Mae West: Heart of Dixie

Preservationists, theatre historians, and big-hearted culture mavens in the heart of Dixie are bravely trying to rescue a formerly superb (but now neglected) vaudeville house where MAE WEST once electrified the audience.
• • According to Jesse Chambers, a fundraising effort is afoot this weekend. It's a cause worthy of your time and contributions, so please read on.
• • From Birmingham, reporter Jesse Chambers writes: All the greats played the Lyric — — including Mae West, Bob Hope, Will Rogers, Buster Keaton, George Burns, Billie Burke, and the Marx Brothers. ...
• • The Lyric Theatre, the magnificent old vaudeville palace at Third Avenue and 18th Street North downtown, was built by theatrical impresario Jake Wells in 1913 when Birmingham was a raucous boomtown with a thriving entertainment district. Wells gave the Lyric 1,200 great seats, pin-drop acoustics, and elegant decor, and it quickly became the premier venue in Birmingham. ...
• • However, the good times for the Lyric, and for vaudeville, ended with the stock market crash of 1929. Jake Wells lost his theatres, including the Lyric, to the mortgage company. The theatre was sold to the Waters family of Birmingham in the mid-1930s and became a second-run movie house. It closed in 1958 and, since then, has been all but forgotten, in urgent need of renovation and rediscovery. ...
• • However, Birmingham Landmarks has so far been unable to achieve a critical mass of support for the renovation. One problem is that few people in Birmingham are old enough to remember the Lyric or have any nostalgia for it. “It’s easy to raise money for the Alabama, but people who had positive Lyric memories — — who saw Mae West and Will Rogers — — they’re all dead,” Liles says. “In my generation it was B-movies, C-movies. It’s been Birmingham’s best-kept secret.”
• • Open House on Sunday 13 December 2009 • •
• • This weekend, the people of Birmingham will have a rare opportunity to get in on the secret of the Lyric and, perhaps, develop their own sense of enthusiasm about the venue’s exciting possibilities. The 2009 Holiday Open House at the Alabama Theatre, the Lyric Theatre, and the Hill Arts Center is scheduled for Sunday, 13 December 2009, beginning at 2:00 in the afternoon. Phone: (205) 252-2262.
• • • • Tell them the MAE WEST BLOG told you to come up and see 'em.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Open house takes you inside Alabama and Lyric theatres"
• • BY: Jesse Chambers
• • Published by: The Birmingham Weekly — — www.bhamweekly.com
• • Published on: 9 December 2009
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Wamsutta

For some years, a Rochester, NY artist has enjoyed basing her designs around one-liners made famous by MAE WEST.
• • During November, Renee Richard Ouellette will exhibit "More Humor and Wellness" at the Wamsutta Club. Ouellette, a member of Masscribes Inc., creates colorful calligraphic designs with quirky, irreverent quotes from such personalities as Mae West, W.C. Fields, and George Burns. Her light-hearted exhibit will continue through 1 December 2009.
• • On 12 November 2009 there will be a viewing along with a grand opening reception for "More Humor and Wellness" from 6:00 to 9:00 pm in the presence of the artist.
• • WHERE: Wamsutta Club: 427 County Street, New Bedford, MA 02740; Tel 508-997-7431.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Mickey Carroll

A very special actor who worked with MAE WEST has met his final curtain.
• • Word comes that Mickey Carroll, one of the last surviving Munchkins from the iconic 1939 screen classic "The Wizard of Oz" died recently at age 89. It was his only motion picture but his brief cameos were most memorable. .
• • Born in St. Louis on 8 July 1919, Mickey Carroll's birthname was Michael Finocchiaro. The son of Italian immigrants who carved marble cemetery monuments, he grew up with a twin sister and four older siblings, all of whom are deceased.
• • It was a pituitary condition that caused Carroll's height to stop at 4-foot-3.
• • What he lacked in stature he made up for with an abundance of appeal, personality, and comedic timing. When presidential hopeful Franklin D. Roosevelt was campaigning in New York City, Mickey Carroll helped warm up the voters. He was also hired as a crowd-getter during Harry Truman's whistlestop campaign.
• • In St. Louis, Carroll tripped the light fantastic at the Muny Theater when he was still an elementary school pupil. Afterwards, he appeared in Chicago clubs and on the Orpheum Theater vaudeville circuit.
• • Expanding his specialties, Mickey Carroll also did Phillip Morris live radio ads — — "Call for Philip Morris!" — — and appeared in shows with Mae West. He followed up those successes with radio shows with George Burns, Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, and Al Jolson.
• • In November 2007, Mickey Carroll received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame along with six other surviving Munchkins: Ruth Duccini, Jerry Maren, Margaret Pellegrini, Meinhardt Raabe, Karl Slover, and Clarence Swensen.
• • Until January of this year, the pint-size performer enjoyed living in his own home in Bel-Nor. After he got a pacemaker, however, he began boarding with a caretaker, who told the press that he died in his sleep, very peacefully, and perhaps dreaming of following the yellow brick road in the wonderful land of Oz.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: The Lyric

Some people in Alabama still remember their first visit to the Lyric, the magnificent old vaudeville and movie palace at Third Avenue and 18th Street North downtown, where MAE WEST once wowed the audience.
• • According to a local scribe Jesse Chambers: Built in 1914 when Birmingham, Alabama was a raucous young boomtown with a thriving entertainment district, the Lyric Theatre once played host to the greatest names in entertainment but is now all but forgotten — — in urgent need of both renovation and public rediscovery. . . .
• • The people of Birmingham get a rare opportunity to visit the Lyric and, perhaps, to experience the same thrill of discovery that Burrow did [i.e., Holly Burrow, Director of the new Hill Arts Center], this Sunday, December 7th, 2008, from 2 — 4 p.m., during the 2008 Christmas Open House at the Alabama, the Lyric, and the Hill Center. On hand to answer questions about the Lyric . . . will be Dan Liles, a former history instructor at Marion Institute who is now the unofficial historian of the Lyric and the Alabama. . . .
• • For event information, phone: (205) 252-2262.
• • Legendary theatrical promoter Jake Wells built the Lyric as a top-tier vaudeville house, with 1,200 great seats, magnificent acoustics and elegant decor, and it quickly became the premier venue in Birmingham. Vaudeville was the name used to describe the wildly eclectic, often bawdy variety shows that were the most popular form of entertainment in America before the coming of radio and sound films. All the greats played the Lyric — Mae West, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Buster Keaton, George Burns, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, Sophie Tucker, Billie Burke, and the Marx Brothers.
• • The good times for the Lyric, and for vaudeville, came to an end with the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. Wells lost his theatres, including the Lyric, to the mortgage company. The Schubert organization leased the Lyric and continued to present vaudeville, but the form was dying and, by the mid 1930s, the theatre was sold to the Waters family of Birmingham and became a second-run movie house. It closed in 1958 and has been largely unused since then. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "The voice of the theatre: Holiday open house to showcase the Alabama Theatre and the lovely Lyric"
• • Byline: Jesse Chambers
• • Published in: Birmingham Weekly — — www.bhamweekly.com/
• • Published on: 5 December 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Make 'Em Laugh

MAE WEST is featured in a new title about American comedy and in a new series on PBS.
• • Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America
• • Written by: Michael Kantor & Laurence Maslon (Twelve, 384 pages, 2008)
• • An enlightening book review by John Grooms appears below.
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• • Too often, books created to accompany major PBS documentary series make a crucial mistake: They try to reproduce the series, using still pictures and text. With a couple of notable exceptions (Ken Burns' The War and Lewis and Clark), it rarely works, and what had promised to be great coffee table books turn into dust collectors bound for the used bookstore. Fortunately, the authors of Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America took a different approach.
• • Let's back up a bit.
• • In January, PBS will broadcast Make 'Em Laugh, a 6-hour series about American comedy of the last century. The series, which promises to be extraordinarily wide-ranging, especially considering its time constraints, will be divided into six hour-long episodes. Series creator Michael Kantor (who produced and directed PBS' Emmy-winning Broadway: The American Musical) decided not to move chronologically through the years from, say, Laurel and Hardy to Chris Rock. Instead, he divided American comedy into six genres. "I was afraid if we broke it down by decade, it would get predictable," Kantor says. "With comedy, we wanted to have more surprise."
• • • • Here's how Make 'Em Laugh breaks down: • • • •
• • Episode One, "The Knockabouts," features masters of physical humor including, among others, Charlie Chaplin, Lucille Ball, Harpo Marx, The Three Stooges, and Jim Carrey.
• • Episode Two, "Satire and Parody," takes in everything from Will Rogers through Laugh-In and The Daily Show.
• • Three, "Smart-Alecks and Wiseguys," showcases the likes of Groucho Marx, Jack Benny, the great Tim Moore ("Kingfish" from Amos 'n' Andy), and Larry David.
• • Four, "Nerds, Jerks, Oddballs and Slackers," highlights everyone from Harold Lloyd and Bob Hope to Phyllis Diller, Jonathan Winters, and Andy Kaufman.
• • Five, "Breadwinners and Homemakers," looks at sitcoms through the ages, from radio's The Goldbergs and early television's George Burns and Gracie Allen to Seinfeld and The Simpsons.
• • Finally, Episode Six explores "Groundbreakers" (i.e., artists who got into trouble for their language and attitudes) such as Mae West, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and, of course, George Carlin.
• • The series features tons of classic clips, interviews with performers, and a cast of knowledgeable talking heads to provide context; all in all, Make 'Em Laugh promises to be a great mix of comedy, biography, and American history.
• • The only problem with the series is that it has too much ground to cover in too short a time. (Yes, six hours is a long series, but trying to fit all of American comedy of the last century into six hours? Come on.) That's where the accompanying book comes in. Lucky for us, the authors — — Kantor and Laurence Maslon, editor of Library of America's George S. Kaufman collection — — made their book into a solid, entertaining addition to the series. The pair realized how quickly a comedy routine deflates when it's merely described, so they took a different approach. Instead of replicating the series, they created a font of extra information about America's greatest comedians' lives and art, and made the book a source of additional insight into those artists' work — — not to mention a storehouse for hundreds of great photos. The book's widely varied chapters contain unexpected surprises, such as a series of essays on early developments in American comedy including vaudeville and radio comedies, or a well-told reminder of the explosive and important role played by "All In The Family" in the evolution of sitcoms.
• • There are also several moving chapters on the private struggles of some comic actors, including Mae West, Gilda Radner, and Charlie Chaplin. Perhaps none of the stories are more poignant, or odd, than that of Paul Lynde, a supremely sardonic, gay comic actor who did relatively well in theater and films during a still-closeted era, but wound up doing some of his funniest work as a perpetual guest on the Hollywood Squares game show.
• • Kantor structured the TV series and the book differently, but he says they both share the same purpose: to reveal truths about particular places and times by examining, and celebrating, what enchanted its audiences. Kantor explains that he hopes "to show how our greatest comedians have reflected America's social climate ... In the same way you can learn about the state of the country by the song, 'Brother, can you spare a dime?' or the musical Hair, you can learn about the Great Depression or Mae West's era by the jokes they were telling."
— — Source: — —
• • Book Review: "Make 'Em Laugh examines comedy greats"
• • By John Grooms
Published in: Creative Loafing — — charlotte.creativeloafing.com
Published on: 2 December 2008
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: At the Paramount

MAE WEST returns to the Brooklyn Paramount on Friday 25 April 2008.
• • An all-day conference "Vaudeville at the Paramount" will be presented at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus and offer rare film clips along with panels including radio legend Joe Franklin, critic Dave Kehr and screenwriter Norman Steinberg, and a reception.
• • Once a prestigious Brooklyn landmark, the historic Paramount Theatre enjoyed a heyday during the Prohibition Era.
• • The wide-ranging cultural impact of vaudeville and the historic Brooklyn Paramount Theatre in the 1920s and 30s will be the topic of a special conference at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus on Friday, April 25, 2008. Featuring panels with writers, critics, and researchers along with rare film clips, a musical performance and reception, the event is free and open to the public.
• • The conference, entitled Vaudeville at the Brooklyn Paramount, will recall the history of the famed Paramount theatre — — now part of the Brooklyn Campus — — and explore the vaudeville variety art form and its influence on American popular culture in the twentieth century. More than ten scheduled speakers will include Dave Kehr, film critic for The New York Times; Norman Steinberg, writer of Blazing Saddles now teaching screenwriting at the Brooklyn Campus; and Joe Franklin, talk show icon and host of the weekly Memory Lane program on WOR.
• • Popularized in venues throughout the United States as accessible entertainment for the whole family, vaudeville performances included acts from the worlds of music, acrobatics, dance, comedy, trained animals and magic. When the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre opened in 1928 as a destination for viewing the new talkie films, it included vaudeville with the cinema offerings, drawing performers such as MAE WEST, Ginger Rogers, Rudy Vallee, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, George Burns, Gracie Allen, and Ethel Merman. Although vaudeville was eclipsed by radio, film and television, it left an indelible influence on formats for diverse and democratic nightlife.
• • "Vaudeville at the Brooklyn Paramount" will take place in the Spike Lee Screening Room, LLC 122, on the Brooklyn Campus, located near Flatbush and DeKalb avenues in downtown Brooklyn, on Friday, April 25, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. A reception with a performance by the Sol Yaged Quartet will begin at 5 p.m. The event is open and free to the public.
• • Info: contact Michael Hittman, professor of anthropology at (718) 488-1185; or Joseph Dorinson, professor of history, at (718) 488-1191.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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