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MAE WEST's portrait will be unveiled — — as an eye-catching new exhibition opens today, 1 March 2010, in Northern Virginia, celebrating Women's History Month.
• • Artist Rosemary Gallick, who lives in Centreville, VA and teaches art history at Northern Virginia Community College, has titled her show "American Women: Voices of the Past & Present" and has captured on canvas notable females such as the First Ladies Jacqueline Kennedy and Michelle Obama, divas of the silver screen Mae West and Marilyn Monroe, and entertainers such as Janis Joplin, Madonna, Dolly Parton, Tina Turner, and more. Inspired also by political theatre, Gallick painted Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, and Sonia Sotomayor.
• • The heads of the singers, for instance, have been rendered mostly in acrylic with touches of mixed media for special effects. "The emotionally charged lines and dazzling colors embrace the exuberance of the individual performer," Gallick said.
• • For four weeks you can enjoy these artworks on display at Northern Virginia Community College's Woodbridge Campus [1 March — 1 April 2010]. Admission is free. The Woodbridge Campus is located at 15200 Neabsco Mills Road — — off Interstate 95 at exit 156. For information, phone 703-878-5797. And tell them you heard about it on the MAE WEST BLOG.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/________
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.
One nickname for MAE WEST was the "blonde bombshell," a title linked to an evolving archetype in both literature and motion pictures.
• • For an intriguing "long drink" on this, refresh your mind with "I'm No Angel: The Blonde in Fiction and Film" by Ellen Tremper [University of Virginia Press; illustrated edition; 288 pages; hardcover book published on 30 March 2006].
• • Here's what Publishers Weekly thought of it: Ellen Tremper's authoritative treatise on the role of the blonde in modern fiction and early film is as fascinating as it is dense. The author of the Virginia Woolf biography "Who Lived at Alfoxton?" shows how the blonde evolved radically over two centuries. In fairy tale lore, she was the angelic and passive Rapunzel, who could be saved from imprisonment only by an all-powerful prince. But by the mid-1800s, romance got ahold of her — Thackeray's Becky Sharp is an example — and the blonde became a bombshell in the truest sense: a pre-Raphaelite siren rocketing through the patriarchy. When the blondes of the silver screen — Harlow, Dietrich, Monroe — hit big, the blonde had become iconic and transgressive: she was a catalyst of sexual and social disorder, particularly when she left comedy and went to film noir. As her hair — dyed an impossible shade — lit up screens and pages, the blonde ignited social mores with her brassy independence. Tremper's thesis wanders in places, as she equates the blonde with other transgressive characters (people of color, Jews), and at times the sheer volume of her scholarship overwhelms. Nevertheless, the work explores a complex character with thoroughness and verve. — — PW• • British entertainer Denise Van Outen, who may not be to the honey-haired manner born, nevertheless will pour out her blonde ambition next month at the Fringe in Scotland. Actress Jackie Clune wrote the show "Blondes," and Denise has been busy stoking the fires for it.
• • In Scotlland, reporter Jackie McGlone did a goodnatured flack piece for The Scotsman freckled with a few cliches: "Interview: Denise Van Outen — — actress and presenter." Going straight to the root of it, Jackie McGlone writes: DENISE VAN OUTEN examines a lock of her ash-blonde hair and announces that at last she's the blonde she has always wanted to be. "This is my happiest blonde colour," says the newlywed, with a smile. If happiness were a colour, then it would be golden, just like the 35-year-old Essex girl, actress, and TV and radio presenter. And it's not just her highlights that are looking good.
• • For Denise Van Outen, who has starred on Broadway and in the West End, played a nurse in ITV1 drama Where the Heart Is, and who is bringing a new, one-woman show to the Edinburgh Fringe called Blondes, is clearly on cloud nine. ...
• • At 12, Van Outen was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Cosette in Les Miserables in the West End. By the time she was 18 she was the nation's favourite Essex girl, sharing a sofa and saucy banter with Johnny Vaughan.
• • Dare her to do something and she'd do it back then. "My gay friends were always egging me on," she grins. She flashed her bra at Prince Charles at a Royal Variety Show, she dyed her hair pink, and she dressed like a Barbie doll. She even nicked an ashtray from Buckingham Palace. ...
• • Soon she was, in the words of one newspaper columnist, "the nation's top telly vulgarian" . . . .
• • Yakking about the "Blonde Thing" • •
• • WE TALK about the "blonde thing" and Blondes, which has been written for her by her friend – "another Essex bird" — — the actress and writer Jackie Clune, who has been the toast of many a Fringe herself. It's a celebration of what it means to be blonde, so she'll tell a few stories about her own life, but she'll also reveal why gentlemen prefer blondes and address the vexed question of whether blondes have more fun ("Yes!" she exclaims emphatically. "All the blondes I know have had a really good time"). Oh, and she'll be singing, too.
• • "I love blondes who sing: Blondie of course! Bonnie Tyler, Kylie, Britney, who I'm completely fascinated by, having lived in LA for a couple of years when I presented the TV talent show, Grease: You're The One That I Want. I used to see Britney out all the time. So I've some stories to tell about her. I really want to ask why so many blondes like her have meltdowns and why so many iconic blondes' lives ended tragically.
• • Blondes as Victims • •
• • "Why do blondes in the public eye have to be victims? I'm sure Kylie still gets all that 'poor Kylie' stuff for having had breast cancer. People have certainly wanted me to be the victim over the years, mainly because I've made no secret of the fact that I've been unhappy in my love life.
• • "There's a lot of pressure on you, being a blonde. You're expected to be the fun-girl, the good-time girl, the life and soul of the party. Those are always the days when I'm having a brunette moment — — I can be a moody cow."
• • From Mae West onwards • • • • She pauses to drink a glass of water and exclaims: "But just look at all the fabulous blondes in history! They're the women who have shaped me, the women who've influenced me, made me who and what I am now. So we'll range from Mae West to Marilyn Monroe and Madonna. From Dusty Springfield to Olivia Newton-John and Dolly Parton . . ." Which brings us to the notion of the dumb blonde. "Yeah," sighs Van Outen. "All those tired old cliches about blonde moments and the fact that I'm always described as 'laugh-a-minute, bubbly blonde Denise'."
• • Yet Van Outen, who is clearly a smart cookie, echoes the divine Dolly: "Just because I'm blonde don't think I'm dumb, 'cause this dumb blonde ain't nobody's fool." Unlike Dolly, who pronounced herself never offended by dumb blonde jokes, because "I know I'm not dumb; I'm also not blonde," and the marvelous Mae West, Van Outen did not make herself platinum. Her hair was so fair as a child it was almost white.
• • Since she's become something of a gay icon, despite the years as a lads mag lovely, Van Outen reckons the gays and the girls will love Blondes, which she and Clune hope will transfer to the West End post-Edinburgh. ...
• • Denise Van Outen will appear during August 2009 in The Fringe [www.edfringe.com * Edinburgh, Scotland] in "Blondes" — — Previews: August 6-7; then August 8-31, 2009.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Interview: Denise Van Outen, actress and presenter
• • Byline: By Jackie McGlone | Special to The Scotsman newspaper
• • Published in: The Scotsman — — thescotsman.scotsman.com/
• • Published on: 4 July 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.
Word comes that a publicist who worked with MAE WEST has gone to the everlasting "Spin City" in the beyond.
• • Born in Brooklyn like Mae, Lee Solters came into the world on 23 June 1919. A creative person who enjoyed writing, the native New Yorker studied journalism and advertising at New York University. He covered high school basketball for The New York Times before he was drafted. While in the military, he penned pieces for Stars & Stripes. After receiving discharge papers, Solters began his own public relations firm during 1948 with partner James J. O'Rourke: Solters O'Rourke.
• • During the 1940s and 1950s, columnists were regulars at the top nightspots. Solters dropped in at clubs like Toots Shor and learned how to plant items with gossip guru Walter Winchell and finesse favorable mentions with society snitch Hedda Hopper.
• • The New York Times (and others) have made mention of his shrewdness. For example, one trick was devised to aid producer David Merrick to salvage a foundering Broadway show: Lee Solters and Merrick concocted a newspaper advertisement with quotations from men they had found in the phone book with the same names as top theater critics.
• • It has been said that in the late 1970s, Mr. Solters moved to Hollywood, where he helped set the trend for hiring entertainers to sell products and images. Forty years before that, however, Mae West was hired to lend glamour and sex appeal to cigarette brands and even soap in the 1930s.• • Unlike many theatrical press agents of today — — who charge $7,500 + merely to send out a boring press release by fax — — it seems that Lee Solters had the imagination, personal touch, amicable deceitfulness, and discernment that creates buzz.
• • His client roster of entertainment stars included: Mae West, Benny Goodman, Cher, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, the Muppets, Cary Grant, Led Zeppelin, Dolly Parton, and others. He claimed he knew Dolly when she was still flat-chested.
• • He also worked with more than 300 Broadway productions, musicals, and dramas including "Guys and Dolls," "Funny Girl," "The King & I," "My Fair Lady," "Camelot." as well as works by Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and Neil Simon. In Nevada, he repped Sinatra, Caesars Palace, and (eventually), the City of Las Vegas.
• • Solters' namesake public relations firm says the New York native died at age 89 at his West Hollywood, California home on Monday morning.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
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Mae West.
"When I am 90, I'm going to look like MAE WEST!" said Dolly Parton, who (at not quite five feet tall) is about the same height as the durable Empress of Sex. "I may be in a wheelchair — — but I'll still have the big hair, big boobs, and big fingernails. I'll probably end up this way in my coffin. But I won't be a fat hog!"
• • Born on 19 January 1946, Dolly Parton was interviewed by Alan W. Petrucelli for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Now worth more than $100 million, Dolly is comfortable about laughing at herself and acknowledging that she drew inspiration — — not unlike Mae West — — from the scarlet sisterhood. Dolly explained, "I'm not a natural beauty, so when I started out, I needed to be as flamboyant and outrageous as possible." She recalled, "My trashy look started from a sincere place — — a country girl's idea of glamour. I always wanted to be sexy even before I knew what the word meant. I thought that town tramps were beautiful. They had more hair, more color, more of everything. And they had men always hanging 'round them. So I copied those girls. And I owe them a lot."
• • Dolly Parton giggled as she made an admission so very unlike Mae West. "When I realized my trashy look was working, I kept it. It's cost me a lot to look so cheap," she added. "I wear the fake hair because it's so tacky. I wear high heels because I have short legs. And I wear fake fingernails because I have short, fat arms. I have no taste and no style and I love it!"
• • Now 62, hard-working Dolly Parton does share a great deal with Mae West, for instance, her refusal to be defeated and her determination to keep her career going even though she is a senior citizen. It's a long high-spirited interview with an upbeat woman — — and the source is posted below.
— — Source: — —
• • Byline: Alan W. Petrucelli
• • Publisher: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — — www.post-gazette.com
• • Published on: 21 April 2008• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
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NYC
Mae West.
January-born diva Dolly Parton admires MAE WEST.
• • Back in June 2003, when Parton was expecting to portray the Brooklyn bombshell in an upcoming (though aborted) TV movie, she used a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Dixie Stampede (a $28 million attraction in Orlando, Florida) to discuss the project with a reporter.
• • "I really relate to her,'' Parton said in a once-over-slightly interview in an upstairs conference room at her Dixie Stampede dinner theater, an establishment operated by her family.
• • "We have very similar attitudes toward life and business. It turns out she wrote a lot of her own material and so do I. She also had a healthy attitude about sex and men, and so do I,'' Dolly hurriedly told news man Jim Abbott from the Orlando Sentinel.
• • Like Mae West, Tennessee native Dolly Parton [born 19 January 1946] wears many hats — — including author, actress, singer, and high earner. Unlike Mae, Dolly probably needs a brassiere constructed by the likes of Roebling to keep her exaggerated silicone curves afloat. Self-enhanced but self-deprecating, Dolly enjoys saying, "It costs a lot to look this cheap."
• • Willem de Kooning's famous line — — "I always seem to be wrapped in the melodrama of vulgarity" — — could easily be Dolly's trademark. Ultimately, the TV producers felt she was too tawdry and low-class to portray the empress of sex.
• • Last weekend Dolly Parton's dinner theater, the Dixie Stampede, abruptly closed its Orlando branch after receiving a lucrative offer for the 13 acres of land it sits on. Over 200 employees found themselves out of work but it's quite a January birthday present for the multi-millionaire entertainer.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
