Mae West: Pleasured

Playbill's popular feature "Today in Theatre History" mentioned MAE WEST, who tried to make Broadway more BROAD-minded.
• • According to Playbill, in 1930, "A hung jury frees Mae West of obscenity charges for her play, Pleasure Man." Unfortunately, Playbill always gets the date wrong. This event took place on 4 April 1930. Variety and The New York Times are among dozens of newspapers that reported this event in their editions during the first week of April in 1930.
• • "Hung" was an adjective the darling of Broadway had enormous fondness for. Ah, the quick ignitions of certain words turning inside.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: 1934 Duesenberg

In Murphys, California, the crowds applauded when the judging panel gave the trophy to a stunning convertible originally owned by MAE WEST in Hollywood — — at a beauty pageant for creations with rubber tires.
• • According to MyMotherLode News, shades of Mae West were in evidence Saturday afternoon as a 1934 Duesenberg Model J Murphy once owned by the "Why Don't You Come Up And See Me Sometime" actress captured the Open Car honors at the 13th Annual Ironstone Vinyards Concours d'Elegance, writes Bill Johnson.
• • The Duesenberg (pictured) is owned by Stephen Finn of Los Altos. He also captured first place honors in the Class C American Classic Open Division. ...
• • Overall there were 314 entries in the 31 classifications including antique motorcycles.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Shades Of Mae West At Concours d'Elegance"
• • BY: Bill Johnson | MML News Director
• • Published in: MyMotherLode News — — www.mymotherlode.com
• • Published on: 27 September 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Photo: 1934 Duesenberg Model J Murphy
• • Photo Credit: Bill Johnson | MyMotherLode News
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Harlem's Bars 1931

On September 28th MAE WEST's latest play was reviewed by Time Magazine's critics. Here's the view from an aisle seat.
• • The Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan: 28 Sep. 1931, Time Magazine • •
• • "The Constant Sinner" • •
• • Three seasons ago Mae West's lusty singing of "Frankie and Johnnie" and the nostalgic flavor of bar and brothel scenes made Diamond Lil a Broadway hit. In The Constant Sinner, which Mae West wrote from her own novel, the bars and brothels are Harlem, 1931, and Mae West does not sing. But The Constant Sinner is no tame play, nor is it a dull play.
• • Though handicapped by a more effete period, Mae West in some of her lines attains the lush bawdiness of her earlier production:
• • "That dame [Cleopatra] went in for everything . . . she even went to bed with snakes."
• • "I never turn anything down but the bed-covers."
• • She plays the part of Prostitute Babe Gordon with a forthright enthusiasm, sometimes tempered by irony, as in the curtain line, after she has convinced her husband that she is not living with another man (which she is) and the husband has mouthed a few platitudes about Faith. Says Babe Gordon: "I used to know a fine poem about Faith. It begins — Oh, Hell! I've forgotten it."
• • [Review printed on Monday 28 September 1931, Time Magazine]
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Excerpt from Babe Gordon by Mae West [NY: The Macaulay Company, 1930] • •
• • • • "Well, it was a woman. A beautiful woman. She was seated at a table in a corner of the room with a big negro — — actually enjoying him, fascinated by him."
• • • • "Do you mean that stunning blonde woman in an ermine wrap?" asked Jack Rathburne. "I did notice her, but I didn't see the negro."
• • • • "Well, he came in later," explained Wayne Baldwin. "Come to think of it, you were at the opposite side of the table. Your back was to them. How in the name of all that's decent, Jack, could a woman like that, obviously a person of refinement, allow a black to make love to her?"
• • • • Jack crushed out his cigarette in a green-glass tray.
• • • • "A matter of taste, Wayne. In this case, a very depraved taste."
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Frank Liberman

"Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It" was MAE WEST's letter to the world. Released in hardcover fifty years ago by the Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey imprint Prentice Hall, this meaty memoir has also been done as a paperback by Avon Books [December 1959] and in more recent reissues. If you own a first edition, then your copy has a pale-lavender cloth with white lettering on the spine and a startling image of the star posing in her boudoir on the dust jacket, which promises some thrills and "Gives you the behind-the-headlines details of a glamorous star's spectacular life and career."
• • Hollywood publicist Frank Liberman helped promote the bio half-a-century ago. Word comes that Liberman, who had Parkinson's disease, died of pneumonia at age 92 on Sunday at Providence Tarzana Medical Center.
• • A native New Yorker like Mae, he was born in The Big Apple on 29 May 1917 and was raised in White Plains.
• • After college, he learned about writing copy while employed by the New York Daily News. He soon joined Warner Brothers and worked his way up. After serving as an Army public relations officer [1941 — 1946], Liberman rejoined Warner Brothers, where he was engaged as a unit publicist before establishing his own firm, Frank Liberman and Associates, in 1947.
• • As a publicist, Liberman represented movies and stars; for 41 years he was Bob Hope's flack and Phyllis Diller's for 33. Other celebrity clients included Robert Goulet, Henry Fonda, Nat "King" Cole, Tony Bennett, Charles Bronson, Joan Blondell, Jack Paar, Harry Belafonte, Steve Allen, David Janssen, Dorothy Lamour, Joey Bishop, William Shatner, Mike Nichols, and the songwriting team of Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.
• • Hired to beat the drums for Mae West's 271-page memoir, he also pushed the biographies of Ethel Merman and Gig Young — — as well as four of George Burns' books, four of Diller's and five of Hope's — — during his five decades in the business.
• • Maybe goodness had nothing to do with it but Frank Liberman was known for his tact, charm, goodwill, and a reputation for decency. This gentleman will be missed.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Oakmont Elks' Belle

The Keystone State will feature MAE WEST, Little Orphan Annie, Elvis, and other American idols tomorrow night.
• • According to the Valley Dispatch News, Kathleen Sayers will be playing Mae West in the Oakmont Elks production of "Oldies With a Twist," an oldies event to be held this Saturday in the organization's Oakmont home. The dance will feature about seven nontraditional skits in which members perform in costume as some of their favorite singing stars.
• • Journalist Rex Rutkoski writes: In addition to the Village People, there will be "visits" from Mae West, Elvis Presley, Johnny and June Carter Cash, Little Orphan Annie, and a surprise vocalist from "Smokey Joe's Cafe," Elk Doug Fletcher says.
• • Rex Rutkoski offers this background: Marilyn McNally of Upper Burrell originated the "Oldies" idea about six years ago by spoofing some of the songs at the dances. "Two of my friends and I called ourselves 'The Stuff Shells' and performed a song by the Shirelles," she recalls. The idea caught on, and other Elk members decided to join in. The acts and performers have changed through the years, but it remains a good time for a good cause, she adds. Most of the performers also take part in the lodge's popular murder mysteries. "They are a group of talented and fun-loving people," McNally says. "It's very entertaining and more fun than a regular oldies dance." Elk Doug Fletcher of Oakmont agrees: "We are blessed with a number of outgoing personalities who jump at the chance to go before an audience. None are professionals, which seems to help rather than detract. We seem to have a level of camaraderie that makes it work for us."
• • "Oldies with a Twist" event on Saturday in the organization's Oakmont home will benefit the charity work of the Elks. Tell them you heard about it on the Mae West Blog.
• • When: 8 o'clock on Saturday evening — — 26 September 2009
• • Where: Oakmont Elks, 106 Washington Avenue, Oakmont, Penna. 15139 — — RSVP: 412-828-1668
• • Photo Credit: Louis B. Ruediger | Valley News Dispatch
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Oakmont Elks offer fun with a 'Twist'"
• • BY: Rex Rutkoski | Staff Writer
• • Published in: The Valley News Dispatch — — 210 Fourth Avenue, Tarentum, PA 15084
• • Published on: Thursday, 24 September 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: In Middletown

The Garden State will host classic motion pictures from the 1930s starring MAE WEST, Cary Grant, and others.
• • Middletown Township Public Library, a busy book-lovers junction in leafy Monmouth County, will channel that Tinseltown vibe during October when they present "Friday Afternoon at the Movies — Coffee, Dessert, and a Cool Classic Comedy with Victor Zak." A veteran journalist and film critic, Zak will enlighten the audience with anecdotes about the actors, directors, writers, and studios that supplied polish and pizazz during Hollywood's glory days before each screening.
• • This exciting series will begin at 2:00 PM on Friday 9 October 2009 with "I'm No Angel" [1933] — — written by and starring Mae West, and featuring Cary Grant, Gregory Ratoff, and even one of Mae's monkeys.
• • Directed by Wesley Ruggles, this Paramount Pictures favorite was originally released with great fanfare on 6 October 1933 — — 76 years ago.
• • Screen classics shown next month will include "The Awful Truth" [1937] with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne; "Libeled Lady" [1936] starring Spencer Tracy, Jean Harlow, William Powell, and Myrna Loy: and Greta Garbo in "Ninotchka" [1939].
• • Journalist and film commentator Victor Zak is the former travel editor for Gannett newspapers in New Jersey.
• • HERE: Middletown Township Public Library [55 New Monmouth Road, Middletown, NJ 07748]. The Main Branch is located just east of Route 35.
• • Take your questions directly to the library: 732-671-3700, ext. 333.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Warren William

In one motion picture Warren William played the meddlesome publicist of MAE WEST.
• • Born in December 1894 in Minnesota as Warren William Krech, the aspiring thesp attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and, like Mae, he appeared in several plays on Broadway during the 1920s. He was even seen opposite the engaging "Perils of Pauline" star Pearl White in her last serial photoplay, "Plunder" [1923].
• • "The Perils of Mavis Arden" or rather "Go West, Young Man" was a contemporary comedy based on a long-running Broadway hit "Personal Appearance," which starred Gladys George.
• • Paramount Pictures released this misfit on 18 November 1936.
• • Every so often comes a time when the normal rules of life are suspended, when some sort of force brings deprivation, distress, suffering — — or extreme inconvenience. For Americans, it was the dangerous economic swordplay of the Depression when industrial production was halved, disposable incomes greatly declined, stock prices plunged to one-tenth their skyscraping pre-Crash height, and the unemployed rolls swelled to more than ten million.
• • For the screen queen Mavis Arden, normality went on the rocks while being stranded at a remote rural boarding house while on her personal appearance tour to publicize the film "Drifting Lady." All dressed up and stuck in the boondocks!
• • Comedies find fun in contrasts — — a tall, dark, youthful Cary Grant paired with a sexually savvy mature siren, for instance, in "She Done Him Wrong." Marshaling his willpower and armed with his patrician looks and polish, the tall, dark, and scheming Morgan is a press agent who feels well-equipped to prevent a temperamental movie star from marrying while under studio contract. Morgan also stage manages behind the scenes to keep the man-hungry Mavis single and unavailable to men (not unlike Mae's real-life manager Jim Timony and stage mother Matilda West).
• • Often cast as an amoral, aggressive, heartbreaking rogue without a conscience, when the cameras weren't rolling the six-foot-one gentleman was a shy, retiring type who remained married to the same woman and worked on patented inventions in his spare time. Speaking of him, five-time Warner Brothers co-star Joan Blondell told an interviewer that Warren William "was an old man even when he was a young man."
• • His busy career, aided by his deep, mellifluous, muscular speaking voice, was cut short by cancer of the bone marrow (multiple myeloma). Warren William died in Hollywood during the month of September — — on 24 September 1948 at age 53.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Murphys, California

On Saturday 26 September 2009 you'll have a chance to see a snazzy 1930s convertible owned by MAE WEST — — and contribute to a worthy cause.
• • Murphys, California is the home of Ironstone Vineyards, the 20-acre winery that will be hosting their 13th annual day-long Concours d' Elegance vintage car show from 10:00 AM. Automobile awards will be offered in several categories.
• • According to Ironstone Concours Foundation President Gail Kautz, this year's automotive beauty pageant will feature hundreds of classics including a 1935 convertible owned by Mae West; the singular 1937 airomobile built to compete with Volkswagen; one Rolls Royce "shooting brake" (a station wagon), a small number of classic boats, antique motorcycles from the "Let's do the Charleston" interval, the Prohibition Era, and the World War II years.
• • Yearly in September, the Ironstone Concours d’Elegance unfolds on the winery’s manicured lawns, lakeside property nestled in the green-and-golden Sierra foothills. Taking place in California’s notable gold-rush country, the Concours d' Elegance aims to entertain car buffs while it also raises money for 4-H and Future Farmers of America, provides funding for the Calaveras County Fair, offers an endowment for the State Guide Dog Program — — and even grants a $2,000 scholarship for the winner of the State Fair Youth Horse Show and a $5,000 scholarship for the winner of the State Fair Scholarship Program.
• • Mae West — — who never met a dog, a horse, a monkey, or an animal she didn't adore — — would have approved.
• • For details, contact the Ironstone Foundation in Murphys, California — — T. (209) 785-4234.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Harry Warren

During the revival of "Diamond Lil," featured with MAE WEST, was Harry Warren.
• • Born (like Mae) during 1893 in Brooklyn, New York, Harry Warren [1893 — 1981] performed in the Naughty 90s comedy-melodrama in the role of Jerry.
• • Harry Warren — — who died on 22 September 1981 — — was featured in three different productions of Mae's Broadway blockbuster: 14 September 1951 — 10 November 1951 at the Broadway Theatre; 7 September 1949 — 21 January 1950 at the Plymouth Theatre; 5 February 1949 — 26 February 1949 at the Coronet Theatre.
• • Built in 1924, the Broadway Theatre [1681 Broadway at West 53rd Street] was constructed as a 1761-seat house; "Shrek, the Musical" is playing there now.
• • Built in 1917, the Plymouth Theatre [236 West 45th Street], which seats 1093, was renamed the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in 2005.
• • Built in 1925, the Coronet Theatre [230 West 49th Street], which seats 1108, was renamed the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in 1959.
• • Mae West broke her ankle on 26 February 1949, causing the performances to halt and putting Harry Warren back on the unemployed list, temporarily. However, he was rehired for the September 1949 run and rejoined the crew in Gus Jordan's Bowery Saloon — — sixty years ago this month.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Embers of September 21

In September 1934, MAE WEST was involved in promoting her fourth feature for Paramount Pictures: "Belle of the Nineties." This motion picture was released on September 21st. And here is the review published in The New York Times on 22 September 1934. "Of course, Miss West is her own plot," wrote critic Andre Sennwald.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Mae West and Her Gaudy Retinue in "Belle of the Nineties"
• • By ANDRE SENNWALD

• • Although Mae West has graciously permitted the New York censors to make an honest woman of her in her new picture, she has not adopted the emblematic blue-nose. Back in the days when "Belle of the Nineties" — alias "Belle of New Orleans" and "It Ain't No Sin" — was locked in a death grip with the local censorship board, one of the major points of dissension was the shocking fade-out in which Miss West won her man without the assistance of a justice of the peace. In the new and approved version there is a wedding ceremony and Miss West is now safe for her large following to visit.
• • It is pretty futile to strive for an air of detachment toward Miss West and her new work. A continuously hilarious burlesque of the mustache cup, celluloid collar, and family entrance era of the naughty Nineties, it immediately takes its place among the best screen comedies of the year. Its incomparable star has been bolstered by a smart and funny script, an excellent physical production, and a generally buoyant comic spirit. There are gags for every taste and most of them are outrageously funny according to almost any standard of humor.
• • Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow have provided four crimson chansons — "My Old Flame," "Troubled Waters," "My American Beauty," and "When a St. Louis Woman Comes Down to New Orleans" — which are quite perfect, and Miss West delivers them in her inimitable adenoidal contralto.
• • Amid the lithographic Police Gazette settings of the Sensation House in New Orleans, Ruby Carter (in Miss West's classic person) rules the sporting world with queenly insolence. As she herself sagely observes, "It is better to be looked over than to be overlooked" — — and her serpentine gowns, hayloft coiffure, and hour-glass figure insure her against neglect. Ruby's expressed preference is for two kinds of men — domestic and foreign — and the gentlemen moths, in their tight pants, bowler hats, and Ascot cravats, flock to the flame. Even the bartenders with their walrus mustaches and spit-curls silently yearn for her.
• • Of course, Miss West is her own plot, but there are a fixed prize-fight, some stolen jools, an envious siren, a fire, and a pair of rival claimants for her affections to add the necessary business. While Ruby's personal philosophy is, in her own words, to keep cool and collect, she has a healthy admiration for a good man, and the Tiger Kid fills the bill. Sinister interests conspire to separate them, and Ruby Carter is forced to fight for what she politely refers to as her honor against the evil and wax-mustached Ace Lamont, proprietor of the Sensation House. This last is of a vintage so objectionable as to cause the amiable Ruby to remark, "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
• • Roger Pryor as the Tiger Kid, John Miljan as the contemptible Ace, and Katherine DeMille as the jealous mistress of Ace Lamont all contribute excellently to the comedy, while Duke Ellington's boys provide the sulphurous musical background for Miss West's songs. If the great lady's public expects a cool and reasoned appraisal of "Belle of the Nineties" this morning, it will have to be disappointed. Not being immune to the common human failing of magnifying the virtues of the past, this reporter will always consider "She Done Him Wrong" her greatest show. At any rate, her present masterpiece is superior on every count to "I'm No Angel." As for its morality, you have Miss West's own testimony, when she tells an overwrought admirer, "Remember, I'm a lady, you worm."
• • You will have to take her word for it.
• • BELLE OF THE NINETIES, adapted from a story by Mae West; music and lyrics by Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow; directed by Leo McCarey; a Paramount production. At the Paramount.
• • Source: The New York Times
• • Critic: Andre Sennwald
• • Originally published on: 22 September 1934
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Ollie Burgoyne

Avid theatre-goer MAE WEST could spot charisma in a performer. As a 10-year-old child she fell under the spell of Bert Williams, mesmerized by his musical "In Dahomey" at the New York Theatre in 1903. The production of "In Dahomey" also included a talented actress-dancer, a black performer Mae would cast in her Harlem comedy "The Constant Sinner."
• • Performed on Broadway during the autumn of 1931 [from September 14th until November], this controversial bi-racial show was on stage 78 years ago at the Royale Theatre, 242 West 45th Street, with Mae West starring as Babe Gordon and Ollie Burgoyne featured in the role of Clara.
• • By mistake, the Internet Broadway Database lists Ollie Burgoyne as a MALE performer who was cast in SIX shows — — always in a female role. Time to meet the real Miss Burgoyne, who played in ten shows on The Great White Way and in other countries.
• • Olga "Ollie" Burgoyne • •
• • Ever notice how some theatrical reputations mimic a red poppy — — a vehement presence, brief, glorious, and dismembered in seconds?
• • Almost unknown today, versatile, graceful, ambitious, supremely talented Olga "Ollie" Burgoyne was part Russian and part Creole. Born on 13 June 1878 in Illinois, she had been an entertainer in Russia before joining the British-based cast of "In Dahomey," an operetta written by Bert Williams and George Walker. An outstanding success in the West End, "In Dahomey" came to London from New York City in 1903 and played at the Shaftesbury Theatre for nearly a year. When the acclaimed U.K. production finished, many of the performers created individual acts or assembled their own teams and toured. Heading one of these twosomes was the 27-year-old firecracker Olga Burgoyne who, with her partner, Usher Watts, formed the Duo Eclatant, according to Afro-American theater researcher Helen A Johnson. "Burgoyne was not only an entertainer in Russia, but a business woman as well," notes Johnson. "She was the owner of the Maison Creole, an elegant shop for women in St. Petersburg. She operated it until the war began — — while she was taking the baths in Austria."
• • Pursuing the course of an entrepreneur and entertainer could not have been easy for a Caucasian vaudevillian much less a dark-skinned female. Neverthless, Ollie Burgoyne earned respect for her work and was lauded as one of the eight major African American dancers/ choreographers of the Harlem Renaissance; she ranked in an elite group that comprised Helmsley Winfield, Edna Guy, Randolph Sawyer, Asadata Dafora, Katherine Dunham, Charles Williams, and Pearl Primus.
• • In March 1931, Ollie was performing in Yonkers, NY with a dance company called the Bronze Ballet Plastique. Since their performances went unnoticed, the group reinvented themselves as the New Negro Art Theater Dance Group. Billed as "The First Negro Dance Recital in America," Hemsley Winfield and Edna Guy, along with Ollie Burgoyne and 17 other dancers, opened at Chanin's Theater in the Clouds [NYC].
• • Ollie's dramatic training and the pleasing curves of her hipbones' kettle raised the heat at auditions. Appearing in ten Broadway productions from 1926—1937, her credits included: "Lulu Belle" [1926]; "Tired Business Man" [1929]; "Make Me Know It" [1929]; "The Constant Sinner" [1931]; "Blessed Event" [1932]; "Run, Little Chillun" [1933]; etc.
• • In the sophisticated romantic screen comedy "Laughter" [1930], starring Fredric March, Nancy Carroll, and Frank Morgan, Ollie had a bit part as a maid named Pearl.
• • Age did not slow her down. In April 1936, when she was 58, she was featured in "Mississippi Rainbow" [a show also known as "Brain Sweat"], which was seen at the John C. Brownell Lafayette Theatre, Harlem Unit, NYC.
• • As a sought-after choreographer and an instructor, Ollie Burgoyne worked behind the scenes in the motion picture industry as well, teaching Russian dances to American dancers.
• • In 1973, the vibrant 95-year-old died in the United States.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: First Edition

In addition to the captivating hand-colored MAE WEST lobby cards being auctioned today, there's been an update.
• • Noteworthy items from the collection of Bill Morrison include a signed first-edition copy of the book The Constant Sinner, by screen siren Mae West (1930); and a signed first-edition copy of Ayn Rand's For The New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (1961). These additional details come from Auction House PR on behalf of Leland Little Auctions & Estate Sales.
• • Mae West memorabilia, stage and Hollywood keepsakes, and entertainment collectibles are up for grabs on Saturday, 19 September 2009. The auction is being held in the firm's new gallery: 620 Cornerstone Court in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Online bidding will be helmed by LiveAuctioneers.com — — T. 919-644-1243.
• • Tell them the Mae West Blog sent you a-bidding, a bouquet of fresh greenbacks waving over your head.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Auction Tomorrow

Crisp hand-colored MAE WEST lobby cards are included in an astonishing collection of film and stage memorabilia that will be auctioned this Saturday — — in Hillsborough, North Carolina.
• • The one-day auction on 19 September 2009 will be organized by Leland Little Auction & Estate Sales [620 Cornerstone Court]. Cataloguer Rob Golan predicts the sale of Bill Morrison's lots to begin at approximately 4 PM. Absentee, phone, and online bidding options are available.
• • Staff writer Matt Ehlers interviewed the 69-year-old collector, who once cultivated and tended a growing garden of pop culture but who has admitted, "I don't go to movies anymore. I think Hollywood has forgotten how to make movies."
• • Ehlers paints a fascinating portrait of Bill Morrison, who has become less enchanted by about celebrity culture.
• • Ehlers whets the reader's appetite like this: Bill Morrison spent more than 33 years working as an entertainment editor and writer with The News & Observer, getting paid to review movies and plays, watching television and interviewing celebrities. He doesn't miss it.
• • For interesting details about Morrison's more unusual and most valuable keepsakes, please see the entire article (cited below).
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "The last hooray for Hollywood"
• • BY: Matt Ehlers | Staff Writer
• • Published in: The News & Observer — — www.newsobserver.com [The News & Observer, 215 South McDowell Street, Raleigh, NC 27602]
• • Published on: Friday, 18 September 2009
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Michigan Mischief

This weekend Michigan-based impressionist Michael Holmes will delight audiences as MAE WEST, Peggy Lee, Pearl Bailey, and — — most especially — — as Judy Garland.
• • This Friday and Saturday the Illinois-native, who fell in love with the theatre arts as a high school boy, will take to the stage at The Red Barn [Saugatuck, MI 49453], after being transformed by wigs and wizardry to resemble Judy Garland. “The Judy Show” builds its concept around Garland’s signature 1960’s TV series; the theme gives Holmes the flexibility to portray a rainbow of glammed-up celebrity guests including Mae West, "Hello, Dolly!" star Carol Channing, songbird Peggy Lee, bewitching Pearl Bailey, and others.
• • Unlike Mae, who wrote "The Drag" in 1926 and who was delighted by drag queens, the talented Mr. Holmes dislikes the label "drag" and is offended when people label him a "drag queen." His perspective is this: “What I do is theater. I just happen to do female characters. My show is a completely theatrical production with audience interaction and improvisational comedy, so every show is different. It’s really a celebration of the glory days of Hollywood.”
• • After this weekend's finale, Holmes will pack up his heel heels and wig boxes and head to the West Coast for an extended supper club engagement in Palm Springs. For details about his Red Barn extravaganza, telephone (269) 857-5300.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Brooklyn Daily Errors

Though MAE WEST spent years in Brooklyn, there is no proof she ever lived on Franklin Avenue, a thoroughfare situated in the Greenpoint section of Kings County. And though primary sources have shown where John and Matilda West were living when their feisty little daughter was born at home — — the delivery assisted by a mid-wife "on a cool night in a hot month" — — reporters keep getting it wrong and spreading misinformation that bobbleheads will copy and paste.
• • Let's do the math. Since Mae West started life in August 1893, publications and writers have had over 115 years to nail down her birthplace, eh?
• • Vernon Parker reminds us that Greenpoint was designated as an historic district in 1982, the area where Charles Pratt’s Astral Oil Works refined kerosene. "One point of interest in Greenpoint today is the Astral Apartments at 184 Franklin Avenue, originally built to house workers from Pratt’s Astral Oil (and where it is believed that screen star Mae West was born in 1893)," writes columnist Vernon Parker in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle [located at 30 Henry Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 — www.brooklyneagle.com —] on 14 September 2009.
• • Wrong, false, and incorrect. Moreover, Mae West was not born anywhere in Greenpoint.
• • Sheesh, fellas! Don't make us come down there.
• • The Brooklyn Daily Eagle can be reached at 718-422-7400.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Jim Traficant

Now being sold, the paintings of an expelled congressman are all earmarked with his tribute to MAE WEST.
• • As shown on his Betty Boop canvas, the capital "M" in the moon on each of Jim Traficant's work is a striking tribute to the Brooklyn blonde.
• • Everybody in the whole cell block/ Was dancin' to the jailhouse rock ... • •
• • The convicted felon, freed after a 7-year stint in prison, also admires (and has sketched) Elvis. In Ohio, his welcome home booze-and-shmooze fest featured Elvis Presley impersonators. What an opportunity for a deejay to play "Jailhouse Rock"!
• • Born in Youngstown, Ohio on 8 May 1941, James Traficant, Jr. became an amateur artist as a way to pass time during his incarceration. The disgraced politician was once a Democratic Representative in the United States Congress from Ohio during 1985 to 2002. In 2002, however, Traficant was convicted on 10 felony charges — — bribery, racketeering, tax evasion, forcing his aides to perform chores at his Ohio farm and on his houseboat, and obstruction of justice — — lawlessness brought about by his demanding kickbacks from his staff and "forgetting" about paying taxes, among other criminal arrogance. Ousted from the House in a vote of 420 to one, Traficant was sent to the Big House, his devil tail between his legs.
• • A number of inmates have been moved to charitable acts. Mae West, for instance, funded a library for female prisoners confined to the Women's Workhouse in 1927.
• • Jim Traficant promised to auction off a few paintings to benefit retirees from his district whose company went bankrupt earlier this year. Thus proceeds from the paintings will benefit the Delphi Salaried Retiree Association, a group of autoworkers who are afraid of losing their pensions after the company turned the pensions over to the government's pension insurer. (The group filed suit against the insurer.)
• • Throughout his prison term, the enterprising lawbreaker sold his drawings online as well as through sympathetic Ohio galleries.
• • Released from jail on 2 September 2009, Traficant posted his Betty Boop caricature and others on EBAY. The auction ends Saturday.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Harlem on Broadway

It was the fourteenth of September when MAE WEST was sashaying onstage as the slinky temptress "Babe Gordon" at the Royale Theatre's production of her newest play The Constant Sinner. The play had had its Broadway premiere on 14 September 1931, received mixed reviews, and would last until November.
• • Set in Harlem during the Prohibition Era, the play followed the escapades of a honey-haired prizefighter groupie. Here's a selection from Mae West's novel The Constant Sinner [1930] — — after Bearcat Delaney has attracted Babe's attention by winning a fight.
• • • • Babe walked out with Bill [Larson] and headed for Toni's. She knew then that she was sure to meet the Bearcat.
• • • • With her escort, Bill Larson, she walked to the corner of 135th Street and Fifth Avenue, and then turned to the left, walking through a block of chop suey fronts, dance halls, and speakeasies, where you bought gin for ten cents and where high-strung society nerves dropped in incognito for their shots of morphine and coke, while blood-stained criminals sat drinking and smoking at the tables in resigned security. In this block they were in Coke Village, below the deadline in deep Harlem.
• • • • They came to 134th Street and dropped a short run of steep stairs to Toni's. Toni's was a basement restaurant of red walls stippled with gold and lighted by blue and red bulbs. It was an Italian place and had become popular as a sporting hangout. The food was good. Fighters from the Marathon Club, mangers, and other sporting bloods often dropped in.
• • • • Bill arranged to reserve two tables for the expected party, and Babe and he sat down at one of them to wait. She ordered a gin rickey, while Bill chose rye.
• • • • A couple of drunken white girls sat over empty gin glasses at a table nearby. Babe knew these hustlers. They were guzzlers. They worked the streets till they made enough for a few drinks and then they parked around the Fifth Avenue creep joints, waiting for downtown explorers that needed a "steer" to dope or wanted to be led to a "circus" where women resorted to strange practices to gratify morbid curiosity. There was more money in this racket and it was easier. It took energy to be a leg worker and they were wasted skeletons, bones showing.
• • • • Toni's was crowding up. Musicians and chorus girls from the burlesque houses on 125th Street came in to spend the night and morning over cheap gin and a hunk of chicken.
• • • • The Bearcat appeared in the doorway, with Joe Malone; Harry Flick, another fighter; and three buddies from the express company. They came toward the table where Babe and Bill were eagerly awaiting the party. ...
— — excerpt The Constant Sinner by Mae West — —
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Pierre Cosette

This Las Vegas legend had been known for booking the world's biggest acts including MAE WEST, the Rat Pack, and many others.
• • Born in Valleyfield, Quebec, Pierre Cossette [15 December 1923 — 11 September 2009] was a TV producer and Broadway impresario who brought the Grammy Awards to the little screen.
• • Cossette's autobiographical book, Another Day In Showbiz, tells the story of an unassuming young man from rural Canada, who worked his way to the top of the world of glitz and glamour, galvanizing the music industry in the process. He offers his vision of the industry, detailing stars, directors, producers, movies, TV companies, record companies, and the art, creation, and exhibition of breathtaking stage productions.
• • In 2005, Pierre Cossette was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. Along with Mae West, he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: The NYC 400

MAE WEST, Henry Hudson, Berenice Abbott, Meyer Lansky, Dorothy Parker, Jerry Seinfeld, and Diane Arbus all made the list.
• • They all made "The New York City 400," a round-up of New Yorkers who have made a difference since Henry Hudson steered his vessel The Half Moon into what became known as New York Harbor in 1609.
• • Created by the Museum of the City of New York to honor the New York City’s 400th birthday, this update is a revised everyman's version of the original line-up once known as "The 400."
• • As the late Earl Blackwell was the self-nominated judge of "The Best Dressed List" — — not unlike a band of curmudgeons who try to police fashion at red carpet events — — from the 1860s to the early 1890s Samuel Ward McAllister [1827 — 1895] was the self-appointed arbiter of Manhattan society who coined the phrase "the Four Hundred." According to McAllister, an ambitious Southern lawyer who wed an East Coast heiress, this was the number of people in New York who really mattered; the people who felt at ease in the ballrooms of high society.
• • None of the 400 socially prominent New Yorkers lassoed into Ward Samuel McAllister's 14-carat corral over a century ago survived the cut this time — — except for the bewhiskered none-too-comely McAllister, who died at age 67 and committed social seppuku by disgracing himself.
• • Making these decisions in a city rich with native trailblazers and titans was not easy. So the museum's arithmetic was massaged so that, for example, the musical comedy duo of Adolph Green and Betty Comden could be numbered as one individual. Likewise for the 3 founders of Lehman Brothers who have morphed, Holy Trinity like, into one entity. And two heroic Port of Authority employees, who perished on 11 September 2001 during the terrorist attack, have also been coupled to form a unit.
• • Museum prez Susan Henshaw Jones told reporters: “New York City 400 is definitely not a definitive list. It is intended to be fun and provocative, stimulating New Yorkers and those who love New York City everywhere to think about others they believe should be on our next list of New York City 400.”
• • Unlike the original, the retro-fitted 400 recognizes New Yorkers more for their achievements than for their position on the social register — — such as former N.Y. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, a man of the people who was born on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village. Elasticity being what it is, even Michael Bloomberg turns up in this group though he was born and bred near the ballrooms of Boston.
• • Benign big blonde machines do not figure here in these exalted endpoints of institutional starlight. The museum was seeking substance when they patched this new body of 400 parts together. A number of New Yorkers have already found their portion of sunshine slit, their wit addled, and their deeds forgotten. And then a new accolade arises and reputations such as Mae West's are reassessed and launched kite-high anew, tethered to Henry Hudson. Oh, Big Apple bliss. Such such are the joys.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Aussie Admiration

MAE WEST is high on one Aussie's list — — due to her beautiful voice.
• • Evan Maloney writes: "I’m truly at a loss to think of the most beautiful female voices in cinema, although after some consideration I think Judi Dench has an appealing tone as does her friend Maggie Smith (what’s that thing in her hand in the video clip?); our own Judy Davis was, on every level, an accomplished artist of articulation; and Mae West was extraordinary, take a look at her here . . . — — it seems she is doing her best to copy the swaggering mannerisms of a Wagga Wagga tradesman after four beers at the pub on a Frydee arvo. ..."
• • And, no, we Americans don't pretend to know what the heck a "Frydee arvo" is. Maybe we'll look it up in the old Funk and Wagga.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Weekly List: the most beautiful voices in cinema"
• • BY: Evan Maloney
• • Published in: News.com.au [in Australia]
• • Published on: Monday, 7 September 2009
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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