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MAE WEST was very interested in meeting Aimee Semple McPherson. When the famous Evangelist from Los Angeles visited New York on Saturday, 19 February 1927, she insisted on visiting Texas Guinan's club. Mae West was there to meet this intriguing individual with her marcel-waved hair and charismatic podium presence who dared to tell church-goers at collection time, "No coins, please."
• • When Texas Guinan welcomed McPherson, this was quite a promotional dream — — two gals of Irish descent in different types of show business. Aimee invited Texas to her Glad Tidings Tabernacle (West 33rd Street) the next day. Texas and her chorus girls showed up (before going to work), to the wide-eyed amazement of everyone.
• • The New York Times quoted Texas Guinan commenting about Aimee: "This is a woman I admire."
• • At the time, women in the pulpit ministry were rare — — those who wore makeup and jewelry in the pulpit, nonexistent. McPherson's uniqueness in this respect, her flamboyance and her unashamed use of low-key sex appeal to attract converts, endeared her to her followers in Los Angeles. She would invariably appear before parishioners in a white gown, carrying a bouquet of flowers.
• • "Annie the evangelist" takes shape • •
• • Mae was paying attention to all the stagecraft, power grabbing, and image-building at work here.
• • Mae West portrayed an evangelist in Nome, Alaska in her film "Klondike Annie" — — released in February 1936 after a lengthy hold-up by the censors who refused to let Mae West appear as a preacher or religious worker onscreen.
• • On Monday, 19 February 1940 in Life Magazine • •
• • The cover of Life Magazine's issue dated for Monday, 19 February 1940 featured the King of Romania. Inside were two aristocrats of comedy: Mae West and W.C. Fields.
• • On Monday, 19 February 2001 in Broadway to Vegas • •
• • Laura Deni wrote: The 7th Annual Red Ball held on Valentine's Day at the Waldorf in New York City, honored Clive Davis and Elaine and Jerry Orbach. During this year's event honoree Jerry Orbach divulged that as a struggling actor he needed a job to pay the bills so he got a job as Mae West's chauffeur [from Ms. Deni's fascinating weekly issue dated 19 February 2001].
• • Check out Broadway to Vegas, always a treat.
• • On Sunday, 19 February 2012 in England • •
• • The Edward Burra exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery in West Sussex ends on 19 February 2012. This has been the first major show for over 25 years of the work of Edward Burra [1905 — 1976], whose fascination with Mae West and his love of theatrical spectacle, film, and ballet are reflected in these canvases along with his eccentric illustrations for Humbert Woolf’s book "The ABC of the Theatre" (1932).
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I never expected to be sent to jail."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Mae West wrote the play "Sex."
• • On February 19th, The New York Times wrote: The moral tone of the stage in New York has distinctly improved since the activity last year of the District Attorney's office in closing Sex, The Virgin Man and The Captive, according to James G. Wallace, Assistant District Attorney, who prosecuted the cases. He spoke at a luncheon of the City Club, where other speakers were Frank Gillmore, Executive Secretary of the Actors' Equity Association; John S. Sumner and Morris Ernst. ...
• • Source: Article: "New York Stage Improved" printed in The New York Times; published on Sunday, 19 February 1928
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started eight years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2582nd blog post.
Unlike many blogs, which
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or
a
magazine
and/
or
summaries,
links,
or
photos,
the
mainstay
of
this
blog
is
its
fresh
material
focused
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the
life
and
career
of
Mae
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herself
an
American
original.
•
•
Come
up
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1936 • •
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MAE WEST and Texas Guinan first met Sister Aimee in 1927 at an illegal but posh speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. All three women had Irish heritage and each one loved to commandeer the spotlight. Between the two world wars, Aimee Semple McPherson made herself into the most controversial and flamboyant minister in the United States.
• • Born in Ontario, Canada on 9 October 1890, Aimee Semple McPherson, also known as "Sister Aimee" or simply "Sister," was an evangelist and a media sensation in the 1920s and 1930s; she was also the founder of the Foursquare Church. 
• • McPherson had started out as a Salvation Army worker. [One year later, Mae West would be featuring a Salvation Army worker Captain Cummings in her 1890s Bowery play "Diamond Lil" [Broadway debut April 1928]. Diamond Lil discovers that this handsome man is really "the Hawk" and doing detective work undercover. In the film "She Done Him Wrong," Captain Cummings is played by Cary Grant.]
• • Aimee McPherson spent four years [1918 –– 1922] as an itinerant Pentecostal preacher, finally settling with her mother in Los Angeles, California, and founding the Foursquare Gospel Church. She supervised construction of a large, domed ecclesiastical building in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, and it was completed in June 1923. Named Angelus Temple, it had a seating capacity of over 5,000.
• • When Aimee Semple McPherson, the famous Evangelist (with the marcel-waved hair) from Los Angeles visited New York on 19 February 1927, she insisted on visiting Texas Guinan's club. Mae West was there to meet Aimee, too.
• • As Texas Guinan prepared to welcome McPherson, she surely realized this was an exceptional promotional opportunity.
• • By mid-February 1927, Mae had already been arrested. No doubt she was paying attention to all the stagecraft and image-building at work as Aimee kept her name in the headlines.
• • Eight years later, Mae West would be playing an evangelist in Nome, Alaska in her film "Klondike Annie" — — a motion picture released in February 1936 after a lengthy hold-up by the censors who refused to let Mae West appear as a preacher or religious worker onscreen.
• • It was in Oakland, California that Aimee Semple McPherson was found dead of an overdose of prescription barbiturates in September — — on 27 September 1944. Was it a suicide or an accident? She was only 53 years old.
• • Although it would be nice to have had an illustration of Mae West and Texas Guinan socializing with Sister Aimee in 1927, at least we have this amusing extremely-unlikely-to-have-happened sketch by Miguel Covarrubias. • • In September, we remember Lloyd Nolan • •
In 1937, Paramount Pictures spent a record one million dollars on its Mae West vehicle "Every Day's a Holiday" [released in the USA as holiday fare on 18 December 1937]. Actor Lloyd Nolan, age 35, was cast as John Quade.
• • Born in San Francisco, California on 11 August 1902, Lloyd Benedict Nolan was a film, radio and television actor.
• • On 27 September 1985, Lloyd Nolan died in Los Angeles of lung cancer. He was 83.
• • Mae West and MoSex on 27 September 2002 • •
• • The Museum of Sex was about to welcome its first visitors with a Mae West exhibition and British reporter Oliver Burkeman wrote a piece for London's newspaper, The Guardian.
• • Oliver Burkeman explained: The country's first sex museum, which opens to the public on Saturday in an area of New York City once renowned for its brothels and licentious saloons, is being touted as "the Smithsonian of Sex". . . . The idea came to Dan Gluck, a 34-year-old former software entrepreneur, in "a casual conversation that turned serious. "I mean, it's not like as a child all I ever wanted to do was open a sex museum."
• • Oliver Burkeman continued: Five years later MoSex opens with a historical exhibit called NYCSex: How New York City Transformed Sex in America. Visitors — — over-18s only — — are led through galleries bathed in pink light portraying everything from America's earliest legal condoms (made from sausage casings), past Mae West and early 20th-century gay lesbian pornography to puritanical crusaders against obscenity and the sexual revolution, before abruptly turning to a sombre exhibit on AIDS. It finishes with a computer installation where visitors can record their sexual experiences and fantasies — — and read those of others, although presumably somebody is going to have to go first. . . .
• • Source: Article: "Manhattan sends sex to the museum — — New York opts for a scholarly approach to its bawdy history" written by Oliver Burkeman for The Guardian [UK]; published on Friday, 27 September 2002
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said this: "I'd rather be looked over than overlooked."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article about the book "Holy Mackerel!," which discusses aspects of the Amos 'N' Andy story (by Bart Andrews and Ahrgus Julliard) has mentioned Mae West.
• • Reporter Robert J. Booker writes: Nick Stewart, who played "Lightnin," the slow-moving janitor in the Mystic Knights of the Sea Lodge Hall on the show "Amos 'n' Andy," was born in New York City and had performed in more than 50 films before joining the show. He had also done Broadway shows as a song-and-dance man. Mae West caught one of his acts and asked him to be in one of her movies, "Go West Young Man" in 1936. He also appeared in three of my favorite black films, "Cabin in the Sky" (1943), "Stormy Weather" (1943) and "Carmen Jones" (1954).
• • Robert J. Booker adds: One News Sentinel reader, Martin Gebrow, whose father was involved in theatrical productions, says he remembers seeing Stewart on stage in New York, where he often did a Stepin Fetchit-like routine with Vitrola. According to the "Holy Mackerel!" book, Stewart had been a chorus boy at Lincoln Theater and the Cotton Club and said, "Chorus boys were supposed to be handsome. I didn't fit those qualifications. So when they were picking choruses, they began to (exclude) me." ...
• • Source: Article: "Actors enjoyed abundant careers" written by Robert J. Booker for Knox News; posted on 20 September 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2066th 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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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West's friend Texas Guinan • • 1927 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
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MAE WEST's play "Sex" closed during the month of March 1927. 
The obscenity trial was in progress at Jefferson Market Courthouse and the producers explained that the Broadway star was "exhausted." The blockbuster hit opened in April 1926 at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre.
• • Mae West: Pipe Dream in Munich • •
• • In March 2011, an article appeared on the unique fiber architecture and mandrel-less filament winding process that would make an “impossible” rotational paraboloid sculpture possible in carbon composites.
• • Source: "Case Study" written by Donna Dawson for the publication High-Performance Composites; March 2011
• • Mae West's Chauffeur, Ray Wallace, Commits Suicide in Car • • 
• • Depressed, the 44-year-old African-American World War 2 veteran had promised to kill himself, recalled Mae West about her former personal chauffeur. Ray Charles Wallace eased out of his vale of tears inside the actress's Cadillac, inhaling toxic exhaust fumes as he huddled under a quilt. At the time he was on a farm near Patoka, Indiana.• • Source: Jet Magazine, 3 March 1955 issue
• • Princess She-Who-Mountains-in-Front • •
• • Away from what she calls "the linen battlefields," Mae became a vaudeville headliner, a star in Broadway musicals and in her own lubricious dramas — Sex, Diamond Lil, and The Constant Sinner. In a dozen Hollywood films, Mae triumphed on both sides of the Atlantic. During the war, her shape was saluted by R.A.F. pilots, who called their inflatable life jackets "Mae Wests." U.S. Indians, naturally with the dedicated help of publicity men, made Mae a member of the Lakota tribe as Princess She-Who-Mountains-in-Front. ..
• • Source: Time Magazine, 1959
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Anthony Quinn, talking about his career and life, confided on "The Johnny Carson Show" that the three most amazing women he had ever met were Mae West, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Laurette Taylor. [In 1936, Quinn made the leap into the acting profession. That year he had a role onstage in "Clean Beds" with Mae West, a play that she financed and produced. His part was a take-off of John Barrymore, then an aging actor fading from the limelight.]
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1926 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
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MAE WEST's birthday (17 August 1893) presented a reason to assemble in the theatre district and return to the scene of her prime. The famous speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan had entertained Mae, Owney Madden, and others at Club Abbey [203 — 205 West 54th], the 300 Club and Argonaut [151 West 54th], along with other night spots the group visited on August 16th. 
• • Share in the excitement by reading a delectable portion of "A Night with the Padlock Queen" from Allen Churchill's book.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • Until La Guinan arrives, the Three Hundred Club remains sedate and dignified. Four guitarists stroll from table to table plucking out melodies on request. Their specialty is the recently successful "Valencia," but they are equally adept at such dissimilar numbers as "Sleepy Time Gal" and "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby." Also on hand is Ethel the cute cigarette girl.
• • Club Abbey • •
• • In the early months of 1927 Ethel's beauty has taken on a particular radiance. Up to now her rival for the title of Most Beautiful Cigarette Girl on Broadway has been Mavis of the Club Abbey [205 West 54th Street]. A spectacular finale to this rivalry came when the Club Abbey was shot up by gangster patrons. Mavis assisted one of the bleeding gangsters to Polyclinic Hospital, and in the peculiar code of Broadway lost caste by this good Samaritan deed. Ethel is now securely entrenched as the Most Beautiful Cigarette Girl on the Main Stem.
• • Three Hundred Club • •
• • Midnight comes and goes, and a sense of expectancy fills the Three Hundred Club [151 West 54th]. Eyes dart to the entrance door. Those in the know confide importantly that Tex must be stopping at her brother Tommy's Club Plantation or at this point in history was it Texas Tommy's?
• • At Tommy Guinan's, four musicians named Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, and Jack Teagarden labor nightly in the orchestra. At the Three Hundred Club an orchestra barren of potential jazz greats takes over from the four guitarists and a few couples slip to the tiny floor to dance. By twelve-thirty the fifty tables are full. Lady Diana Manners, William Beebe, Ann Pennington (the Scandals star with the dimpled knees) and millionaire escort, Bill Fallon (the great mouthpiece), Mae West, Frank Tinney and Imogene Wilson, the latter the most beautiful of all Follies girls, Aimee Semple McPherson, the visiting evangelist these could be the celebrities present tonight. Mayor Walker may appear during the evening, on his arm a cute, dark-haired flapper named Betty Compton, whom he spotted dancing in Oh, Kay! and straightway made his steady companion. The underworld is represented by Owney Madden and Big Bill Dwyer, Prohibition overlords and backers of night clubs. Lesser underworld figures are present with jazz babies from Broadway shows. There are sugar daddies and gold-diggers of the variety immortalized in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes — — and a sprinkling of older women in the company of young men. One such, called the Dancing Grandmother, is an almost nightly patron at the Three Hundred Club.
• • At a quarter to one comes a stir at the entrance door and the feeling that a supercharged personality is there. An excited whisper runs through the room, Texas, Texas! Everything stops as Tex greets friends at the door and tosses a brisk word of greeting to the hatcheck girl and maitre'd. Here is royalty entering its domain.
• • One who witnesses her splendid entrance is Stephen Graham: "There she is like a queen, like the sun, like a big firework, like a gorgeous tamer who has just let herself into a large cage of pet tigers. A kiss here, a stroke of the hand there, an uttered Darling! there, she goes from table to table closing the company into a unit around her personality."
• • The fun begins as soon as Tex arrives. She makes her way to the dance floor, which with her appearance becomes the stage. Taking a fragile chair, she perches atop it a highly difficult position for one of her girth but a feat she manages admirably every night. A waiter appears at her side with a box full of kleeter-klappers: a small piece of wood with two wooden balls attached which, when shaken, produces a hideous din. Tex raises one above her head, shakes it furiously. Next she dips into the box for others and begins tossing them to friends around the room. "Here, Tex, here," grown men beseech, eager to be singled out by her famous attention. ...
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Chapter: "A Night with the Padlock Queen"
• • The Year the World Went Mad [Thomas Y. Crowell, I960]
• • BY: Allen Churchill
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West's friend Texas Guinan • • 1928 • •
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Mae West.
On 19 February 1927 Mae West went to a party at Texas Guinan's latest speakeasy for visitor Aimee Semple McPherson [1890-1944].• • The night club queen had had an unusally busy day - - having just been released from jail after being held for nine hours - - but she was her usual vivacious self when she introduced the nation's most famous evangelist to her revellers.• • Right before showing up at the speak, Aimee had just told an S.R.O. crowd at the Glad Tidings Tabernacle (West 33rd Street) that she was in the city to purge it of sin, support Prohibition, prevent the teaching of evolution, promote prayer and Bible reading, and speak out against "dirt" plays.• • It's assumed that Mae West applauded politely when all the attendees were encouraged to "give this little gal a big hand" by Guinan.
• • However, on 15 February 1927 there had been a hearing against "Sex" in the Magistrate's Court, closely followed by The New York Times and other newspapers. Uh-oh! Mae watched the storm clouds gather over her Broadway career.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xmlMae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • to come • •
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Mae West.
