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"Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It" was MAE WEST's letter to the world. Released in hardcover fifty years ago by the Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey imprint Prentice Hall, this meaty memoir has also been done as a paperback by Avon Books [December 1959] and in more recent reissues. If you own a first edition, then your copy has a pale-lavender cloth with white lettering on the spine and a startling image of the star posing in her boudoir on the dust jacket, which promises some thrills and "Gives you the behind-the-headlines details of a glamorous star's spectacular life and career."
• • Hollywood publicist Frank Liberman helped promote the bio half-a-century ago. Word comes that Liberman, who had Parkinson's disease, died of pneumonia at age 92 on Sunday at Providence Tarzana Medical Center.
• • A native New Yorker like Mae, he was born in The Big Apple on 29 May 1917 and was raised in White Plains.
• • After college, he learned about writing copy while employed by the New York Daily News. He soon joined Warner Brothers and worked his way up. After serving as an Army public relations officer [1941 — 1946], Liberman rejoined Warner Brothers, where he was engaged as a unit publicist before establishing his own firm, Frank Liberman and Associates, in 1947.
• • As a publicist, Liberman represented movies and stars; for 41 years he was Bob Hope's flack and Phyllis Diller's for 33. Other celebrity clients included Robert Goulet, Henry Fonda, Nat "King" Cole, Tony Bennett, Charles Bronson, Joan Blondell, Jack Paar, Harry Belafonte, Steve Allen, David Janssen, Dorothy Lamour, Joey Bishop, William Shatner, Mike Nichols, and the songwriting team of Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.
• • Hired to beat the drums for Mae West's 271-page memoir, he also pushed the biographies of Ethel Merman and Gig Young — — as well as four of George Burns' books, four of Diller's and five of Hope's — — during his five decades in the business.
• • Maybe goodness had nothing to do with it but Frank Liberman was known for his tact, charm, goodwill, and a reputation for decency. This gentleman will be missed.• • 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.
In one motion picture Warren William played the meddlesome publicist of MAE WEST. 
• • Born in December 1894 in Minnesota as Warren William Krech, the aspiring thesp attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and, like Mae, he appeared in several plays on Broadway during the 1920s. He was even seen opposite the engaging "Perils of Pauline" star Pearl White in her last serial photoplay, "Plunder" [1923].
• • "The Perils of Mavis Arden" or rather "Go West, Young Man" was a contemporary comedy based on a long-running Broadway hit "Personal Appearance," which starred Gladys George.
• • Paramount Pictures released this misfit on 18 November 1936.
• • Every so often comes a time when the normal rules of life are suspended, when some sort of force brings deprivation, distress, suffering — — or extreme inconvenience. For Americans, it was the dangerous economic swordplay of the Depression when industrial production was halved, disposable incomes greatly declined, stock prices plunged to one-tenth their skyscraping pre-Crash height, and the unemployed rolls swelled to more than ten million.
• • For the screen queen Mavis Arden, normality went on the rocks while being stranded at a remote rural boarding house while on her personal appearance tour to publicize the film "Drifting Lady." All dressed up and stuck in the boondocks!
• • Comedies find fun in contrasts — — a tall, dark, youthful Cary Grant paired with a sexually savvy mature siren, for instance, in "She Done Him Wrong." Marshaling his willpower and armed with his patrician looks and polish, the tall, dark, and scheming Morgan is a press agent who feels well-equipped to prevent a temperamental movie star from marrying while under studio contract. Morgan also stage manages behind the scenes to keep the man-hungry Mavis single and unavailable to men (not unlike Mae's real-life manager Jim Timony and stage mother Matilda West).
• • Often cast as an amoral, aggressive, heartbreaking rogue without a conscience, when the cameras weren't rolling the six-foot-one gentleman was a shy, retiring type who remained married to the same woman and worked on patented inventions in his spare time. Speaking of him, five-time Warner Brothers co-star Joan Blondell told an interviewer that Warren William "was an old man even when he was a young man."
• • His busy career, aided by his deep, mellifluous, muscular speaking voice, was cut short by cancer of the bone marrow (multiple myeloma). Warren William died in Hollywood during the month of September — — on 24 September 1948 at age 53.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1936 • •
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Mae West.
In Palo Alto, California, the Stanford Theatre invites you to come up and see MAE WEST.
• • From Saturday January 31st — Monday February 2nd, 2009, movie buffs can enjoy two classics from the pre-Code era: "She Done Him Wrong" [1933] on the same bill with "Gold Diggers of 1933."
• • One original billboard was pretty frisky. "Swinging hips, bedroom eyes, and the throaty growl of an amorous cat — — she just doesn't give a damn!" slavered the hand-colored poster, describing the Lady Lou character.
• • "She Done Him Wrong" will be screened at 6:15 PM and also at 9:20 PM.
• • Mae's break-out screen gem was first released by Paramount Pictures on 9 February 1933.• • "Gold Diggers" features Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Warren Williams, Joan Blondell, and Guy Kibbee. Marian Anderson dubbed Joan Blondell's singing voice. Choreographed by Busby Berkeley, this is extravagant eye-candy indeed.
• • Contact: Stanford Theater — — 221 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301 — — Cross Streets: Between Emerson Street and Ramona Street; Tel: (650) 324-3700.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1932 • •
NYC
Mae West.
The Florida Times-Union did an article on "The Evolution of Sex Symbols" — — and MAE WEST was accorded her due as a bombshell and a sexpot. Encompassing both male and female sexpot types, the writers' categories included: Bombshells and Sexpots, The sex bomb, Bikini Babes, Flappers, The red-hot lover, The femme fatale, The girl next door, The gamine, Heroin chic chick, The bimbo, et cetera.
• • What's the difference between screen queens who are "bombshells and sexpots" versus "sex bombs"? Indeed we wondered, too. Read on.
• • Sex symbol surveyors David Bauer and Laura Capitano began by taking "stock of the bodies and souls that have seduced our imaginations over the years."
• • Bauer and Capitano wrote: Fads and fashions have always played roles in determining sex symbols. While physical attractiveness is about the only timeless quality, remnants of the categories from the early part of the 20th century are with us today. Instead of fading away and being replaced by a new genre, many of them continued and new ones were added, so many of today's sex symbols are amalgamations of one or more of the categories from the past.
• • Here's how they define "Bombshells and sexpots" — —
• • Little did the advertising people behind Jean Harlow's 1933 film Bombshell know their words would be ageless when they called her the "blond bombshell of filmdom." Harlow ushered in a new category of sexy starlet: Usually buxom, often blond, and frequently full-figured. Others — — like Mae West — — and, to a degree, Harlow, established a genre of sexual, defiant characters.
• • Examples: Mae West, Jean Harlow, Fay Wray, Joan Blondell, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo.
• • Notice how their definition of "The sex bomb" — —
• • Although breathy, sensual, and screaming of sexuality, the Sex Bomb also had a clearly naive side. Although she would flaunt her beauty, she sometimes didn't even recognize her own sexuality.
• • Examples: Marilyn Monroe, Mamie Van Doren, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida.
• • Bauer and Capitano include Theda Bara and Clara Bow under their label "Vamps" — — and Norma Talmadge and Louise Brooks as "Flappers."
— — Source: — —
• • Article: "The Evolution of Sex Symbols"
• • Byline: DAVID C.L. BAUER and LAURA CAPITANO
• • Published in: The Florida Times-Union — — www.jacksonville.com
• • Published on: 13 April 2008
• • 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.
