviewer J.S. Hall critiqued the tell-all for Windy City Times last year.
• • In the annals of Hollywood history, John Carlyle [1931–2003] would’ve normally rated barely a footnote. Carlyle’s chief claim to fame stems from being one of Judy Garland’s later confidantes and paramours (even though he was gay, but that never stopped Judy).
• • By this point in her life, Garland’s clout had diminished; she veered between the drugs Ritalin and Seconal, and partied the frequently sleepless nights away. The possibility of Carlyle’s waking up to her dead body was a very real one. “I mean this to be my story, not Judy Garland’s,” he writes in his memoir, Under the Rainbow. “But she sure as hell made a dent.”
• • Although he pursued an acting career for most of his life, a self-conscious stiffness hindered Carlyle in his early years. Only in middle age and beyond did he have much of a career, mostly in theatrical roles; most of his TV and movie appearances were bit parts. But, as Carlyle readily acknowledges, he headed to Hollywood to be a star, not an actor, and initially he lacked the thick skin necessary for such a profession. Henry Willson [1911—1978], the notorious kingmaker agent best known for producing Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, took Carlyle on as a client, and the two remained friends until Henry Willson’s sad end in 1978.
• • Ironically, Carlyle’s brushes with movie greatness mainly ended up on the cutting-room floor. A scene from A Star Is Born suffered that fate, but the shoot marked the beginning of his friendship with Judy Garland. Then, he got cast as one of the young toughs in Rebel Without A Cause, but nerves got the better of his performance, and he was dismissed. Fortunately, a trust fund and some wise property investments sustained Carlyle when his chosen avocation did not.
• • As Chris Freeman notes in his introduction, “John Carlyle’s is a story of the one who didn’t make it, but his story is more complicated — and much more interesting — than that.” Despite an over-reliance on pills and booze for several decades, Carlyle solidified a reputation as a wit and good friend. Through his “fringe benefits” of befriending many Hollywood actors and actresses of the time, readers gain a first-hand look at the last vestiges of a Hollywood now long-gone and deeply mourned by those few who survived to remember it.
• • Stately and occasionally baroque, Carlyle’s writing style masterfully evokes the “sweaters and cocktails” era, when being gay meant “dignity and good taste, not shirtless boys and tweakers.” Undoubtedly, some readers will find it overly mannered and might despair of Carlyle’s continual returns to his dysfunctional Baltimore society family, his lingering details of his many pet cats and a seemingly unfathomable fascination with actress Joan Fontaine.
• • Unquestionably, the chapters detailing Carlyle’s times with Judy Garland are the highlight of Under the Rainbow. Although frequently exasperating and draining, Garland blazes like a beacon from these pages, drawing all manner of people to her inner flame, which guttered and died far too young after far too much self-abuse. He relishes the highs and lows of their times together, sweeping the reader along on the emotional roller-coaster ride.
• • While there are other unexpected celebrity encounters — like an audition for the aged Mae West; sharing the stage with Al “Grandpa Munster” Lewis on the dinner-theater circuit; and watching writer/ heavy drinker Dorothy Parker pass out in a neighbor’s shrubbery while walking her dog — unfortunately, they are the exceptions rather than the rule. Far too many pages are devoted to trivial details that people outside Carlyle’s family and inner circle of friends won’t care about, and other sections would’ve benefited from more judicious editing.
• • However, even during the book’s clumsiest moments, Carlyle’s skill as a raconteur shines through, permeating the pages with a pungent, wry sense of humor that this narrative could’ve used more of. For instance, his first stepmother (with older, pugilistic stepson in tow), “materialized as if by black magic on my father’s arm when I was three.” Much later on, after attending a disagreeable acquaintance’s funeral, he notes, “His ashes were scattered around a rose bush in the garden outside the chapel. Surely, it died instantly.”
— — Source: — —
• • Byline: J.S. Hall
• • Published in: Windy City Times
• • Published on: 17 January 2007
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST's gay play "Pleasure Man" had a $200,000 box office advance when it premiered at the Biltmore on 1 October 1928. The police raided the show, however, and shut it down the same night. Perhaps this was an easy target, since the theatre was on the same block as the precinct: 47th Street, west of Broadway. 
• • The infamous raid at the Biltmore is dramatized in the play "Courting Mae West," which will debut on Saturday 19 July 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre in Manhattan.• • Opened in 1925, the Biltmore also launched a number of successes, most notably "Brother Rat" (with Jose Ferrer); "See My Lawyer" (with Milton Berle); and the long-running tribal rock musical of the 1960s "Hair."
• • After years of neglect, the Biltmore was magnificently renovated and became the Tony Award-winning Manhattan Theatre Club's Broadway headquarters. It has been decided that the playhouse will be renamed the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in recognition of the pioneering Broadway publicist.
• • According to Playbill, the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre will be dedicated prior to the start of the 2008—09 season.
• • Playbill Staffwriter Kenneth Jones had a lot to say about Mr. Friedman, who was hired to promote Mae West's Broadway revival of "Diamond Lil" in 1950.
• • Kenneth Jones writes: Born and raised in New York City, Samuel J. Friedman (1912—1974) was a pioneer in theatrical publicity, according to MTC. "Legendary for his stunts, personality and press agentry, Mr. Friedman began his career in 1937 at the Shubert Organization on a Cole Porter musical You Never Know, starring Clifton Webb, Libby Holman, and Lupe Velez. In the early 1950s he opened National Press Agents with partner Bill Doll and at various times served as Vice President of Arthur P. Jacobs Co., Inc., VP of Publicity for United Artists Motion Pictures and PR Director of Hugh Hefner's Playboy Enterprises. He was a lifetime member and officer of the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers. Along the way he worked with such legendary performers as Gypsy Rose Lee (Star and Garter, 1942), Montgomery Clift (The Searching Wing, 1944), Billy Rose (Diamond Horseshoe, 1946) Josephine Baker (Paris Sings Again, 1947), Mae West (Diamond Lil, 1950), Bette Davis (Two's Company, 1952), Lotte Lenya (The Threepenny Opera, 1954), Jerry Orbach (The Threepenny Opera, 1955), Shirley Booth (Miss Isobel, 1957), Peter Ustinov (Romanoff and Juliet, 1957), Jackie Gleason (Take Me Along, 1959), Roddy McDowall (Compulsion, 1959), Jon Voight (That Summer, That Fall, 1967), Tammy Grimes (The Only Game in Town, 1968), Claire Bloom (Hedda Gabler, 1971), Victor Borge and Marcel Marceau. ...
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Byline: Kenneth Jones
• • Published in: Playbill
• • Published on: 18 June 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1 October 1928 news clip • •
NYC
Mae West.
Pole-vaulted out of the ghetto of the clubby entertainment section, MAE WEST suddenly became notoriously noteworthy in national news headlines on 2 February 1927. 
• • On Tuesday February 1st at 5:00 AM, the Brooklyn bombshell was arrested along with her sister and the director Edward Elsner in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
• • According to The New York Times, Edwin [sic] Elsner of New York, stage director of "The Drag," which opened here last night, and Miss Beverly West of New York, sister of Mae West, author of the play, were arrested at 5:30 o'clock this morning in Miss West's room at the Arcade Hotel and will be arraigned in the City Court on Wednesday on technical charges of breach of the peace.
• • The police allege misconduct, but both Elsner and Miss West deny there was any wrongdoing, explaining that they were in the room going over the events of the opening night and possible changes in the play.
• • Elsner, known for his work in staging "Within the Law," "Bought and Paid For," "Pygmalion," "Sex," and other plays, was released under bond of $250, as was Miss West, after spending several hours locked up at Police Headquarters following a ride from the hotel in the police patrol wagon. . . . 
• • The arrest at the Arcade Hotel is dramatized in the play "Courting Mae West." Beverly's drunken antics and Mae's strategies are featured in Act I, Scene 2.
• • What did director Edward Elsner look like? During July 2008, he will look like Neal Sims, the actor who will portray him — — kitted out in a snazzy Gatsby-esque smoking jacket and this mauve and hot pink World War I "trench veteran's" fez. There will be a free performance of the spirited Arcade Hotel scene at the Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble — — 1972 Broadway, New York, NY 10023 — — at 7:30 PM.
• • Mae and Beverly West will be portrayed by Yvonne Sayers and Kimberly Tuttle. The angry hotel guests will be portrayed by Eileen Glenn and Steven Viola.• • Interestingly, the bookshop is three blocks away from Daly's 63rd Street Theatre where Edward Elsner was directing Mae West in "Sex" from 1926 — 1927.• • Still in the same place is the old Arcade Hotel — 1001 Main St, Bridgeport, CT 06604; Tel 203- 333-9376. Wonder if they remember which room was Elsner's on 1 February 1927 and which room belonged to Mae West.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 6 o'clock on Saturday night July 19, 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre [East 24th Street and Park Avenue South].
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — showtimes
• • July 19th, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 20th, 2008 — — 2:00 PM matinee
• • July 21st, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 22nd, 2008 — — 9:00 PM
• • Tickets to "COURTING MAE WEST" are $18 per adult.
• • Theatermania.com sells the tickets — — http://www.theatermania.com/content/show.cfm/show/144297
• • Questions? Phone 212-779-3051.
• • The play is 95 minutes.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae West, Texas Guinan, and the gang onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • news clip 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.
In Act I, Scene 3 of "Courting Mae West" — — the raid at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre on 9 February 1927 — — MAE WEST meets the rogue news dealer Declan Rourke (one of the play's fictional characters). Before long, Declan Rourke will be stealing Mae West's "Sex" posters, autographing them himself, and doing viral marketing for his newsstand business. 
• • Portraying the lovable scoundrel is Steven Viola, who slips into the part without fuss as if he were born to the brogue. With his supple, muscular voice and intriguing gestures, he effortlessly holds the audience's gaze.
• • Director Louis Lopardi, observing intently, says, "I knew he was right for the part."• • Steven Viola recently portrayed another scoundrel, Iago, in a Village Voice-acclaimed production of "Othello" directed by Elfin Vogel at Theatre 22.
• • Steven Viola studied acting with Gloria Maddox and Carol Prescott at the Terry Schreiber Studio. His theatre credits include: "The Man who Corrupted Hadley Burg" (as Edward); "A Doll's House" (as Dr. Rank); "Our Country's Good" (as Arscott, Sanford Meisner); "Table Manners" (as Norman, The Kraine Theatre); and "Once in a Lifetime" (as George Lewis, Samuel Beckett Theatre); and many others. He also appeared in the film Nuke 'Um High and the TV shows "Steals & Deals" and "Toonces & Fences."
• • He is also a founding member of The Cranston and Spade WWOW Radio Mystery Theatre Company which performs old-time radio favorites at the Partners & Crime Bookstore in Greenwich Village.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 6 o'clock on Saturday night July 19, 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre [East 24th Street and Park Avenue South].
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — showtimes
• • July 19th, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 20th, 2008 — — 2:00 PM matinee
• • July 21st, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 22nd, 2008 — — 9:00 PM
• • Tickets to "COURTING MAE WEST" are $18 per adult.
• • Theatermania.com sells the tickets — — http://www.theatermania.com/content/show.cfm/show/144297
• • Questions? Phone 212-779-3051.
• • The play is 95 minutes.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae West, Texas Guinan, and the gang onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West cast • • Steven Viola • •
NYC
Mae West.
