Mae West: Tuxedo Jack

It was Sunday, 25 January 1948 when MAE WEST opened the United Kingdom tour of "Diamond Lil" at the Prince of Wales Theatre on London’s West End. She’d heard of the British medium Leslie Flint [1911 – 16 April 1994] and took this opportunity to meet him. This is Part 4, the end of these excerpts.
• • The Flint Séance • •
• • Medium Jack Kelly at Lily Dale • •
• • From “The Spirit Book” comes this: Mae West was an ardent Spiritualist and visited the Spiritualist community of Lily Dale, New York many times. Her favorite medium there was Jack Kelly. After Kelly’s death, Mae claimed that his spirit appeared to her, dressed in a tuxedo.
• • From “The Spirit Book” comes this: Another of her psychics was Kenny Kingston, in Hollywood, who said that he knew that the spirit world was Mae’s first priority.

• • From “The Spirit Book” comes this: Kenny Kingston recalls one occasion, “At the theatre, she’d invite me back to her dressing room for a brief séance … She’d planned on the séance; wanted psychic messages about her career.”
• • Though we’ll stop here, feel free to read the book written by Leslie Flint, who met Mae in Britain.  
• • Leslie Flint [1911 – 16 April 1994] was a British medium.
• • Sources: Flint, Leslie: Voices in the Dark [NY: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971]
• • Recounted in ”The Spirit Book: The Encyclopedia of Clairvoyance, Channeling, and Spirit Communication," editor Raymond Buckland [Visible Ink Press, 1 September 2005].
• • On Saturday, 19 March 1927 • •
• • Mae West signed the "Sex" checks. Three promissory notes dated for Saturday, 19 March 1927 were from the Moral Producing Corporation.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Last week Mae West sniffed at a proffered check to be present at the opening of a new hotel in Pittsburgh, and similarly said no to a radio offer of 13 programs for $75,000.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "Don't believe that in my search for realism in the plays I write I invite police interference. My last trouble with the police cost me a small fortune in litigation and a lot of headaches."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The Daily Variety mentioned Mae West.
• • Mae West's astonishing box office reaction through repeats and re-repeat bookings on her “She Done Him Wrong” film has established the you-must-come-up-and-see-me-sometime gal as a cinch for the other out-of-state advertising men. They're assured that Miss West would be a cinch on the air for mike-appeal. The big headache now is bow to fit her rough style into an air show that goes into a home.  ...
• • Source: Variety; published on Tuesday, 5 September 1933
• • The evolution of 2 Mae West plays that keep her memory alive • • 
• • A discussion with Mae West playwright LindaAnn LoSchiavo — — 
• • http://lideamagazine.com/renaissance-woman-new-york-city-interview-lindaann-loschiavo/

• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 14th anniversary • •  

• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past fourteen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,100 blog posts. Wow!  

• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fourteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4172nd 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: Where No One Dies & Queens Lies

During the early 1930s, MAE WEST visited Lily Dale and formed a strong bond with the flamboyant medium Jack Kelly. During the 1920s, Mae and Texas Guinan held several seances in Manhattan hoping to speak to the recently departed actor Rudolph Valentino. A few years later, Jack Kelly inspired Mae, grieving deeply after her mother's death, to explore her own extra-sensory perceptions in order to communicate with her loved ones.
• • In 2005, there were several seances held in Manhattan to summon the spirit of Mae West. One seance took place on 17 August 2005 in a haunted speakeasy. People who had known the actress were present, hoping to make a connection. Later seances were taped for television.
• • Religion reporter Christine Wicker published her own story on Lily Dale, the world's largest spiritualist community. The small upstate New York town is now the subject of an HBO documentary, "No One Dies In Lily Dale," which will debut on the small screen during the month of July — — on Monday 5 July 2010.
• • According to Christine Wicker, each year, twenty thousand visitors will travel to Lily Dale, the oldest and largest community of Spiritualists in the world. In the past, famous guests included Mae West, Susan B. Anthony, and Harry Houdini. The main attraction of this New York State Victorian village is to consult one of the town’s 450 mediums.
• • In her book "Lily Dale: The Town that Talks to the Dead," Christine Wicker explored the life and spirit of the 122-year old city populated solely by people who believe the dead are still living among them. If you watch on July 5th, let us know what you thought of the TV program.
• • Woodhaven, Queens Tries to Take Credit for Launching Mae's Career • •
• • Most Mae-Mavens know that Mae West was born on 17 August 1893 in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, New York. She spent her childhood in this borough, where her parents helped launch her vaudeville career by entering the act "Baby May, Song and Dance" into many amateur competitions in Bushwick, Brownsville, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint.
• • By the time the John West family moved to the sleepy, rural section of Queens known as Woodhaven, Mae was within kissing distance of her thirtieth birthday.
• • And by the time Mae West was registering the copyright on her manuscripts with the Library of Congress from the family's Woodhaven address, the seasoned entertainer had already been booked for eleven week-long engagements at Hammerstein's Victoria [1912 — 1913]; she had already starred at The Palace [1922] on The Gay White Way; she had already been cast in several Broadway musicals and revues; she had already toured in variety from coast to coast; and she had already married two husbands, Frank Wallace [1911] and Guido Diero [1914]. She had also been a witness at her younger sister's wedding, which took place on 29 January 1917 in Brooklyn City Hall, not far from the West family's Brooklyn residence.
• • A proud Brooklynite, Mae West did not move to suburban Queens until 20 years after her career was well in progress.
• • Furthermore, Mae West never never ever set foot in Neir’s Tavern [87-48 78th Street, Woodhaven, NY] — — though she often dined at The Triangle Hofbrau Inn, where traditional German dishes were served, and other neighborhood restaurants.
• • You can learn a great deal about her life by doing your own primary research or by spending time with excellent Mae West biographies written by Jill Watts [Mae West: An Icon in Black and White] and Emily Wortis Leider [Becoming Mae West].
• • No one who writes for a Queens-based newspaper has read those books, obviously, nor do these humble local news sheets employ a fact-checker. Nor do the Queens papers print letters from readers, messages that offer to CORRECT errors. Tsk! That's too bad — — but why don't journalists double-check details before they run with an odd press release, a self-promoting item that could care less about misinformation as long as it succeeds in luring a few hapless bar-flies?
• • Woodhaven did not launch anyone's vaudeville career. Sorry to have to break it to you, chums.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Lily Dale redux

Time Magazine has neither been gripping nor essential reading for decades, however, this week's article on Lily Dale did mention MAE WEST.
• • Nancy Gibbs fizzes up her nothing-new topic with a presidential twist. She writes: "And in an election year haunted by all kinds of ghosts, I thought I'd check in with the people who talk to the dead all the time — — just to get a different feel for the spirits that move us."
• • In her next sentence, Gibbs lists the usual names associated with the place: A hundred years ago, the New York Times described the Lily Dale Assembly, a gated compound in far western New York State, as "the most famous and aristocratic spiritualistic camp in America." Freethinking, forward-leaning, this was a place for prophets of all kinds. Susan B. Anthony visited half a dozen times; Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt came, and Harry Houdini and Mae West, and seekers from around the world looking to explore the continuity between life and what locals refer to as "so-called death." . . .
• • Alas, "Lessons from the Spirit World" is arid and predictable. And Mae-mavens will find no further details about which building her portrait hangs in nor any mention of her fascinating relationship with the Reverend Jack Kelly. Ho-hum. I predict Ms. Gibbs will put you to sleep, dear readers.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Lessons from the Spirit World"
• • Byline: Nancy Gibbs
• • Published in: Time Magazine — www.time.com
• • Published on: Thursday, 21 August 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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