Sunday, April 08, 2012

Mae West: West's Easter

On Easter Sunday, 8 April 2012, the MAE WEST BLOG would like to wish all our esteemed members and each visitor a joyful and happy holiday.
• • Margaret Perry [23 February 1913 — 8 April 2007] • •
• • An actress from a most distinguished theatrical family was featured with Mae West in the motion picture "Go West, Young Man," a 1936 screen production of an original Broadway play called "Personal Appearance." Margaret Perry took the role of Joyce Struthers.
• • Born in Denver on 23 February 1913, she was one of two daughters of Frank Frueauff, who worked in the gas and electric industry, and the illustrious Antoinette "Toni" Perry, the director and stage actress for whom the Tony Awards were named.
• • She was raised on a rugged Colorado ranch far from Times Square; her great grandparents homesteaded in South Park in 1862.
• • The 16-year-old made her stage debut in 1929; two years later she appeared on Broadway in John Van Druten's "After All" [1931]. Her mother Toni directed her in "Ceiling Zero" [1935] and "Now You've Done It" [1937]. Her very brief cinema career did not eclipse her theatre work; she was cast in only a few Hollywood movies during the 1930s.
• • By the time Margaret Perry was cast in "Go West, Young Man," she had married her second husband, actor Burgess Meredith; the newlyweds had tied the knot on 10 January 1936 and divorced two and a half years later.
• • With her third husband Paul Fanning — — scenic artist and art director/ co-producer of "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" [1962] — — she bore four children. In 1952, the divorcee retired to Colorado to raise her kids and continued to live on the family's Salt Works Ranch, in South Park, Park County, Colorado until her demise.
• • Margaret Perry died in Hartsel, Colorado on 8 April 2007, outliving her sister and her daughter Toni.
• • Mae West on the Bookshelf • •
• • What do Mae West, Lena Horne, Alan King, Jimmy Smits, Larry King, Arthur Miller, Henry Miller, Joan Rivers, and Beverly Sills have in common? They are all from Brooklyn, and they share their reminiscences in "I Remember Brooklyn" [Birch Lane Press, 1992].
• • On 8 April 2001 • •
• • On 8 April 2001, a review was printed with the title "Divorce Is For Life." Reviewing Karen Karbo's book "Generation Ex" for The N.Y. Times, critic Laura Jamison explained: After her own divorce, Karen Karbo began attending a regular gathering of newly divorced women called The Mae West Dinner Party, a homage to the bawdy star's famous remark, ''Marriage is an institution and I'm not ready for an institution!''
• • On Wednesday, 8 April 2009 in The L.A. Times • •
• • This obituary was printed on Wednesday, 8 April 2009 in The L.A. Times: Bodybuilding pioneer, ex-Hawaii resident Armand Tanny, 90, dies.
• • L.A. Times reporter Jon Thurber wrote: Armand Tanny, a pioneering figure in bodybuilding who won national titles in 1949 and 1950 and was a popular figure on the original Muscle Beach in Santa Monica, Calif., during its heyday in the 1940s, has died. He was 90. . . .
• • L.A. Times reporter Jon Thurber wrote: During the 1950s, he was one of the original nine bodybuilders from Muscle Beach who were part of Mae West's traveling nightclub act. According to the book "Remembering Muscle Beach," by Harold Zinkin with Bonnie Hearn-Hill (Angel City Press, 1999), the nine were known as Mae's Muscle Beach Men. Also in the group were prominent bodybuilders Joe Gold, George Eiferman, Richard DuBois, Harry Schwartz, Dom Juliano, Lester "Shifty" Schaefer, Irvin "Zabo" Koszewski, and Chuck Krauser.
• • According to Hearn-Hill, Armand Tanny organized a strike with Joe Gold when Mae West cut their salaries in half from $250 a week to boost the take at a New York club. "Armand and Joe were ready to board the plane," Hearn-Hill told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday. "Mae quickly caved in, and they got their full salaries." . . .
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "A man's kiss is his signature."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A newspaper item in April mentioned Mae West.
• • Hispanic Business wrote: April 11th, 1911 — Actress Mae West and actor Frank Wallace, in Milwaukee. Mae West had kept the marriage a secret, but in 1935, after she had made several hit movies, it so happened that a filing clerk discovered West's marriage certificate and alerted the press. She obtained a legal divorce in 1943 and insisted they never lived as husband and wife. . . .
• • Source: Article: "Save the Date: This Week in Celebrity Wedding Anniversaries" in Hispanic Business; published on 5 April 2012
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2263rd blog post. Unlike many blogs, which draw upon reprinted content from a newspaper or a magazine and/ or summaries, links, or photos, the mainstay of this blog is its fresh material focused on the life and career of Mae West, herself an American original.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/

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Mae West.

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