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Few people made MAE WEST laugh louder than Dave Apollon.
• • Born in Kiev, Russia on 23 February 1897, Dave's heavy "sour cream accent" was so hilarious that Mae West knew exactly how to increase his comic capital when they worked together during 1922 in the ill-fated "Ginger Box Revue" [slated to open at the Greenwich Village Theatre in Sheridan Square].
• • When a shady producer short-changed the cast by not producing the expected costumes and scenery, Mae pushed Dave Apollon onstage to deliver a prologue. Apologizing for the third-rate production the audience was about to see, Apollon muttered under his breath, "Ach! It was better under the czar with the lousy pogroms!"
• • Dave Apollon also worked as a mandolin player.
• • The vaudevillian died in Las Vegas at age 75 at the end of May — — on 30 May 1972.
• • In Her Own Words • • 
• • "Diamonds is my career!" — — "Diamond Lil" written by Mae West.
• • In 1979, during an interview at her apartment, Mae West discussed her lifelong passion for diamonds with the writer Charlotte Chandler: "They're all real. They were given to me by admirers." Her gaze settled on my unadorned hands. "Oh, you poor kid! You don't have any!" For a moment she regarded me with pity. Then she brightened. "But you have some at home?"
• • I shook my head (notes Charlotte Chandler).
• • She studied me, then said encouragingly, "You could, honey. But you've gotta try, and you've gotta know how to try. Knowing what you want is the first step toward getting it. There's nothing better in life than diamonds. ..."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • One of Canada's top golf greens is the Waskesiu Golf Course, located at Waskesiu Lake in Prince Albert National Park, where the eighth hole has become known as the Mae West. Hmmmm.
• • The StarPhoenix notes: The 6,301-yard course tests the precision of golfers with its tight treelined fairways and smaller greens. "It's a course you can play over and over and always feel like you're playing it for the first time. It brings different challenges every time," says Peter Anholt, general manager of Waskesiu Golf Course. Consider the eighth hole, also known as the 'Mae West' because of the contoured hills that frame the green. It takes most golfers three good shots to get to the green! . . .
• • Source: Article: "Golfer's paradise awaits at Waskesiu" written by Staff for The StarPhoenix; posted on 28 May 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 1946th 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 • • 1934 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
NYC
Mae West.
Few people made MAE WEST laugh louder than vaudevillian Dave Apollon.
• • Born in Kiev, Russia on 23 February 1897, Dave's heavy "sour cream accent" was so hilarious that Mae West knew exactly how to increase his comic capital when they worked together during 1922 in the ill-fated "Ginger Box Revue" [slated to open at the Greenwich Village Theatre in Sheridan Square].
• • When a shady producer short-changed the cast by not producing the expected costumes and scenery, Mae pushed Dave Apollon onstage to deliver a prologue. Apologizing for the third-rate production the audience was about to see, Apollon muttered under his breath, "Ach! It was better under the czar with the lousy pogroms!"
• • Though Dave Apollon also worked as a mandolin player, it was not his musicianship that brought him the enormous popularity and success he was to achieve in vaudeville. Instead it was his Russian accent. Always on the lookout for entertainers with unique charms, Mae West first noticed his built in assets.
• • In "Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It," Mae described her first encounter with Dave during the Ginger Box Review debacle.
• • Mae West wrote: "At a rehearsal of this show I first met Dave Apollon. He had just arrived in this country, after some hardships, and was in the show. He was a fine mandolin player and Russian dancer. I first saw him dressed in a very tight-fitting green tweed suit that looked as if it had been made for a smaller brother, high button shoes, and a high Hoover collar. He was short but slender, with a round elf's face, and a turned-up nose over a mocking mouth. He had a sour-cream heavy Russian accent, and a very amusing way of expressing himself in a fractured English almost like double-talk. Dave was very funny, I thought, but in the show he just played the mandolin and did a short dance. I couldn't help being amused by him and I would have him come to me so that I could ask him questions just to hear him mangle the language. I would try not to laugh out loud, just inwardly, and somehow everything became funnier that way. When Dave Apollon would start talking it would break me up inside. He'd ask, 'Whut suz funnik I'm saying please to tell me?'"
• • I said to him, "Dave, with your mannerisms, voice, and puzzled expression that seems to struggle to understand what is said, you make me scream with laughter. What would you be able to do to an audience?"
• • "But no thenk you — — I serious minded fella, this mandolin and dancing very serious for me is enough."
• • Mae West persisted and soon had Dave reading lines in a skit about Circe and her lovers. When the show opened in South Norwalk, Connecticut, it was discovered that the scenery was too small for the theater. The producer was about to write a formal apology for the theater manager to read to the opening-night audience, when Mae came up with an idea.
• • "Get Dave Apollon to go out before the curtain, in a spotlight, in his own tight little green street suit, and with that borscht dialect he should really be, funny telling them about the scenery." They captured Dave, fed him hot tea, patted his back, told him he could do it. Finally, Dave did go out on the stage to make the announcement. The more he got tangled up in the English language, the more scared and bewildered he looked, the more the audience howled. He became so screamingly funny the audience doubled up in the seats. They applauded madly, thinking it was all a part of the original show. He came off pop-eyed. "I sweating like a hoss," he said.
• • Dave Apollon died in Las Vegas at age 75 during the month of May: 30 May 1972.
• • 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.
Few people made MAE WEST laugh louder than Dave Apollon.• • Born in Kiev, Russia on 23 February 1897, Dave's heavy "sour cream accent" was so hilarious that Mae West knew exactly how to increase his comic capital when they worked together during 1922 in the ill-fated "Ginger Box Revue" [slated to open at the Greenwich Village Theatre in Sheridan Square].
• • When a shady producer short-changed the cast by not producing the expected costumes and scenery, Mae pushed Dave Apollon onstage to deliver a prologue. Apologizing for the third-rate production the audience was about to see, Apollon muttered under his breath, "Ach! It was better under the czar with the lousy pogroms!"
• • Dave Apollon also worked as a mandolin player.
• • The vaudevillian died in Las Vegas at age 75 during the month of May: 30 May 1972.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xmlMae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •NYC
Mae West.
