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MAE WEST was occasionally booked on the prestigious Keith circuit by Benjamin Franklin Keith, who was born in late January [26 January 1846 — 26 March 1914], a vaudeville theatre owner.
• • Before Mae worked for B.F. Keith, she fell in love with live entertainment by watching variety acts with her mother on several Brooklyn stages. And what pleasure palaces Mae and Matilda West had waltzed into. [Matilda West died on 26 January 1930.]
• • When Mae was 18 years old, not far from the elevated train's Gates Avenue station (at Broadway in Bushwick) a superb playhouse debuted: a Beaux Arts confection with Egyptian goddesses positioned on white-glazed terracotta oculi that are, simultaneously, embraced by gigantic cupids. Taken over by B.F. Keith a year later (and eventually renamed the RKO Bushwick Theatre), this was situated on a corner lot where Broadway met Monroe and Howard.
• • The Bushwick was built by showman Percy Williams — — using the popular theatre designer William McElfatrick as his architect — — and first opened on 11 September 1911 as a vaudeville house. Architect William McElfatrick was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1854.
• • In 1912, Percy Williams sold it to B.F. Keith.
• • On March 26, 1914, the little loved founder of the Keith circuit died in Florida, his 28-year-old bride nearby — — perhaps already planning for her well-cushioned widowhood.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • The Bushwick [1396 Broadway at Howard Street] • •
NYC
Mae West.
Before MAE WEST there was Katie West.• • On 19 January 1889, in Greenpoint, Battling Jack West and Tillie Delker took their wedding vows before a local minister with Jack's sister Julia West acting as maid of honor.
• • Their first child Katie came along during August of 1891; unfortunately, the infant died. Perhaps because of this, Mr. and Mrs. West became even more attached to their second child — — Mary Jane. Named for her Irish grandmother, their second daughter was born in Brooklyn on 17 August 1893.
• • Katie West's brief life came to an end on 30 October 1891. She is in our thoughts.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
Since it's Mother's Day, it's apt to mention that MAE WEST really adored her German-born mother Matilda [Dilker] West, whom Mae's father had nicknamed "Champagne Til."
• • Here they are in April 1927, as Mae leaves the women's workhouse, the female prison on Welfare Island.
• • Champagne Til makes her appearance in the serious-minded comedy "Courting Mae West" — — based on true events during the Prohibition Era when Mae West was arrested and jailed — — and this exciting full-length play opens at the Algonquin Theatre (123 East 24th Street, NYC) on Saturday 19 July 2008. Louis Lopardi will direct the seven-person cast.
• • Dedicating her autobiography, "Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It," Mae West wrote: "In loving memory of my mother, without whom I might have been somebody else."
• • Emily Wortis Leider writes: "Matilda [West] herself, a soft-spoken native of Bavaria whose stunning hourglass figure reminded people of the ripe and rounded opulence of reigning New York beauty, actress Lillian Russell, had married after a brief stint modeling corsets — — a scant seven years after her arrival in America. She had once harbored hopes for a stage career of her own, but her respectable merchant family, kin to proprietors of a New York brewery renowned for its lager, forbade it. They probably had also discouraged her forays into the corset-modeling profession, which she glamorized with a French word, modiste. ..."
• • Leider's book "Becoming Mae West" is a well-researched and engrossing biography.
• • In January 1930, Mae purchased a marble mausoleum for her beloved late mother in Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY.
• • In 1980, Mae was interred there with the members of the West family.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.
It's a good thing that MAE WEST is not around to breeze through a free New York newspaper called am-New York. The daily just printed a column "Eat Cheap" and — — if Teddy's Bar and Grill in Williamsburg needs to lure in customers with lies — — heaven help what's going on in the kitchen.
• • According to the fib-sters at Teddy's Bar & Grill, "Mae West was born upstairs. How much more authentic can you get?" [96 Berry Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11211; 718-384-9787].
• • TRUTH: Mae West never lived on Berry Street ever.
• • TRUTH: Mae West was born in Bushwick — — not Williamsburg.
• • TRUTH: Mae West's mother's maiden name was Dilker — — not Doelger. Was Mae even remotely related to the wealthy Peter Doelger clan of brewers? This is very doubtful. Matilda Dilker's father Jacob was a sugar and coffee broker — — not a brewer. The Dilkers were not wealthy. But it is possible that Mae West the vaudevillian liked to hint that her family had fancier connections. By the time the Brooklynite got to Hollywood, she was exaggerating her connections even further by telling the press her family had descended from Alfred the Great.
• • Authentic?• • Source:www.amny.com• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xmlMae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST was occasionally booked on the prestigious Keith circuit by Benjamin Franklin Keith, who was born in late January [26 January 1846 — 26 March 1914], a vaudeville theatre owner.
