Saturday, January 05, 2013

Mae West: New Boy Friend

MAE WEST was the subject of a provocative cover line in Shadoplay's January 1934 issue (cover price 10 cents).  
• • Her New Boy Friend • •
• • Hester Lane wrote the article: "Mae Answers the Letter of Her New Boy Friend" (on pages 30 — 31, 76).
• • A month later, the February 1934 issue had a striking cover featuring Mae in red lipstick with an excitable looking red fabric caressing her head on the left side.
• • Shadoplay, alas, was short-lived. From the July 1935 issue forward, Movie Mirror merged with the publication Shadoplay.
• • Source: Article in Shadoplay, Vol. 2, No. 5, January 1934 issue. 
• • John Patrick West [March 1866 —  5 January 1935] • •
• • Despite having an ambivalent relationship with her father, Mae West took after him and also worked for him when he peddled fruit in Brooklyn and when he helmed a "detective agency" in New Jersey and New York City. Before opening his own operation, West had walked the beat in Coney Island and elsewhere in Brooklyn.
• • Born on Manhattan's Lower East Side in March 1866, John Patrick West [called "Jack"] grew up feisty, impatient, and strong. As a child he boasted that he'd rather fight than eat. He got his Irish up rather quickly, remembered Mae. He was easily angered and "always ready to do physical violence when the urge was on him." In 1969, Mae revealed in an interview that she thought her father was cruel — — but realized "all his fighting was done doing other people's fighting for them."
• • Jack West was 7 years old in 1873 when his family moved from Avenue C (near the docks) in Manhattan to the borough of Brooklyn, settling first in Red Hook, and then in Greenpoint.
• • On 19 January 1889, in Greenpoint, Battling Jack West and Tillie Delker took their wedding vows before a local minister with Jack's sister Julia West acting as maid of honor.
• • On Saturday, 5 January 1935, "Battling Jack" heard the final countdown; he passed away in Oakland, California of a stroke.
• • On this date we remember John Patrick West with love and respect.
• • On Wednesday, 5 January 1938 • •
• • "Paramount: Mae West Most Likely All Washed Up" was the downbeat headline in Variety Magazine on Wednesday, 5 January 1938. After the NBC broadcast brouhaha, Paramount began monitoring audience feedback to the coming attractions that were onscreen at the New York City Paramount Theatre. Their investigators noted that, since the Adam and Eve skit was on the air, audience members were greeting trailers showing Mae West with generous applause. There was also some hissing and Variety chose to focus on the negative. Typical.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "That's why I want you to see her story — — because her-story is the real lowdown."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article on women in the theatre mentioned Mae West.
• • Anthony Chase wrote: Another American woman playwright who enjoyed the distinction of racking up the highest advance box office sales in the history of Broadway, Mae West, scored a huge hit with her 1926 play, Sex, but saw her 1928 play, Pleasure Man, closed down by the police after its second performance. Despite the fact that she duplicated this success in Hollywood, West’s work is not included in anthologies, she is never mentioned in theater textbooks, and her work is out of print. In fact, the only American woman whose plays are consistently included in the American repertoire is Lillian Hellman, and even she had to go on a deliberate publicity campaign in the 1970s when she saw a list of the nation’s 10 greatest living playwrights and found that her name was missing. . . .
• • Source: Article: "An Uncommon Woman" written by Anthony Chase for Art Voice (Buffalo, NY); posted on Wednesday, 5 January 2011
• • By the Numbers • • 
• • The Mae West Blog was started eight years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2537th 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 • 1934
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  Mae West.

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