Mae West: Cell Belle

MAE WEST was listed as one of the twenty transformative women of Greenwich Village in a recent article. If you’ve seen the stage play “Courting Mae West,” then you’re ahead of the story. If not, read on.
• • Mae West, Ethel Rosenberg, Valerie Solanas, Angela Davis, and Dorothy Day were once Sixth Avenue’s female inmates (but not all at the same time, obviously).
• • Andrew Berman wrote: These five notorious women all lived, at least temporarily, in the same spot in the Greenwich Village Historic District — the notorious Women’s House of Detention, or its predecessor, the Jefferson Market Prison, both located on the site of the present-day Jefferson Market Garden at Greenwich Avenue and 10th Street.

• • Andrew Berman continued: In 1927, Mae West was jailed in the Jefferson Market Prison after being arrested on obscenity charges for her performance in her Broadway play “Sex.” And just five years earlier, in the summer of 1922, Mae West should have gotten her big break in Greenwich Village with a starring role in the play “The Ginger Box” at the since-demolished Greenwich Village Theater on Sheridan Square — — but the producer skipped town with the box office advance. Not long after Mae West’s internment at the Jefferson Market Prison, the jailhouse was demolished to make way for the supposedly more humane, Art Deco-style and WPA-mural adorned Women’s House of Detention.
• • Source: “20 transformative women of Greenwich Village”; published on Thursday, 7 March 2019.
• • On Saturday, 29 March 2008 in NYC • •
• • Offered for free in the Times Square area on Saturday afternoon, 29 March 2008 was a reading of the play "Courting Mae West" at The Producer's Club [358 West 44th Street, NYC]. Louis Lopardi directed the cast. Based on true events 1926 — 1932, the play dramatizes moments from both of the obscenity trials.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Actor Stepin Fetchit attended Hollywood parties with celebrities such as Will Rogers, John Wayne, Mae West, Shirley Temple and, later, Muhammad Ali.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "Good women are no fun. The only good woman I can recall in history is Betsy Ross. And all she ever made was a flag."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A Philadelphia daily mentioned Mae West.
• • The Trocadero Theatre is closing.
• • Dan DeLuca wrote: The Trocadero has a storied past. Built by architect Edward Durang, who was known for his churches up and down the East Coast, it opened as the Arch Street Opera House in 1870. But according to Irvin R. Glazer, author of Philadelphia Theatres, A-Z, it didn’t actually present opera, instead specializing in minstrel shows and musical comedies. It was renamed the Trocadero in 1896, and shifted to vaudeville in 1903, with bump-and-grind striptease acts being a principal part of its business model for the next 75 years.
• • Dan DeLuca wrote: Over the years, it was known as the Trocadero as well as many other names. W.C. Fields and Mae West performed there, as did dancers with such stage monikers as Terry Firma and Polly Ethel Lean, who was billed as “a warm body in a plastic world.” . . .
• • Source: Philly (dot) com; published on Thursday, 14 March 2019
• • The evolution of 2 Mae West plays that keep her memory alive • • 
• • A discussion with Mae West playwright LindaAnn LoSchiavo — — 
• • http://lideamagazine.com/renaissance-woman-new-york-city-interview-lindaann-loschiavo/

• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 14th anniversary • •  

• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past fourteen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,100 blog posts. Wow!  

• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fourteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4180th 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 • • "The Ginger Box," 1922 • •
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