Monday, December 06, 2021

Mae West: Hungry Look

MAE WEST’s plump, curvaceous body was a vital element in her comedy. Academics have emphasized that “excessive body is one of the qualities of female unruliness, suggesting that she is unwilling or unable to control her physical appetites.” Japanese film historian Mio Hatokai discusses how Hollywood publicists and fan zines responded to this “fatness” in 1933. This is Part 34 of a lengthy piece.
• • Laughing off the “Fatness” ― Mae West’s Body Image and Female Spectators in the Early 1930s • •
• • Mae West: Weighty concerns • •

• • Mio Hatokai wrote: Two actresses in Hollywood have been ordered to put on pounds.  
• • Mio Hatokai wrote: Claudette Colbert, in training for her rôle of Cleopatra, has some fifteen pounds to assemble in order to charm the voluptuous Ptolemy.”  
• • Paramount had a gym • •
• • Mio Hatokai wrote: Two months earlier, in Motion Picture, there is another gossip article that Mae West may be reducing: “Incidentally, if it’s true that Mae is reducing ― ― she goes to Paramount's gym every day ― ― then it’s a great pity. We have enough hungry-looking stars as it is.  
• • Mio Hatokai wrote: But Mae West quipped to newspapermen, ‘I’m not trying to remove my hips.  I’m going to keep on moving them as before ― ― from side to side’.”
• • Mae West: True or not • • ...  
• • Mio Hatokai’s lengthy article will continue on the next post.
• • Source: Academic anthology on film stars released by Waseda University, 2015.
• • On Monday, 6 December 1976

• • Monday, 6 December 1976 — Friday, 25 March 1977 • •
• • The shooting schedule in Hollywood for "Sextette," a May-December romantic comedy starring the eighty-three-year-old movie star, Mae West began on a winter morning in December ― ― on Monday, 6 December 1976.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Why is Mae West still considered the original big-screen sexpot? Watch this classic 1933 feature that made instantly made her one of Hollywood's biggest box-office draws. With hips a-swishing, Mae West plays the wisecracking Lady Lou, who works as a singer at a rowdy saloon in “She Done Him Wrong” (Paramount).
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I've no time for broads who want to rule the world alone. Without men, who'd do up the zipper on the back of your dress?"
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The New Yorker featured an article on Mae West.
• • “The Strong Woman: Mae West” • •
• • Claudia Roth Pierpont wrote: In 1948, Billy Wilder begged Mae West to play the lead in "Sunset Boulevard"; offended, she instead went on the road in another production of "Diamond Lil." …
• • Source: The New Yorker; published on Sunday, 3 November 1996

• • 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 17th anniversary • • 
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past seventeen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,800 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seventeen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4,880th 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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