Mae West: Ira Hards

In 1928, MAE WEST approached Ira Hands to stage her latest play "Diamond Lil" at the Royale Theatre on Broadway.
• • Born on 24 June 1872 in Geneva, Illinois, Ira A. Hards aspired to be an actor. After a round of performances, touring in regional theatres, the personable 29-year-old made his Broadway debut in "Don Caesar's Return" [1901]. He began keeping company with Ina Hammer, who was also getting cast in mainstage productions in Times Square, and the theatre couple married. In between starring in an acclaimed silent film version of "King Lear" and on Broadway, busy Ina Hammer branched out as a stage director and soon took on another role: as a real-life mother with a sweet newborn daughter.
• • In September 1928, as things were winding down in Manhattan for the beauteous Bowery queen Diamond Lil, Ira Hands escorted his daughter Ina Isola Hards down the aisle when she wed Lieutenant Gordon Philip Saville of the Army Air Corps. Things were going well for the versatile theatre pro, who had developed new skills: directing, dialogue coaching, and producing.
• • Booth Tarkington [1869 — 1946] was especially indebted to Ira Hands for directing his Broadway plays "Magnolia" [1923] and "The Intimate Strangers" [1921]. After Mae's arrest in 1927, Booth Tarkington was commisioned to write an article — — and "When Is It Dirt?" [published in Collier's, The National Weekly, on 14 May 1927] discussed the issue of censorship and government intervention.
• • Ira Hards did well enough to maintain a residence in Manhattan and a country house in Connecticut. He found time to establish his own stock company at the Westchester Playhouse in Mount Kisco, New York, and devoted himself to a group called Young Actors' Development.
• • Among the many highlights of his busy three decades long career in the theatre world, Ira Hards directed and staged the original 1927 production of "Dracula" (starring Bela Lugosi) that ran for 261 performances at the Fulton Theatre on West 46th Street. Coincidentally, Hards's Stage Manager for "Dracula" was Carl Reed, who became Mae West's producer for the ill-fated Broadway run of "Pleasure Man" (1928) at the Biltmore Theatre.
• • When Ira Hards died in Norwalk, Connecticut in the month of May — — on 2 May 1938 — — The New York Times referred to the 65-year-old as a retired producer who presented many Broadway plays. His wife Ina passed away 15 years later in 1953.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
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Mae West: Booth Tarkington

No less than Booth Tarkington [1869 — 1946] was assigned by Collier's to write about the arrest of MAE WEST on 9 February 1927.
• • Surely, the dramatist and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner had his own feelings about the purity police interfering with the written word when he addressed himself to the magazine's readers in his essay "When Is It Dirt?" [published in Collier's, The National Weekly, on 14 May 1927].
• • It used to be said, along the coasts of Bohemia in New York, "To the pure all things are impure," a shot at the Puritans — — was Booth Tarkington's opening. But even a Bohemian of that day must feel some misgivings now, when he goes to the theatre or reads modern novels and many of the livelier journals, for apparently he has become purified and is in danger of being penetrated by the arrow he himself aimed at the late Mr. Comstock. ...
• • Anthony Comstock [7 March 1844 — 21 September 1915] was a former United States Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality. In 1873 Comstock created the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, an institution dedicated to supervising the morality of the public.
• • "When Is It Dirt?" was illustrated with large photographs of actress Helen Menken [12 December 1901 – 27 March 1966] and actor Basil Rathbone, also arrested on 9 February 1927 — — and a huge portrait of the dirt-devil herself, Mae West.
• • God-fearing editors at Collier's penned this caption: Mae West and others connected with "Sex" answer in court.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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