Mae West: The Low-Down

The NBC radio fiasco involving MAE WEST spurred numerous editorials. Here's one essay from The Desert Sun by Palm Springs reporter Toni Hughes, siding with Mae.
• • "Adam and Mae" • •
• • Toni Hughes wrote:  Listeners throughout the nation are indignant over Mae West’s radio detour through the Garden of Eden. They are saying she made a mess of her portrayal of Eve, and in general profaned the sacred grove. It is reported that NBC, ever alert to popular criticism, has barred from its broadcasts not only Mae herself but also her very name.
• • Toni Hughes explained:  In speaking of la belle West we are bound to give her one credit. She is honest. She never sails under false colors. Her appeal is definite and particular, and is recognized by every person in the country who is 16 and normally bright. So the casting director should have foreseen that when he put her in the Garden she might become the veritable bull in the china shop.  And it turned out just so. She smashed the traditional model for our mothers and wives and sweethearts, and in its place gave us — — Mae West. We can’t help wondering why somebody didn’t get the low-down on these things at the rehearsal.
• • Toni Hughes continued:  Yet to denounce her for making folks laugh in her portrayal is not quite convincing. Some years ago a certain beloved author wrote a skit on Adam and Eve in the Garden before the Fall. Millions of readers chuckled over it, the more unwary laughing outright. But nobody snickered and nudged his neighbor. Get the difference? It’s the difference between a Mark Twain and a Mae West, which in this case amounts to all the difference in the world.
• • Toni Hughes concluded:  The moral here seems to be an eternal one. There is a brook, never falling, that flows through every garden where a man and a woman live together. Mark Twain could dip into the brook and give us a sweet sparkling drink. Then along comes another entertainer, and out of the same brook, she offers us a cup that is dark and oily.
• • Source:  Article "Adam and Mae" by Toni Hughes for Desert Sun; published on Friday, 31 December 1937.
• • On Sunday, 1 January 1933 • •
• • Bootlegger and speakeasy owner Larry Fay met his death inside the Napoleon Club, 33 West 56th Street, New York, NY on Sunday, 1 January 1933. Mae West and George Raft both knew Larry Fay, who was the business partner of the night club czarina Texas Guinan.
• • Filmed in Hollywood, the reformed gangster rom-com "Night after Night" was set in the once grand townhouse that Larry Fay turned into a deluxe speakeasy.
• • On Monday, 1 January 1934 • •
• • An article with the headline "Lehn and Fink to Start Series without Mae West" was published in Broadcasting on Monday,  1 January 1934. Who's Lehn? Who's Fink? This headline was referring to a popular radio broadcast — — the Lehn and Fink Hall of Fame program.
• • On Sunday, 1 January 1967 in The Washington Post • •
• • Newspaper readers in D.C. got a brief respite from hearing about the antics of President Lyndon B. Johnson on Sunday morning, 1 January 1967 when the Washington Post printed an article by Kevin Thomas: "Mae West, Like Rock 'n' Roll Music, Is Still Deeply Rooted in Ragtime."
• • On Sunday, 1 January 1978 • •
• • A review of the motion picture "Sextette," starring Mae West, was printed in Variety, the issue dated for Sunday, 1 January 1978.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Charles Winninger has joined the cast of "Every Day's a Holiday" starring Mae West.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said:   "I figured I owed just one kiss to reformers as a class. So Charlie Winninger gets it.  He's old enough not to take it too seriously."
• • Mae West said: "I have found men who didn't know how to kiss. I've always found time to teach them."
• • Quote, Unquote • •

• • The Daily mentioned Mae West.
• • To one who has heard Mae West sing "Frankie and Johnnie" and "I Like a Man Who Takes His Time," it may seem incomprehensible that she could ever have sung the plaintive, "Father, dear father, come home with me now. The clock in the steeple strikes one," while she tugged pitifully at the coattails of her drunkard parent in "Ten Nights in a Bar-room." Yet that was one of her most noted roles as a child actress with the Hal Clarendon company.  . . .
• • Source:  The Evening Independent (Massillon, Ohio); published on Tuesday, 12 December 1933
• • 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 3,300 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • • 
• • The Mae West Blog was started ten years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 3346th 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 1933 • •
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