Mae West: Past 38

On Thursday, 18 April 2019, there was an article discussing MAE WEST’s chops as a comedienne. Let’s enjoy it together. This is Part 2.
• • The Mae West test • •
• • Past 38 • •
• • Scott Marks wrote: Another: most actresses don’t make it much past 38 in Hollywood years, but that’s precisely how old West was when Paramount signed her under contract in 1932. The censors forewarned the studio in no uncertain terms that West’s bawdy Broadway smash "Diamond Lil" would never make it to the screen.
• • Scott Marks wrote:  The actress/author changed the title, altered her character’s name from Lil to Lou, and stepped up the double entendres and sexual innuendo, leaving the blue-noses no choice but to let it pass.
• • Blame it on Betty Boop • • . . .
• • This article will continue on the next post.
• • Source: The San Diego Reader; published on Thursday, 18 April 2019.
• • On Sunday, 2 May 1982 • •
• • In the United States the bio-pic "Mae West" was shown on TV on Sunday, 2 May 1982. Actress Ann Jillian was cast in the title role. To announce this, Chicago TV Week Magazine put a beautiful photo of Mae on their cover; this issue was dated for May 2nd, too.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • With Mae West, recalled one Tinseltown actor, the cops were in there all the time.
• • In Her Own Words • •

• • Mae West said: "Adam sure started something. Men are a very important subject."• • Was Mae West thinking about her 1937 radio role of Eve when she mentioned Adam?
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article on being an editor mentioned Mae West.
• • Nick Lingerfelt wrote: One semester to be Editor-in-Chief is not a long time. However, to paraphrase Mae West, who said, "You only live once.But if you do it right, once is enough" — — if you do the editor's job right, then once is enough. . . .
• • Source: The Daily Helmsman; published on Wednesday, 24 April 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 4,200 blog posts. Wow!  

• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fourteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4204th 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/
________
Source: https://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml   
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • in 1930 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
NYC  Mae West

Mae West: Singapore Sing

While you're sleeping, an Australian teen is dreaming of MAE WEST.
• • Last week, an announcement for a two-day audition in Sydney promised that 150 hopefuls would be hired for a 13-month contract at Universal Studios Singapore.
• • "Be a part of a world-class entertainment team at Universal Studios Singapore in Resorts World Sentosa," the ad read.
• • Talented youngsters waited their turn to perform in front of talent scouts, seated with clipboards on one knee, at North Strathfield’s ED5 International dance studios at 9 George Street. Ingenues raised "down under" turned up fully costumed as Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Boop to do their routine and (perhaps) break into show business.
• • Aussie reporter Shireen Khalil of the Inner West Courier attended and interviewed a few impressionists who made it through to the final round — — such as Mae West impersonator Taylia Collis, 19, from the North Shore.
• • Shireen Khalil wrote: The aspiring performer believes she’s got American actress and sex symbol Mae West’s look down pat. “I guess I’ve got the look and can play up that character pretty well,” Taylia Collis affirmed.
• • Shireen Khalil noted: The 19-year-old, who has been performing most her life, said she was well-prepared for her audition.
• • Taylia Collis told Ms. Khalil: “I think when I went in I did everything I could. My monologue went well, I was very prepared and I got good vibes from the judges. I had to practice Mae's voice a lot because her pitch is a lot lower than mine."
• • Shireen Khalil concluded her article ["Next stop: Singapore studios" — — 25 July 2010, Inner West Courier] with this comment about Taylia: The all-round performer said getting the job would be a dream come true.
• • In three months, Taylia Collis and the other candidates will find out what the judges thought of their impersonations, if they nailed the accents, and if they have the same shape as the character they had chosen to be during the auditions.
• • Universal Studios Singapore will have a tough time selecting the best Mae West. But it's interesting to see the impact that American pop culture and the Brooklyn bombshell have had on Australia and Singapore.
• • 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 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: Jim Traficant

Now being sold, the paintings of an expelled congressman are all earmarked with his tribute to MAE WEST.
• • As shown on his Betty Boop canvas, the capital "M" in the moon on each of Jim Traficant's work is a striking tribute to the Brooklyn blonde.
• • Everybody in the whole cell block/ Was dancin' to the jailhouse rock ... • •
• • The convicted felon, freed after a 7-year stint in prison, also admires (and has sketched) Elvis. In Ohio, his welcome home booze-and-shmooze fest featured Elvis Presley impersonators. What an opportunity for a deejay to play "Jailhouse Rock"!
• • Born in Youngstown, Ohio on 8 May 1941, James Traficant, Jr. became an amateur artist as a way to pass time during his incarceration. The disgraced politician was once a Democratic Representative in the United States Congress from Ohio during 1985 to 2002. In 2002, however, Traficant was convicted on 10 felony charges — — bribery, racketeering, tax evasion, forcing his aides to perform chores at his Ohio farm and on his houseboat, and obstruction of justice — — lawlessness brought about by his demanding kickbacks from his staff and "forgetting" about paying taxes, among other criminal arrogance. Ousted from the House in a vote of 420 to one, Traficant was sent to the Big House, his devil tail between his legs.
• • A number of inmates have been moved to charitable acts. Mae West, for instance, funded a library for female prisoners confined to the Women's Workhouse in 1927.
• • Jim Traficant promised to auction off a few paintings to benefit retirees from his district whose company went bankrupt earlier this year. Thus proceeds from the paintings will benefit the Delphi Salaried Retiree Association, a group of autoworkers who are afraid of losing their pensions after the company turned the pensions over to the government's pension insurer. (The group filed suit against the insurer.)
• • Throughout his prison term, the enterprising lawbreaker sold his drawings online as well as through sympathetic Ohio galleries.
• • Released from jail on 2 September 2009, Traficant posted his Betty Boop caricature and others on EBAY. The auction ends Saturday.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • "M" stands for Mae • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: Hit of 1933

MAE WEST, the price of a movie ticket, and the American economy were on the mind of a New York City film critic this week.
• • Let's begin by saying that DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg is putting up a good front these days.
• • In his intriguing piece in The Village Voice, J. Hoberman writes: "More optimistically and historically," Jeffrey Katzenberg recalled, the motion-picture product "has actually been recession-proof." Optimistic? You bet: Back in 1930, Hollywood had considered itself "depression-proof," too.
• • For the American people, the first five years of the Great Depression — 1930 through 1934 — were the worst of times and the really worst of times. For the American movie industry, the period would also bring the worst of economic times. In another way, though, it was the best. The early '30s were the days of "Breadlines & Champagne," as Film Forum has dubbed its month-long, all-35mm celebration of the pre-Code, the Socially Conscious, and the Screwball — three manifestations of the richest period in Hollywood history.
• • Crisis may be stimulus to popular art — the Nixon years were great for movies as well — and the Great Depression created chaos for all. Busily rewiring their theaters for newly developed "talking pictures" and importing verbally adroit talent from the Broadway stage to make them, the Hollywood studios initially ignored the stock market crash. The crash, however, did not ignore them. The novelty of sound soon faded. By the end of 1931, the record motion-picture audience of the previous year was down by a third and falling. So were ticket prices. Production costs, however, had doubled.
• • Warner Bros., the studio that led the initially profitable shift to talking pictures, was now hemorrhaging money. Universal terminated hundreds of employees and would soon join RKO in receivership — followed by Fox and, in what was then America's second largest bankruptcy to date, Paramount. As movie houses darkened, exhibitors played exploitation angles, promoting double features, dish giveaways, and weekly lotteries called "bank nights" — which, as part of its retro, Film Forum plans to revive. By the time Franklin Roosevelt took office in March 1933, theaters were empty, production slates slashed, cash flow dried up. The industry was near collapse. But the product was better than ever.
• • Sound brought a new hyper-verbal cinema, racy, and insolent. The talkies also changed the nature of stardom.
• • (The great voices of the early 1930s are recycled to this day: Cagney, Hepburn, Peter Lorre, Groucho Marx, W.C. Fields, and Mae West.)
• • Hard times pushed desperate producers toward sensationalism. The studios ignored their own Production Code. Crime paid, so did sin. Street-smart criminals traded brazen double entendres with fast-talking chorines. Gangsters ruled the 1931-32 season; bad girls followed, as Variety estimated 80 percent of the pictures released in the 1932-33 season had a "sex slant."
• • • • The biggest hit of 1933 • • • •
• • The trend peaked with Mae West, whose first feature, She Done Him Wrong, was the biggest hit of 1933, returning 10 times its production costs in North America alone and precipitating a national crusade to clean up the movies. Fittingly, "Breadlines & Champagne" opens with West's follow-up, I'm No Angel — selling tickets at the Depression price of 35 cents.
• • The movies of the early '30s were at once more naturalistic and more theatrical than silent movies — and, thanks to tight budgets and the exigencies of the double feature, far snappier. In addition to trafficking in sex and violence, talkies assimilated the vaudeville aesthetic of ethnic stereotype and crazy comedy, creating a rowdy new American idiom in which every other line seemed to include an appreciative "Swell!" or questioning "On the level?" Extravagant fantasies alternated with cynical realism. The period brought forth a remarkable number of enduring celluloid archetypes: Paul Muni's Scarface and Jean Harlow's Platinum Blonde, the Universal horrors Dracula and Frankenstein, Tarzan and King Kong, Betty Boop and even Mickey Mouse. The chaos (and lack of supervision) allowed filmmakers like Ernst Lubitsch, Josef von Sternberg, and Busby Berkeley to do their best work — unlike today, when every project is necessarily pre-sold and vetted.
• • "Breadlines & Champagne" [at New York's Film Forum] doesn't showcase the full range of early-'30s Hollywood, but it is particularly rich in "preachment yarns" — movies that trafficked in lurid topicality while expressing a measure of passionately confused social protest. ...
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Why Hard Times Won't Mean Good Times at the Movies Again — — Brother, can you spare $12?"
• • Byline: J. Hoberman
• • Published in: The Village Voice
• • Published on: Tuesday, 3rd February 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • "I'm No Angel" is being shown as part of the 1930s series "Breadlines and Champagne," which will run from Friday February 6th through March 5 at the Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, New York, NY 10014. Info and screentimes are available by phoning 212-727-8110 — — or by visiting www.filmforum.org online.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1933 • •
NYC
Mae West.