Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Mae West: H.B. Phillips

Before you could say "applesauce," Judge Harry Aaron Hollzer ruled in favor of MAE WEST in a California courthouse.
• • "Mae West Wins Over Writer in Suit" • •
• • Los Angeles, March 18 — (AP) — Mae West won't have to pay Joan Storm $1,000,000 for material she used in her "Adam and Eve" radio broadcast, Federal Judge Harry Hollzer ruled today.
• • The writer claimed part of her script, "Love and Applesauce," had been used by Miss West In the radio skit. The actress and the National Broadcasting company, co-defendants, claimed she stayed up all night rewriting the script in an emergency.
• • Judge Hollzer read both scripts and said there was not enough similarity to constitute infringement.
• • Source: "The News in Brief: Mae Won't Have to Pay," Poughkeepsie Eagle-News (page 1); published on Tuesday, 19 March 1940. Other dailies syndicated this AP coverage.      
• • H. B. Phillips [23 December 1866 — 19 March 1950] • •
• • The notable Irish impresario Henry Bettesworth Phillips was born in Athy, County Kildare on 23 December 1866.
• • According to a biography on him, H.B. Phillips, impresario, had spent the afternoon at the picture show watching Mae West whose new film "Goin' to Town" was showing at the Place Cinema in Londonderry.  H.B. Philipps was made CBE in 1948.
• • Henry Bettesworth Phillips died on Sunday, 19 March 1950.
• • On Saturday, 19 March 1927 • •
• • Mae West signed the "Sex" checks. Three promissory notes dated for Saturday, 19 March 1927 from the Moral Producing Corporation, $1000 each to Harold Spielberg, signed on the verso in original ink "Mae West" together with a check drawn on the Bowery and East River National Bank, dated 2 March 1927, signed by Mae West as President of the Moral Producing Corporation.
• • On Monday, 19 March 1934 in Hollywood • •
• • Mae West's motion picture, with a working title of "It Ain't No Sin," began production in mid-March — — on Monday, 19 March 1934. In the script, Ruby Carter, beauty queen of the night club and sporting world set, shifts her operations from St. Louis to New Orleans. The picture was retitled many times before Paramount settled on "Belle of the Nineties."
• • On Wednesday, 19 March 1986 in The L.A. Times • •
• • "Obituary: Stanley Musgrove, 61; TV Producer, Writer" • •
• • Stanley E. Musgrove, for 20 years president of the Friends of the USC Libraries, a support group for the 16 libraries at the university, died Thursday (on 13 March 1986) of cancer at a Mission Hills Hospital. He was 61. ...  He also was publicist for Mae West, Cole Porter, and Guy Madison and at his death was preparing to produce a television film of a book on Miss West that he co-authored. [Source: The L.A. Times on 19 March 1986.]
• • Stanley E. Musgrove was quick to say he was not Mae West's agent, but he was [or became] her publicist. He often "ran interference" for the star, screening her visitors, as well as autograph-hunters or admirers who were after her picture. Musgrove came to know many Hollywood personalities, from actors to directors. He collaborated with George Eells on "Mae West: A Biography" [NY: William Morrow, 1982].
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "Don't believe that in my search for realism in the plays I write I invite police interference. My last trouble with the police cost me a small fortune in litigation and a lot of headaches."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Jill Watts discussed the character of Margy LaMont created by Mae West and why the play "Sex" was padlocked..
• • Police action against "Sex" had been more in opposition to "The Drag" than to Margy LaMont's lascivious adventures, explains Jill Watts in her impeccably researched bio: "Mae West: An Icon in Black and White."
• • According to Jill Watts: While efforts to mothball "The Drag" succeeded, "Sex" played to capacity crowds for several more weeks. However, by the beginning of March [1927], attendance had died off and profits shrank. Desperate to keep the production alive, the Moral Production Corporation ordered a 25% pay cut for everyone. Several players handed in their notices.
• • Finally, on Saturday, 19 March 1927, after the evening's performance had ended, C. William Morganstern announced that Mae West was physically exhausted and was closing the play. Yet he also emphasized her determination to fight the case to its end.
• • The play "Courting Mae West" dramatizes this turmoil and legal wrangling, based on true events in Mae's life and career from 1926 — 1932.
• • Source for this information: "Mae West: An Icon in Black and White" by Jill Watts
• • By the Numbers • • 
• • The Mae West Blog was started eight years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2608th 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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