Monday, January 06, 2014

Mae West: Torrid Rendition

Australians were reading about MAE WEST on January 6th.
• • "A Bowery Film" • •
• • "Passion and Colorful Life — — Mae West's Big Part" • •
• • Mae West, popular Broadway favourite, makes her first starring screen appearance in "She Done Him Wrong," screening on Tuesday and Wednesday. Miss West, who wrote both the story and the dialogue, gives her role a brilliant and vivid treatment and puts over her lines with a crackling spontaneity that speaks well for her own ability. And her torrid rendition of the favourite old rag-time ballad 'Frankie and Johnnie' is very striking. 
• • Mae sings "Haven't Got No Peace of Mind' • •
• • Miss West also sings 'Haven't Got No Peace of Mind,' which was written specially for her.
• • Quite as effective as the brilliant portrayal of Miss West is the plot which twists and turns in any number of surprising ways, yet which succeeds in keeping perfectly logical. Miss West as Lady Lou, entertainer in a sinister cabaret in the heart of New York's colourful Bowery district, is the love interest of every man who visits the cabaret. Her passion is diamonds and her current provider, as the film opens, is Noah Beery (as Gus Jordan), proprietor of the cabaret and leader of a ring of counterfeiters. However, he has plenty of competition in David Landau (as Dan Flynn), powerful political boss and Gilbert Roland, handsome Russian counterfeiter. But Lou has eyes only for Cary Grant, a crusading missionary worker.
• • Source: Geraldton Guardian and Express (on page 2); published on Saturday, 6 January 1934.
• • On Sunday, 6 January 1935 • •
• • On Sunday, 6 January 1935, one day after her father had died, an interview with Mae West ran in the Sunday Dispatch. The title was "I'm an angel really — Mae West tells for the first time just what she is really like."
• • On Saturday, 6 January 1940 • •
• • Blytheville, Arkansas was a-buzzing on Saturday, 6 January 1940 when the Courier News was delivered. On page 3 was a tsk-tsk tut-tut piece about Mae West, then shooting with W.C. Fields in Hollywood. 
• • The article scolded the screen siren because she had been "ruling the roost" during shooting of "My Little Chickadee," making script changes and criticizing the action. Supposedly, the director protested that he had reached the limit of his patience when Mae demanded that cast mate Joseph Calleia dye his hair before their romantic scenes.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Wide World — Mae West, and her manager, James Timony, seated in an Exposition wheel chair, visited the Fair at San Diego.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I never worry about anything and the people around me don't. And if you don't worry, things generally turn out pretty well for you."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The Middletown Times Herald mentioned Mae West.
• • "Hearst Salary Highest in US; Mae West 2nd; Film Actors and Motor Makers Predominate in Higher than $100,000 Group" • •
• • WASHINGTON -- Congress published today the names of all persons who received more than $15,000 in salaries and commissions or bonuses in 1935. Highest income from these sources was that of William Randolph Hearst, the publisher, who received $500,000. The first ten included three movie stars, a film executive and five business executives.
• • They were: Mae West, $480,833; C. W. Guttzeit, Latrobe. Pa., steel executive, $398,808; Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., General Motors Corp. president, $374.505; Marlene Dietrich, $366,000; W. R. Sheehan, president of Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., $344.230; William F. Knudsen, General Motors executive vice president, $325,869; Bing Crosby, $318.S07; B. D. Miller, president of F. W. Woolworth Co., $309.880; and Thomas J. Watson, president of the International Business Machine Co. $296.028. The Treasury Department furnished the figures to Congress under the provisions of an income tax law passed two years .ago. The were taken from income tax returns made by the individuals . . .
• • Source: Middletown Times Herald (on page 2); published on Wednesday, 6 January 1937
• • By the Numbers • • 
• • The Mae West Blog was started nine years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2825th 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 in 1933

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