Mae West: Out the Door

Starring Australian actress Melita Jurisic as the American icon MAE WEST, a new play “Arbus and West” was onstage in Melbourne until March 30th. Naturally, Mae would have stipulated that her name was placed first in the title. Let’s enjoy a spirited review by drama critic Robert Reid. This is Part 8.
• • “Arbus and West” — — A one-way gladiatorial battle • •
• • Mae’s bedroom, where no man has spent the night • •
• • Robert Reid wrote: It’s the room once owned by the studio men, where they put Mae West in between filming, a metaphorical prison that reflects her simplistic self-constructed identity. White, clean and tidy, with a bedroom where no man has spent the night, because once she has given them what they want, she ushers them quickly out the door. After you give a man what he wants, what they all want, she says, then all they want a woman to do is to clean up after them or bring them a beer. So instead she gets in first, disposing of them before they can turn her into something domestic. Something small.
• • Robert Reid wrote: Gradually, through flattery mostly, Arbus (and Sewell) draw out of West her secrets and hidden selves: her faith in spiritualism, her love for her family, her gullibility and need for attention.
• • Mae gives herself to Arbus’s camera • •  . . .
• • To be continued on the next post.
• • Source: Witness, stage review; published on Wednesday, 6 March 2019.
• • On Wednesday, 11 April 2012 • •

• • Mae mavens had the chance to bid on the photo "Mae West in a Chair at Home, Santa Monica, California" [1965] by Diane Arbus. This auction ended on Wednesday, 11 April 2012.
• • Markings: signed, on verso in ink by Doon Arbus, Executor of the Estate of Diane Arbus; printed by Neil Selkirk; editioned on verso, stamps of the Estate of Diane Arbus on verso. Edition: of 75. Auctioned by ArtNet.com. Opening bid was a few thou.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • The old belief that everything should be bigger and better — — a thought most forcefully pronounced by Hollywood trailers — — can be applied with forthright honesty to Mae West, who has returned to the Latin Quarter [in New York City on West 48th Street], where she scored heavily during a prior engagement.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I have been a legend from the very beginning of my career."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Photoplay mentioned Mae West.
• • Adela Rogers St. Johns wrote:  On other lots, Mae West was knocking over exhibitors and audiences, Marlene Dietrich was spreading glamour thicker than honey and Greta Garbo, who invented glamour but couldn't patent it, was Queen. Jean Harlow, God bless her, was the platinum blonde dynamo and — well, everybody had glamour.
• • Adela continued: All Hollywood's gals had glamour. All but Irene Dunne. ...
• • Source: Photoplay; published in the issue dated for May 1939
• • 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 4189th 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 • • Diane Arbus photo in 1965 • •
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