• • One strikingly handsome Angeleno shares this observation: Brought in from the lobby to the James Bridges Theatre were a few Mae West costumes. And THANK GOD, as they would prove to be the only interesting element of the evening. On display was a well-preserved blue dress worn by Mae's character Peaches O'Day in "Every Day's a Holiday" [released in the USA as holiday fare on 18 December 1937]. This beautifully embellished costume was designed 72 years ago by Elsa Schiaparelli. Also on view were Mae's small white satin shoes used during her speakeasy scenes as Maudie Triplett in "Night After Night" and the black sequined and white fur ensemble whipped up for the 1958 Academy Awards grand opening number with Rock Hudson — — and later re-used in "Sextette."
• • According to our trusty Angeleno eagle-eye: The Mae West panel was made up of Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times, Charlotte Chandler, Tim Malachosky, Marvin Paige (a notorious "casting" director), Jonathan Kuntz (an historian of the old Hollywood studio system), and Dan Price (a film archivist who actually knew Miss West very well). Biographer Charlotte Chandler — — her notorious giant curls at half mast on this night — — looked remarkably like my deceased friend Quentin Crisp. She appeared fatigued, but spoke very well. It would seem this is an ANNUAL ROUTINE FOR HER. A book per year, and then this kind of christening ritual in the same theater. Charlotte Chandler said Mae West gave her a bottle of baby oil and said it should be applied warm, by a man, all over. She also gave her some cosmetics. She CLAIMED to have heard a "fluttering" not unlike bird wings, only to discover it was Mae's heavy false eyelashes brushing her cheek as she was blinking.
• • Unfortunately, there were not too many voyagers into Mae West's storied past on February 23rd. UCLA's promotion coordinators put forth a rather low-energy outreach and the auditorium (which can accommodate 278 listeners) was barely half-full for this free event.
• • The Mae West blog is grateful to these stalwart screen-lovers for their patience and their comments. More front-row details will appear tomorrow.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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I hardly recognize your description of the UCLA MW event. Kevin Thomas definitely had the highest credibility, acknowledging Tim Malchosky in her life and the costumes he brought that night. No one believed the Dan Price story about her pulling her breast out-totally incongruous. If anyone was asleep, they were dead!Fun night!
ReplyDeleteI was there too, and everyone howled with laughter over the Dan Price story, and it sounds like many of the stories my friends, who were very close to Mae West, have told me. Kevin Thomas was a joy, as always, but the Malachosky part...well...it needs a background check. And it has had one. And it wasn't what everyone likes to think. Mae West was not an overly- proper, normal old lady. She was a sexual being, very unorthodox, and frank with TRUE intimates, till her last days. That is a fact. Why some people want her memory to be like that of Barbara Cartland or Queen Elizabeth II, I don't know. But it is not fact. It is safe to say I am the youngest of all MW fans and am friends with many of her friends (who were in their teens, 20's and 30's in the 1960's and 70's), and I intend to keep the truth alive--the memory accurate. 29 years after her passing, her memory must not suddenly become distorted, due to some sexual prigs projecting their own lack of a libidinous past onto Mae West. I am saddened to see, as of late, some people's "issues" with an older person having a sexual nature or plopping out a well- preserved breast in chosen company. I would think most find her an inspiration, thus giving us hope for our own Golden Years.
ReplyDeleteWell, if any gentle readers of this post doubted the Dan Price story, they'll definitely have a hornet under their bonnet when they read "In Search Of Mae West. " Miss West couldn't have put it more succinctly herself when she quipped, "Ooohhh....those who are easily shocked should get shocked more often!"
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