Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Mae West: Unhip Adrian

A column "Behind the Scenes in Hollywood" started with a remark about MAE WEST and her famous curves.  The speaker was the gay costume designer Adrian Adolph Greenberg [3 March 1903 — 13 September 1959]. He had not yet married Janet Gaynor.
• • Hollywood — — Girls, don’t let the current craze for Mae West, lull you into putting on weight.  Adrian, M-G-M designer, blasts any notion that hips are coming back.
• • Adrian, who is a slender style mentor for Greta Garbo, Marion Davies, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, waxes emphatically about this topic. "Keep the hips under control,” he says. “Regardless of fashion and the current interest in curves, there will come that day when women realize the sense of proportion as it to their own figures. They will never be so enthusiastic that hips will be wider than shoulders. He predicted the return of . . . ."
• • Note: The next item on the page offered a quip by Texas Guinan on Joe Smith, the racing enthusiast, who bought her so many orchids that she joked that she "looked like a well-kept  grave."
• • Source: Hollywood column reprinted (page 3) by The Daily Banner (Greencastle, Indiana); published on Saturday, 9 September 1933.
• • On Friday, 9 September 1927 in Variety • •
• • Variety was not impressed with Mae West's harmonica playing in "The Wicked Age."  They were not amused by "Satisfied" nor the other songs she thought up like "My Baby's Kisses."  But the most startling element was her racy, tummy-tossing physicality.  Variety reprimanded her in their review: "Miss West is getting away at $3.85 with something the [burlesque] wheels don't dare at $1.65." [Variety's issue was dated for Friday, 9 September 1927.]
• • On Sunday, 9 September 1934 • •
• • "Me and My Past" was reprinted in Delaware Star on Sunday, 9 September 1934.  Among other matters, Mae West discusses ("How Her Famous Gait Was Born with Ed Wynn and Frank Tinney") the development of her slow, studied, slouchy strut while appearing on Broadway in "Sometime" with Ed Wynn, a comedian who moved very quickly across the stage.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Look smart at the races and get your hats, Mae West style.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said:  “I didn't discover curves.  I only uncovered them.”
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Kathleen Tynan mentioned Mae West.
• • Kathleen Tynan wrote: Mae West's first appearance in London, England was on 24 January 1948, at the Prince of Wales Theatre as Diamond Lil, in her play of that name. KPT, with a group of friends, went backstage to pay homage.  . . .
• • Source: Noted in the book "Kenneth Tynan Letters" by Kathleen Tynan (Random House; published on Wednesday,  29 February 2012
• • Note: Kenneth Peacock Tynan [2 April 1927 — 26 July 1980] was an English theatre critic and writer. 
• • Note: Kathleen Jeannette Halton Tynan [25 January 1937 — 10 January 1995] was a Canadian-British journalist, author, and screenwriter. The daughter of Canadian war correspondent Matthew Halton and the sister of television journalist David Halton, she gave up her journalism career in 1967 to marry the British theatre critic Kenneth Tynan
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 11th anniversary • •    
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past eleven years. The other day we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 3,200 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • • 
• • The Mae West Blog was started ten years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 3263rd 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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• • Photo:
• • Mae West • in 1948

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