Mae West: Greta, by George

MAE WEST spent an evening with Greta Garbo at the home of director George Cukor, by George! Interviewed years later, the Hollywood host gave a different (i.e., more honest) account. However, in 1968, Associated Press reporter Bob Thomas painted a rosier version of the supper party.
• • "Greta Garbo and Mae West Meet, Get along Famously" • •

• • Hollywood — — Bob Thomas wrote: The summit meeting of two film immortals took place one recent evening in the sumptuous salon of George Cukor, the director. The principals: Greta Garbo and Mae West. Miss Garbo had surprised her longtime friend and director by expressing a desire to meet Miss West. Cukor arranged a dinner.
• • Bob Thomas continued: Garbo, always prompt, arrived first. Miss West, who dearly loves an entrance, came later. She disarmed Garbo at once by greeting her with a “Hello, dear” and a Hollywood-style kiss on the cheek.
• • “From that moment on, they got along famously,” says Cukor. “Garbo wanted to know about Mae’s muscle-men, and Mae explained that this one and that one were infatuated with her.”
• • Miss Garbo was unavailable for comment. 
• • Bob Thomas noted: But Miss West said she enjoyed the evening. What did they talk about? “Well, she said that she loved my pictures, and I said the same about hers,” Mae recounted. “I said to her, ‘You know, you really ought to make another picture — you look great.’ She said, ‘I dunno; I’ll think it over.’”
• • Bob Thomas added: The meeting with Garbo was another event in the recent renaissance of Mae West, who has had an amazing number of careers in her 74 years.  . . .
• • Source: Syndicated feature by Bob Thomas, Movie-Television Writer, Associated Press, rpt on page 17 in Wilmington News-Journal; published on Wednesday, 15 May 1968.
• • On Wednesday, 15 May 1935 in the N.Y. Mirror • •
• • "Back in 1909 I was playing as a single at the Canarsie Music Hall in Brooklyn on the Fox circuit . . . One day after my performance a swell-looking woman came around back stage and told me she had a daughter who was a comer.  She had seen my act, she said, and thought I could help her kid," Frank Wallace told the reporter from the New York Mirror.
• • The kid was a sweet 16-year-old brunette named Mae West. Frank and Mae immediately began rehearsing in the cellar of the West's Bushwick Avenue residence — — or so the hoofer claimed to recall (because other records dispute that address).
• • On Saturday, 15 May 1948 • •
• • Mae West and Jim Timony boarded the Queen Mary on Saturday, 15 May 1948 at Southampton, England for a return voyage to New York City, arriving in their home port on Wednesday, 19 May 1948.
• • On Friday, 15 May 1964 • •
• • Conservative Catholic publisher Martin Quigley owned the trade journals Motion Picture Daily and Motion Picture Herald.
• • Mae West was interviewed by journalist Martin J. Quigley for Motion Picture Herald. The article appeared in the Friday, 15 May 1964 issue of this popular fan magazine devoted to the doings (and the grave undoing) of the major screen stars.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Now there is talk that Jim Aubrey and Hunt Stromberg Jr. will produce for Warner Brothers-Seven Arts a film version of a Mae West play, “Sextet,” starring Mae. It would be her first film since “The Heat’s On” 25 years ago.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I was off the screen for awhile because just couldn’t find anything I wanted to do. Also there were years when my income tax was such that I would have ended up working for the government. And I was always busy doing plays and night clubs."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The Ottawa Evening Citizen mentioned  Mae West.
• • E.W.H. wrote:  Thursday, May 16th — — So finished my stint and then to see Mae West In "Goin' to Town," a roaring comedie in which the swaggering, bejeweled, and predatory Mae continues her variations upon the theme that to women love is a "business" and shouldn't be taken seriously, and her practice of eyeing males solely as — — males. Some of her tricks grow tedious, but she is still a striking person.      . . .
• • Source: Article by E.W.H. for The Ottawa Evening Citizen; published on Friday, 17 May 1935
• • By the Numbers • • 
• • The Mae West Blog was started nine years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2914th 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: Cary in Rochester

MAE WEST ushered Cary Grant, formerly a singing acrobat from England, into the silver screen's eternal embrace. This summer, in Rochester, New York, a Cary Grant film fest is in progress. It began yesterday (on 2 July 2010) with two classic comedies featuring the handsome leading man and starring the curvy Brooklyn bombshell herself.
• • Rochester's resident cinemaphile Jack Garner announced this motion picture line-up.
• • Jack Garner wrote: It's hard to imagine a more entertaining way to spend a summer evening than in the company of one of Hollywood's most debonair and witty actors — — Cary Grant.
• • Jack Garner continued: The actor, one of cinema's most popular, comes under the spotlight at the Eastman House Dryden Theatre, starting with two hilarious Mae West comedies, being shown as a double feature at 7 tonight.
• • Jack Garner explained: In She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel, Grant initiated his place as one of Hollywood's great icons of women's longings. It couldn't be clearer when his co-star is one of film's most stridently sexual creatures. West is the one who famously asked Grant in She Done Him Wrong, "Why don't you come up some time and see me?" About Grant in I'm No Angel, she said, just as famously, "It's not the men in your life that counts; it's the life in your men."
• • Jack Garner added: Other films in the series are Topper (Wednesday), with Grant as one of a pair of married ghosts who appear to an old friend, trying to enliven his rather stuffy life; and legendary comedies in which he appeared opposite Katharine Hepburn — — George Cukor's Holiday (July 14) and The Philadelphia Story (Aug. 4), and Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (July 21). Save for the double feature, the Grant films start at 8 p.m. . . .
• • Continue reading Jack Garner's very interesting comments about Grant's career by visiting the link below.
• • HERE'S the FILM FEST: Eastman House Dryden Theatre, 900 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Cary Grant films showcased at the Dryden"
• • By: Jack Garner
• • Published in: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle — — www.democratandchronicle.com
• • Published on: 2 July 2010
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Birthday in early July • •
• • By the way, the gay filmmaker George Cukor and Mae West were life-long friends. Born in New York City on the Lower East Side, George Cukor [7 July 1899 — 24 January 1983] was a Hollywood film director who mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. On July 7th, celebrate Cukor by seeing one of his motion picture classics.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Greta Garbo

On one unusual evening, MAE WEST was invited to dinner — — along with Greta Garbo [18 September 1905 — 15 April 1990]. There was plenty of food but, alas, no conversation.
• • According to Hollywood producer William Frye, who wrote about this a decade ago for Vanity Fair [April 2000 issue], this is how the stars did not exactly sparkle and shine that evening.
• • William Frye writes: Greta Garbo and Gayelord Hauser rarely went out in the evening, but one of their infrequent excursions intrigued me: George Cukor invited them to his house for dinner with Mae West and one of her musclemen. The two fabled ladies had never met.
• • I went out to the guesthouse as they were preparing to leave. Garbo was in beige slacks and a beige sweater. “What are you planning to wear tonight?” I asked, knowing perfectly well that she was planning to wear what she had on.
• • “I am going like this,” she said.
• • “Put on your black slacks and sweater,” I said.
• • “Why should I do that?”
• • “Because Miss West is going to be in white. I’ve never been at dinner with her when she hasn’t worn white. Put on your black slacks, black turtleneck, and black patent-leather shoes.”
• • She took my advice, and the simplicity of the black clothes, combined with her wonderful hair, which was just beginning to turn gray, produced a stunning image.
• • I said, “Promise me tomorrow you’ll give me a blow-by-blow account of what happens.” She promised.
• • The next night she arrived as usual for her "Guttysark." We talked about this and that, but Garbo didn’t mention Mae West. Finally, exasperated, I said, “Well, what did you talk about with Miss West?”
• • “Oh,” she said, “I didn’t talk. During dinner, all Miss West discussed was monkeys. Do you know she used to have monkeys? I don’t know anything about monkeys, so I didn’t talk.”
• • “What about after dinner?” I asked. “Surely she didn’t talk about monkeys after dinner, too?”
• • “No. After dinner all she talked about was musclemen. I don’t know anything about musclemen, so I didn’t talk then either. I was home at 10:30, and I didn’t say a word the whole evening.” ...
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Classic Hollywood: The Garbo Next Door"
• • Byline: William Frye
• • Published in: Vanity Fair Magazine
• • Published on: April 2000 edition
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Colette, Caron, Cukor

MAE WEST, Colette noted in a 1938 publication, had the confidence to create an unapologetic majority-of-one presence on the silver screen — — as self-sufficient and durable as a diamond solitaire. "She alone, out of an enormous and dull catalogue of heroines, does not get married at the end of the film, does not die, does not take the road to exile, does not gaze sadly at her declining youth in a silver-framed mirror …. She alone has no parents, no children, no husband," wrote Colette. "This impudent woman is, in her style, as solitary as Chaplin used to be."
• • Can you imagine the buxom Brooklynite translated into the character of one of the 1890s Parisian prostitutes who people "Gigi," an arch novella written in 1944 by Colette [28 January 1873 — 3 August 1954]? Ooooh-la-la!
• • Defanged by the American musical comedy team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, who laundered and starched all the sex and naughtiness out of the original, "Gigi" became a romantic tale of mismatched parts and was chastely adapted for the screen in 1958, starring a very ladylike French native Leslie Caron [born 1 July 1931] as the ingenue tutored by the scarlet women in her family. The motion picture version premiered at the Royale Theatre — — the Broadway house where "Diamond Lil" debuted in 1928 — — in Manhattan on 15 May 1958.
• • Still active and sought after, the 78-year-old Academy-Award-nominee will soon portray Madame Armfeldt in a Paris revival of Stephen Sondheim’s "A Little Night Music," a musical about shady ladies that leaves the sex and sass intact. Moreover, Leslie Caron's memoir "Thank Heaven" will be published by Viking around Christmas.
• • Mae West and Leslie Caron • •
• • In The Examiner, Alan Petrucelli has put together a most intriguing profile that includes this morsel about Leslie Caron and Mae West.
• • Pittsburgh Stage and Screen Examiner Alan Petrucelli writes: And this story, which we’ll call The Women, Part Deux, is a hoot! One day director George Cukor “begged” Caron to make up a lunch quartet with — — are you ready? — — Mae West, Greta Garbo, and Barbra Streisand. Caron coos: “An absolutely historical luncheon, I know, but I would have felt very uncomfortable in front of these great dames. You know what happened? Streisand says, ‘Gee, Miss West, I do so admire your work,’ and West replies, ‘Sure honey, I can tell by the way you been stealin’ it…’” [from "Leslie Caron? Oui! Make no reservations about it, just thank heaven for this little/ big girl" printed on 7 September 2009; by Pittsburgh Stage and Screen Examiner Alan Petrucelli; published in: The Examiner — — www.examiner.com].
• • Hmmmm. Though that nostalgic nugget goes together like misfitted pipes amid nougat, and the imagined comeback by Mae West to Brooklyn's Barbra twangs like a nail mis-struck, it is nice to see the Empress of Sex fondly recalled by an awestruck foreign thespian who did not have lunch with her after all (and who did not do her own singing on screen either). We do hope her memoir is a real page-turner quite unlike the clutch of mud most of these celeb tell-alls have been.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: March Madness

Days away from the Ides of March, those who are mad about MAE WEST are tightening their toga and lifting up their voice to praise the czarina of the screen, not to assassinate her reputation.
• • Turner Classic movies selected Charlotte Chandler’s new work on Mae West — — “She Always Knew How” — — as their book of the month for March. Charlotte Chandler was the last person to interview Mae before she died in 1980, not long after her last motion picture “Sexette.” Mae told the blonde bi-coastal biographer: “Some women know how to get what they want. Others don’t. I’ve always known how!”
• • "Wisecracking West was clearly a figure to be reckoned with," notes critic Carol Crissey Nigrelli with admiration. [Instead of picturing Ms. Nigrelli in a Roman toga, however, we've selected this fanciful artwork by Adam Zyglis, whose talent runs the gamut from A to Z.]
• • Writing for The Buffalo News, Ms. Nigrelli weighs in on the latest tome devoted to the beloved screen queen born in Brooklyn, New York.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Carol Crissey Nigrelli writes: Mae West reigns as one of the great architectural wonders of the 20th century. Her zaftig figure inspired legions of late-night comics and female impersonators. Fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, who badly misjudged the actress’ tiny waist measurement, made up for some ill-fitting dresses by creating a perfume bottle in West’s shape.
• • During World War II, British Royal Air Force pilots called their yellow inflatable life preservers “Mae Wests,” a homage that put her in the dictionary. Clearly delighted, the actress let it be known that “the dictionary is my favorite book.”
• • West’s figure helped her become a star, but her sexually veiled one-liners made her an icon. And in Charlotte Chandler’s “She Always Knew How: Mae West — A Personal Biography,” the Brooklyn-born actress once again beckons us, as she beckoned Cary Grant in his first starring role, to “come up sometime. See me,” (the original line).
• • In 1980, at the urging of director George Cukor, the 86-year old West came out of “interview retirement.” She graciously granted Chandler access to her Hollywood home even though she didn’t like to give interviews. “I’ve only got one of me, and I don’t want to get spread too thin,” she told Chandler.
• • We learn early on that West loved her mother, a Bavarian-born blond who once modeled corsets, more than anyone on Earth — including a man. She tells Chandler she kept her “five-minute husband” a secret for 20 years because her mother would have been “disappointed because I had married so young and heartbroken because I had lied to her.”
• • West’s marriage to her vaudeville song-and-dance partner in 1911 lasted all of two months, wasn’t revealed until Mae hit Hollywood, and dissolved in 1941.
• • From her very first meeting with Chandler it was clear that West would cede no territory in the screen siren department. The actress/legend showed up dripping in diamonds. Chandler writes her face “was nearly hidden by its mask of makeup, but her throat and decolettage revealed strikingly fair, soft, youthful skin.” At various times throughout the book, West attributed her creamy skin to shunning the sun, baby oil, good sex or her five-enemas- a-day routine.
• • She may have projected the image of a sexually liberated woman on the screen, but when it came to other vices, Mae West was a prude. She didn’t smoke, drink or curse and she didn’t tolerate such behavior in others, as W. C. Fields found out on the set of “My Little Chickadee” in 1940.
• • “I got it in my contract that if he came to the set drunk, they would remove him from the premises. It looked OK for a while, and then he turned up drunk,” West said. “I didn’t hesitate. I said, ‘OK, boys — — throw him out!’ ” After that, she said, Fields was “a marshmallow — — no sign of any liquor.”
• • Friends since their vaudeville days, both West and Fields hit Hollywood at an advanced age—by Hollywood standards. West was 38 when she left New York to begin her film career. Paramount Pictures, on the brink of bankruptcy, was counting on the wisecracking sexpot to duplicate her Broadway success in its films. Moguls may not have fully understood the actress’ exact path to fame, however.
• • In 1926, Mae wrote and starred in a play on Broadway titled, simply, “Sex” — — the story of a Montreal Madam who sacrifices “a clean, wonderful love” when she realizes she can never escape her past.
• • “Sex” played to full houses for a year, but moral crusaders eventually hauled her into court. West spent 10 days in jail on obscenity charges. She emerged a star.
• • True to form, West kept the West Coast censors working overtime in her very first film, 1932’s “Night After Night” starring her friend (and lover) George Raft. Mae’s small part, which she wrote, produced a celebrated line. When the hat-check girl exclaims, “Goodness! What beautiful diamonds!” Mae replies, “Goodness had nothin’ to do with it, dearie.”
• • West did indeed salvage Paramount in the 1930s. “They oughtta build a statue to me, at least a bust,” she deadpanned later. But her risque banter put her at odds with the mores of the time and it cost her professionally. “When I was a girl,” she told Chandler, “I understood right away that there was this double-standard thing for men and women, not just in sex, but in everything. A man’s world was one of freedom, a woman’s one of limitations. I believe in a single standard for men and women.”
• • “She Always Knew How” is Mae West’s story in her own words in the months before she died, with Chandler, who has written a number of celebrity biographies, providing enough narrative to keep the time-line flowing. The actors, directors and assistants who add anecdotes are “friendly witnesses” who speak of “Miss West” with great affection, so the perspective remains one dimensional.
• • But a vision of Mae West as delightful, kind, honest, giving, supremely confident, smart, savvy, relevant, and fearless is just as entertaining.
• • Maybe goodness has everything to do with it.
• • SHE ALWAYS KNEW HOW: MAE WEST — — A PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY
• • By Charlotte Chandler
• • Simon & Schuster; 302 pages
• • • • Under the name Carol Jasen, Carol Crissey Nigrelli is a member of the Buffalo Broadcasting Hall of Fame.
— — Source: — —
• • Book Review: "Wisecracking West was clearly a figure to be reckoned with"
• • Reviewer: Carol Jasen [aka Carol Crissey Nigrelli]
• • Published in: The Buffalo News — — www.buffalonews.com
• • Published on: 8 March 2009
• • Illustration of Mae West by: Adam Zyglis/ Buffalo News
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Adam Zyglis, illustrator • •
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Mae West: Bill of Wrongs

Liz Smith mentioned MAE WEST the other day, though most people did not notice.
• • Liz Smith wrote: TURNER CLASSIC movies has picked Charlotte Chandler's new work on Mae West, titled "She Always Knew How," as their book of the month for March. Charlotte was the last person to interview Mae before she died in 1980, not long after her last film "Sexette." Mae told the young [sic] Charlotte: "Some women know how to get what they want. Others don't. I've always known how!"
• • At the time, Mae expressed pity for Charlotte because she saw the writer had no jewelry. And when Charlotte first appeared Mae said, "They always send a man. You would have had to wait for me twice as long if you'd been a man — — because my makeup and hair take time." Charlotte says she only got the interview because director George Cukor insisted Mae see her. Mae West told Charlotte that "Someday there'll be a woman president... Ya know The Bill of Rights; well, what women need is a Bill of Wrongs!"
— — Source: — —
• • Byline: Liz Smith
• • Published in: Variety Magazine
• • Published on: Monday, 2 February 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • According to Variety, their publication "is the premier source of entertainment news. Since 1905, the most influential leaders in the industry have turned to Variety for timely, credible and straightforward news and analysis — — information vital to their professions. ..."
• • Will someone please notify Variety (who has been writing about Mae West since her days in vaudeville back in 1912) that the staff still has her birthdate wrong? Enough time to have gotten it right, buster! Sheesh!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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