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Nineteen-year-old MAE WEST claimed to be "The Original Brinkley Girl." 
• • During 1912-13, when Mae was still trying to find her way in her career, she was billing herself as a "Nell Brinkley Girl." At the time, she was a fresh-faced brunette teenager with a penchant for physically energetic routines in vaudeville. Unlike other performers who had but one act to offer the audience, Mae was always testing new approaches and buying new material. She tried to dazzle the ticket-holders with her versatility: fast tap dancing and acrobatic feats onstage combined with "character" [novelty] songs often in an ethnic idiom.
• • Nell Brinkley [1886—1944] • •• • What's there to remember about Nell Brinkley — — born on the 5th day in the month of September? Plenty.
• • Seven years older than the Brooklyn bombshell, beautiful Nell Brinkley [5 September 1886 — 21 October 1944] was born in Denver, Colorado, and taught herself portraiture. 
In 1903, while she was still in high school, the Denver Post hired her to draw romantic cartoons. Her enchanting "Brinkley Girls" — — with their free flowing dresses and curly hair depicting a vivacious feminine beauty — — were quite unlike the passive, sedate (and sedated looking) Gibson Girl.
• • Her exposure in a Denver newspaper led to an invitation, in October 1907, to come to The Big Apple as an illustrator/ reporter for publisher William Randolph Hearst (and his editor Arthur Brisbane) at the New York Evening Journal. Now her drawings became even more popular.
• • Soon Nell Brinkley was getting assignments as a reporter to interview celebrities such as Evelyn Nesbitt-Thaw, the wife of the millionaire murderer Harry Thaw (who had killed architect Stanford White).
• • Within a few months, her artistic talent inspired a spin-off onstage. Her "Brinkley Girl" became the theme for the 1908 Ziegfeld Follies, played by Mae Murray. A young Helen Hayes also played a Brinkley Girl in the play "Jack the Giant Killer" [1909].
• • As Mae West did in her plays, Nell Brinkley widened her scope to include pen and ink depictions of working women. Brinkley used her fame to campaign for better working conditions and higher pay for women who had joined in the war effort, and who were suffering economic and social dislocation due to acting on their patriotism.
• • Unlike most of her contemporaries, she drew women of different races and cultures.
• • Nell Brinkley's illustrations influenced many artists. Brinkley's career was the model for Dale Messick's "Brenda Starr, Girl Reporter" comic strip series.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • circa 1913 • • Nell Brinkley in 1915 • •• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST adored ragtime. She once told an interviewer about grooving very early to "the black man's sound." Whether she was imitating the sultry Shimmy she watched in a Chicago club or swinging to the latest jam she heard in Harlem, Mae's musical taste was in formation: "we copied it because it was the greatest. [Black people] had been developing it for years."
• • In 1928, she performed a rag that she especially loved onstage in "Diamond Lil" and its Hollywood counterpart "She Done Him Wrong" [1933]. The lyricist and composer of this song — — "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone" — — was Shelton Brooks [4 May 1886 — 6 September 1975], who published it around 1913. He was good friends with Mae's maid Bea Jackson; his nickname for her was "Hot Story Telling."
• • Born in Canada in the month of May, Shelton Brooks moved to Detroit in 1901 with his family; his parents were Native American and Black. His father was a preacher and Shelton and his brother would play the organ during services.
• • Surrounded by music, Shelton wrote his first big hit in 1910 — — "Some of These Days" — — using his own lyrics. He had already introduced the song in his own vaudeville act when Sophie Tucker's maid introduced both him and the tune to Sophie. The vaudevillian, who would eventually style herself as "the Last of the Red Hot Mamas," made this number her very own theme song.
• • "Walkin' the Dog" • • • • His 1916 instrumental tune "Walkin' the Dog" inspired a dance that first swept dancehall-crazed New York City, and then the rest of the country. That year, the variety act "Mae West and Sister" performed "Walkin' the Dog" as their grand finale.
• • Shelton Brooks died in Los Angeles in 1975 when he was 89 years old. He is buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
In 1932, Tammany Young was in one motion picture with MAE WEST. 
• • Born in New York City, Tammany Young [9 September 1886 — 26 April 1936] appeared on Broadway in "The Front Page" [1928] by Ben Hecht and "The New Yorkers" [1930] by Herbert Fields and Cole Porter. He acquired the rep of being a “good luck actor” by Broadway producers. Consequently, he was often cast in bit parts by the likes of the Shubert brothers, Jed Harris, and David Belasco as a way of attracting good luck to their productions. This high regard paid off and Alex Gard drew his likeness for Sardi's restaurant.
• • In Hollywood, Young started out in silent films and then was cast in talkies. Although frequently uncredited, he eventually appeared in over 100 movies with such stars as Mae West, Myrna Loy, Bing Crosby, Shirley Temple, and Judy Garland.
• • In "She Done Him Wrong," Tammany Young portrayed the colorful Chuck Connors, who had been a well-known figure on the Bowery. On Broadway, Mae West had cast Chuck Connors, Jr. in the role of Chuck Connors in "Diamond Lil" for an air of authenticity.
• • But he was known most notably for his role as the stooge (straight man) to W.C. Fields with whom he appeared in seven films: Sally of the Sawdust (1925), Six of a Kind (1934), You're Telling Me! (1934), The Old Fashioned Way (1934), It's a Gift (1934), Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935), and Poppy (1936).
• • Tammany Young also was an infamous gate crasher. By claiming to be an ice man, he worked his way into the 1921 Dempsey — Carpentier prize fight in New Jersey, for instance; in 1932 he found his way into the Los Angeles Olympics. These exploits often popped up in the columns of sportswriters who knew him.
• • During the month of April — — on 26 April 1936 — — Tammany Young died in his sleep in Hollywood at the age of 49. At the news of Young's untimely demise in California, W.C. Fields became severely depressed and stopped eating and sleeping. One wonders: did he also stop drinking while in mourning?
• • Speaking of April 26th, on that sunny date in 1926, "Sex" debuted on Broadway starring Mae West as Margy LaMont at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1932 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST said her favorite cinematographer was Karl Struss because he made her look more beautiful onscreen than anyone else. Like her, he was of German descent.
• • The son of a wire manufacturer, cinematographer Karl Struss was born in New York City on 30 November 1886 and studied photography at Columbia University. 
Hal Mohr — — a fellow film cameraman — — called Struss one of the greatest still photographers who ever lived.
• • In 1914, he took over the portrait studio of Clarence White [1871 — 1925] at 5 West 31st Street, which was then the heart of the photography district. Struss maintained a flourishing business there until 1918, when (at the outset of the war) he voiced a pro-German sentiment. The damning information given to the authorities came from other members of the PPA [Pictorialist Photographers of America]. In 1918 he was asked to resign from the PPA and was struck from their membership. Though he vigorously defended his patriotism and even spent time at Fort Leavenworth as a guard, his studio closed, clients vanished, and his reputation was damaged. Disillusioned with New York, Struss realized that it would be difficult to re-establish himself as a photographer. Therefore, he decided to go straight to Los Angeles in 1919 as soon as he was discharged from the Army.
• • In 1919, Karl Struss was first hired as a still photographer by Cecil B. DeMille. Climbing to the top in relatively short order, Struss worked most often in collaboration with Charles Rosher; he and Rosher shared the first-ever Best Photography Academy Award for their eye-popping work on F.W. Murnau's Sunrise [1927].
• • Many of Struss' own innovations were often mistakenly credited by film historians to directors. For instance, it was Struss and not director Rouben Mamoulian who came up with the idea of using infrared filters for the transformation scenes in 1931's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. During his many years at Paramount Pictures, Struss helped train some of the best cameramen of the 1950s.
• • When film historians cite his best work, Goin' to Town starring Mae West is, alas, not one of the motion pictures referenced.
• • In the month of December — — on 15 December 1981 — — 95-year-old Karl Struss died in Los Angeles.
• • Goin' to Town — — Paramount production and release. Stars Mae West. Directed by Alexander Hall. Produced by William LeBaron. Original by Marion Morgan and George B. Dowell; screenplay and dialog. Miss West. Songs, Sammy Fain, Irving Kahal; camera, Karl Struss. At the Paramount N.Y. — — week of 10 May 1935. Running time, 75 mins.
• • Cast:
• • Cleo Borden . . . Mae West
• • Edward Barrington . . . Paul Cavanagh
• • Ivan Veladov . . . Ivan Lebedeff
• • Taho . . . Tito Coral
• • Mrs. Crane Brittony . . . Marjorie Gateson
• • Buck Gonzales . . . Fred Kohler, Sr.
• • Fletcher Colton . . . Monroe Owsley
• • Winslow . . . Gilbert Emery
• • Young Fellow . . . Grant Withers
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West's cameraman • • Karl Struss in 1937 • •
NYC
Mae West.
Most people have not seen MAE WEST featured in a Frida Kahlo painting. 
• • Reportedly Diego Rivera’s favorite American actress, the Brooklyn bombshell appears in a cameo on the left side of the work titled "My Dress Hangs There." Created with oil and collage on masonite [460 x 500 mm], it is owned by a private collector and, therefore, it rarely tours.
• • Frida Kahlo — — who was born and died during the month of July — — [6 July 1907 — 13 July 1954] was a Mexican painter, who has achieved great international popularity.
• • The painter Diego Rivera [8 December 1886 — 24 November 1957] was her husband.
• • Critic Janice Helland wrote an essay about Frida Kahlo's paintings that were inspired by her American sojourn. According to Janice Helland, in "My Dress Hangs There" [1933], Kahlo scourges the United States with representations of the accoutrements of a bourgeois life-style (a toilet, a telephone, and a sports trophy) and indicts its hypocrisy by wrapping a dollar sign around the cross of a church. Her appropriated photographs of Depression-era unemployment, which constitute the lower part of the picture, juxtapose "reality" with the "made-up" painting and thereby highlight the vulgar display of American wealth and well-being as opposed to the poverty and suffering of the lower classes. In the midst of this Kahlo places a pristine image: the Tehuana dress. . . .
• • Let's accept the fact that Helland is well informed about art interpretation and Kahlo iconography. However, she and the others who insist on dating this artwork to 1933 are quite obviously not Mae-mavens.
• • One look at the millinery indicates that Mae West wore that costume in "Klondike Annie," a motion picture not released in the United States until 21 February 1936.
• • So tell us again: in what year did Frida Kahlo channel "Klondike Annie" for her collage filled with her sarcastic humor? It was NOT in 1933.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Frida Kahlo painting • •
NYC
Mae West.
Nineteen-year-old MAE WEST claimed to be "The Original Brinkley Girl."
• • During 1912-13, when Mae was billing herself as a "Nell Brinkley Girl," she was a fresh-faced brunette teenager with a penchant for energetic routines in vaudeville. Unlike other performers who had but one act to offer the audience, Mae was always testing new approaches and buying new material. She tried to dazzle the ticket-holders with her versatility: fast tap dancing and acrobatic feats onstage combined with "character" [novelty] songs often in an ethnic idiom.
• • What's there to remember about Nell Brinkley — — born in the month of September? Plenty.
• • Seven years older than the Brooklyn bombshell, beautiful Nell Brinkley [5 September 1886 — 21 October 1944] was born in Denver, Colorado, and taught herself portraiture. In 1903, while she was still in high school, the Denver Post hired her to draw romantic cartoons. Her enchanting "Brinkley Girls" — — with their free flowing dresses and curly hair depicting a vivacious feminine beauty — — were quite unlike the passive, sedate (and sedated looking) Gibson Girl.
• • Her exposure in a Denver newspaper led to an invitation, in October 1907, to come to The Big Apple as an illustrator/ reporter for publisher William Randolph Hearst (and his editor Arthur Brisbane) at the New York Evening Journal. Now her drawings became even more popular.
• • Soon Nell Brinkley was getting assignments as a reporter to interview celebrities such as Evelyn Nesbitt-Thaw, the wife of the millionaire murderer Harry Thaw (who had killed architect Stanford White).
• • Within a few months, her artistic talent inspired a spin-off onstage. Her "Brinkley Girl" became the theme for the 1908 Ziegfeld Follies, played by Mae Murray. A young Helen Hayes also played a Brinkley Girl in the play "Jack the Giant Killer" [1909].
• • As Mae West did in her plays, Nell Brinkley widened her scope to include pen and ink depictions of working women. Brinkley used her fame to campaign for better working conditions and higher pay for women who had joined in the war effort, and who were suffering economic and social dislocation due to acting on their patriotism.
• • Unlike most of her contemporaries, she drew women of different races and cultures.
• • Nell Brinkley's illustrations influenced many artists. Brinkley's career was the model for Dale Messick's "Brenda Starr, Girl Reporter" comic strip series.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1914 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST adored ragtime. 
She performed a rag that she especially loved onstage in "Diamond Lil" and its Hollywood counterpart "She Done Him Wrong." The lyricist and composer of this song — — "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone" — — was Shelton Brooks [4 May 1886 — 6 September 1975], who published it about 1913.
• • Born in Canada, Shelton Brooks moved to Detroit in 1901 with his family; his parents were Native American and Black. His father was a preacher and Shelton and his brother would play the organ during services.
• • Surrounded by music, Shelton wrote his first big hit in 1910 — — "Some of These Days" — — using his own lyrics. He had already introduced the song in his own vaudeville act when Sophie Tucker's maid introduced both him and the tune to Sophie. The vaudevillian, who would eventually style herself as "the Last of the Red Hot Mamas," made this number her very own theme song.
• • His 1916 instrumental tune "Walkin' The Dog" inspired a dance that first swept dancehall-crazed New York City, and then the rest of the country. In 1917, Brooks had another hit with "The Darktown Strutter's Ball," for which he wrote both the words and music.
• • It was in August [on 21 August 1971] — — on a TV program called "The Anthony Newley Show" — — that "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone" was performed by Liza Minnelli. Was Mae West watching Liza on television that evening?
• • Four years later, Shelton Brooks died in Los Angeles in 1975 when he was 89 years old. He is buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West's songwriter • • Shelton Brooks • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST, with the rough baritone voice she had as a child, was often cast as a male in stock productions. She played the leading role of Little Lord Fauntleroy several times in Brooklyn theatres.
• • The British-born playwright and author Frances Hodgson Burnett [24 November 1849 — 29 October 1924] is best known for her children's stories, especially The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and (of course) Little Lord Fauntleroy.
• • Born in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in England, Frances emigrated to America (Knoxville, Tennessee) after her father died in 1865.
• • Following the death of her mother in 1872, Frances became the head of the household. Pressed with the demands of supporting herself and four younger siblings, she looked for income from writing assignments.
• • Serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1885, Little Lord Fauntleroy is a sentimental children's narrative that became a huge hit for the publication. In 1886, this work was separately published as a novel. The book was a commercial success for its author, and its fanciful sketches by Reginald Birch set fashion trends.
• • The Fauntleroy suit — — described by Frances Hodgson Burnett and sweetly illustrated via Reginald Birch's detailed pen-and-ink drawings — — created a major fad in formal attire for American middle-class children:
• • • • "What the Earl saw was a graceful, childish figure in a black velvet suit, with a lace collar, and with lovelocks waving about the handsome, manly little face, whose eyes met his with a look of innocent good-fellowship." — — Little Lord Fauntleroy
• • Clothing that Frances Hodgson Burnett popularized had been modeled on the garments she sewed by hand for her two sons, Vivian and Lionel. Under the influence of Birch's illustrations for Little Lord Fauntleroy, many middle-class American parents began dressing their sons in velvet suits with lace collars and sashes and short knee-pants, and to have their boys' hair curled into long ringlets like Cedric — — a mode that was considered aristocratic.
• • In 1921 a silent movie version was released starring Mary Pickford as Little Lord Fauntleroy.
• • Here is 15-year-old Mae West, costumed for the part in a theatrical production, in 1908 — — ninety-nine years ago.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1908 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST said she learned so much from the sublimely silly vaudeville comedian Ed Wynn [born in 1886].
• • While playing opposite the seasoned 32-year-old Ed Wynn in Arthur Hammerstein's Broadway hit "Sometime" (with a music score by Rudolf Friml), Mae West came to the realization that she was throwing away her lines. Observing the crafty comic timing of Ed Wynn, said Mae West, and watching how he made sure he caught the audience's attention before delivering a line, was the best lesson.
• • Fortunately, Mae had ample time to study the Philadelphia-born cut-up. "Sometime" opened at the Shubert Theatre on 4 October 1918. After running for eight months and 283 performances, the musical closed in June 1919.
• • And also in the month of June, Ed Wynn died of throat cancer: 19 June 1966.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
In 1903, while she was still in high school, the Denver Post hired her to draw romantic cartoons. Her enchanting "Brinkley Girls" — — with their free flowing dresses and curly hair depicting a vivacious feminine beauty — — were quite unlike the passive, sedate (and sedated looking) Gibson Girl.
