Mae West: First Plane Ride

MAE WEST landed on page 2 of the Ludington Daily News on Thursday, 4 June 1936. The headline in this Michigan newspaper was "Mae West Takes First Plane Trip." Interestingly, the celebrated passenger was booked as "Miss North."

• • HOLLYWOOD June 4 — Mae West, who invites people to "come up and see me sometime" went up herself Wednesday but not to see anyone in particular.

• • The buxom film blonde took her first airplane ride Wednesday, flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles. She was a little nervous at first, but upon landing she said she was going to do "a lot of flying from now on."  Her new studio contract permits her to fly in planes.

• • Asked why she was booked as "Miss North" on a southbound plane, she replied, "I guess they got their directions mixed a little."

• • Lane Chandler [4 June 1899 — 14 September 1972] • •

• • Culbertson, Montana native Lane Chandler, who played a porter in "My Little Chickadee" starring Mae West and W.C. Fields, was born on June 4th.  We'll return to the busy bit parts player soon.

• • Charles Collingwood [4 June 1917 — 3 October 1985] • •

• • In 1959 CBS correspondent Charles Collingwood interviewed Mae West for "Person to Person" but the nervous network bosses nixed it.

• • Born in Michigan, Charles Collingwood was a pioneering CBS TV newscaster. Collingwood was a protege of Edward R. Murrow during World War II and became known as an eloquent on-air journalist. He was part of a group of distinguished early television journalists that included Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, and Murrow himself.

• • Despite a constant battle with the bottle and a feverish addiction to gambling, Collingwood went on to become chief correspondent of CBS and host of its "Eyewitness to History" series. He led in CBS's expansion to include international coverage. He reported from the Normandy invasion (at Omaha Beach), Vietnam, the White House, and other sites known for causing death and destruction.

• • Collingwood retired in 1982. The chronic alcoholic died on 3 October 1985.  He was 68.

• • In June 1919 • •

• • More than ninety years ago, in June 1919, Mae West was onstage in a tuneful Broadway hit doing an odd thing — — playing a lusty manhunter who cannot land a boyfriend during the World War I Era.

• • In the autumn of 1918 "Sometime," the "musical comedy of commerce" designed to showcase the talents of laughmeister Ed Wynn, had opened at the Shubert Theatre (establishing a nice healthy wartime run that continued for eight months at the Shubert brothers' flagship: 225 West 44th Street).

• • At 25 years old, Mae West was still much more accustomed to appearing in vaudeville than in the legit. In "Sometime," it was Mae's character Mayme Dean who appeared onstage first. At that point in her career, Mae had often been cast as an Irish maid — — although Mayme Dean is a frisky flapper who cannot land a man.

• • This musical closed in June 1919, after running for 283 performances.

• • On Tuesday, 4 June 1935 • •

• • Mae West was the cover girl for the French publication Midinette Journal Illustrate. Issue # 425 was dated for Tuesday, 4 June 1935. Oooh-la-la.

• • On Tuesday, 4 June 1940 in Look Magazine • •

• • The popular magazine Look featured Mae West, Greta Garbo, and Lana Turner in their issue dated for Tuesday, 4 June 1940.

• • In Her Own Words • •

• • Mae West said: "She who laughs lasts."  

• • Quote, Unquote • •

• • An article commented on two biographies of Mae West.

• • Robert Julian writes: It remains to be seen if the world will seek out yet another Mae West biography, especially after Emily Wortis Leider's definitive "Becoming Mae West" [NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997 hardcover; Da Capo Press, 2000 paperback]. Emily Leider's work favored social anthropology and intellectual analysis over anecdotal recollection. But author Charlotte Chandler's "She Always Knew How" relies almost exclusively on anecdotes, supplemented by material from an interview Chandler had with West in 1980.

• • Robert Julian continues: The blessing of Chandler's work is the opportunity to hear the gospel according to Mae, exactly as it was articulated by the star shortly before her death at the age of 87. Some of the Westian gems include statements like, "In my whole life, I've never envied anyone. I was too busy thinking about myself." When confronted with the fact that she was not a good student, West acknowledges, "I'm not very grammatical, because I'm only a third-grade graduate. And I didn't exactly graduate. I sort of retired from it.  . . ."

• • Source: Book Review: "Way of the West" written by Robert Julian for The Bay Area Reporter Bay; published on 4 June 2009

• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2321st 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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