Mae West: Dave Frishberg

MAE WEST said, "Beulah, peel me a grape!" in 1933 while playing Tira in "I'm No Angel," a smash hit for Paramount Pictures. Since she was cast for the role of Beulah Thorndyke, Gertrude Howard would be forever linked to this spontaneous exclamation not in the script.
• • As many Mae-mavens know, the screen queen's pet monkey Boogie appeared with her in "I'm No Angel." Boogie would not eat grapes unless they were peeled. When the director asked the movie star to ad lib a line — — to round out a shot with Tira and her maids — — his request prompted Mae West's utterance, "Beulah, peel me a grape."
• • "Peel me a grape" by Dave Frishberg • •
• • "Peel me a grape" lives on in pop culture, inspiring clever people such as the Minnesota musician Dave Frishberg who was born in St. Paul in the month of March — — on 23 March 1933.
• • During an interview in 1996 with Phillip D. Atteberry for The Mississippi Rag, jazz pianist, vocalist, and composer Dave Frishberg said that his first published song was "Peel Me a Grape" (1962). According to Mr. Atteberry's article, Frishberg revealed this: "I worked for a short time with Dick Haymes and Fran Jeffries on the hotel circuit," continued Frishberg. "Dick asked me to write something for Fran Jeffried — — a cute, sexy piece. (Dick knew that I had been dabbling with composition.) So I came up with ‘Peel Me a Grape.’ She never performed it, but some of my friends liked it, so I submitted it to Frank Loesser’s office, and he published it. ...
• • Happy Birthday to Dave Frishberg who is 77 years old today.
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Born on 5 May 1943 in Sheffield, England, Michael Palin, CBE FRGS is a British comedian, actor, writer, and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries.
• • For editor Graydon Carter, Michael Palin writes: Apart from that, the world’s your oyster. As Mae West said: “Keep a diary and it’ll keep you.” Stalin loved that. ...
• • Source: Article: "A Dogged Diarist’s Dos and Don’ts of Diary Writing" written by Michael Palin for Vanity Fair Magazine, April 2011 issue; posted on 23 March 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 1877th 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: Quilt Queen

MAE WEST used to joke, "I've been on more laps than a napkin." Visitors to a new exhibition of colorful quilts will see the movie queen on a coverlet — — but no one is permitted to touch this nor drape it across a lap.
• • Commemorating the county's 150-plus years of history by displaying several dozen superb hand-sewn vintage quilts will certainly attract attention and attendance. The exhibit began on Tuesday, 1 March 2011 at the Anoka County Historical Society, said Vickie Wendel, the society's program manager. Though most of these quilts were assembled decades ago, Ms. Wendel described one of the two modern quilts in this array as a Women's History project created by the students from Anoka High School. Each square was designed to celebrate a different inspirational woman: Mae West, artist Georgia O'Keeffe, broadcaster Barbara Walters, singer Diana Ross, and the Statue of Liberty, among other notable female icons.
• • WHERE: Anoka County Historical Society: 2135 Third Avenue, Anoka, MN 55303; T. 763-421-0600.
• • Mae West on 2 March 1913 • •
• • It was on 2 March 1913 that Mae West began a one week booking at Hammerstein's Victoria in the theatre district on West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Midnight Bell

Seventy-five years ago, The Post-Bulletin in Rochester, Minnesota, was alerting people to MAE WEST at the witching hour.
• • Amusingly, the editors called the motion picture "Bell of the Nineties" [sic], a title that brings to mind "A Bell for Adano" [1945] or even "Bells of St. Mary's" [1945]. No one can quite ring the bell like the Brooklyn bombshell, however.
• • • • 1934 — — 75 years ago • • • •
• • The Chateau Theatre will have a midnight show featuring Mae West in "Bell of the Nineties" [sic].
• • Wanted: Man to work service station; $50 weekly to start.
• • For sale: 1930 DeSoto, new tires and paint, $150.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Local News: The Day in History, October 6"
• • Published in: The Post-Bulletin — — Rochester, MN 55903-6118
• • Published on: 6 October 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Warren William

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: Usherette

A 91-year-old usherette still remembers the time she seated ticket-holders for a live performance by MAE WEST on the West Coast.
• • Born during 1917 in San Francisco, Agnes Chan offered this recollection to a San Francisco Gate reporter: I started ushering when I was a student at San Francisco State. One of the courses had as a requirement that we do volunteer work at the Geary Theater. So I went and ushered for Mae West — — she was doing her one-woman show. I took a fellow to his seat and he tipped me a dollar. I thought, "Wow, that's great." ...
• • Constructed in 1909, and opened to the public on 10 January 1910, the 1,024-seat Beaux Arts auditorium has been a venue for performers of the likes of Mae West, Sarah Bernhardt, Helen Hayes, Isadora Duncan, Clark Gable, Laurence Olivier, Boris Karloff, and others.
• • The building is located here: 415 Geary Street [at Mason Street], San Francisco, CA 94108.
• • And speaking of live entertainment and tiered seating, on Thursday evening, 20 August 2009, you can enjoy a FREE showing of "She Done Him Wrong" [1933], a motion picture classic starring Mae West and Cary Grant.
• • WHERE: Minneapolis Institute of Arts — — Pillsbury Auditorium [2400 3rd Avenue S, Minneapolis, MN; T. 612-870-3131].
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: In Minneapolis

A dazzling necklace owned by MAE WEST is bewitching museum-goers who drool over cool jewels. If you're planning on visiting Minneapolis, spend a few air-conditioned hours at an eye-catching exhibition "Unspoken Messages: The Art of the Necklace" on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts [M.I.A., 2400 3rd Ave S., Minneapolis, MN 55404].
• • M.I.A. plans to celebrate Mae West's personal adornment in her classic motion picture "She Done Him Wrong" [1933], which will be shown around the time of the screen queen's mid-August birthday.
• • Next month on the third Thursday, join the very nice folks at M.I.A. for an event called "Bejeweled" — — Thursday 20 August 2009 from 6:00PM — 9:00PM — — when a local jeweler will discuss her funky creations and Mae will be making a booty call deep in the heart of the Bowery, and advising a young Cary Grant that he "can be had."
• • Some adults are being invited for free. Details on all this can be had: toll free (888) MIA ARTS; in Minnesota, dial 612-870-3131.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Minnesota

Handsome men in Minnesota are still calling your name, MAE WEST.
• • Veteran lit-critic Dave Wood is feeling a might cranky, though. And he hasn't even noticed the totally hideous Photo-shopped book jacket with the goony mackerel lips. [Or has he?]
• • Dave Wood writes: Do we really need another biography of Mae West? Apparently Simon and Schuster thought so, because they’re just out with “She Always Knew How: Mae West, a Personal Biography” by Charlotte Chandler [March 2009].
• • I’d call it “A Personal Hagiography” because Chandler finds Mae West to be absolutely flawless, loyal, loving, generous to a fault. Even more irritating, Chandler is one of those biographers with a memory that’s flawless.
• • She quotes the actress endlessly, long, long quotes that are perfectly constructed and obviously never came out of Chandler’s tape recorder.
• • Can’t these pop biographers figure out some other way to enliven their dull subjects in some way other than highlighting interviews with quotations that probably weren’t ever uttered?
• • I’ve ranted long enough. But if you want to know more of what I think about biographies of long dead film stars, come up and see me some time.
• • Dave Wood is a past vice president of the National Book Critics Circle and former book review editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Phone him at (715) 426-9554.
— — Source: — —
• • Column: "Dave Wood's Book Report, June 10, 2009"
• • Byline: Dave Wood | Critic
• • Published in: The Red Wing Republican Eagle [in Red Wing, Minnesota 55066] — — www.republican-eagle.com
• • Published on: 10 June 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: In Minneapolis

Edward Steichen's gelatin silver print of MAE WEST, taken in 1933, will be on display in an upcoming museum exhibition.
• • “Unspoken Messages: The Art of the Necklace” is on view at the MIA from June 6 through September 13, 2009. Admission will be free.
• • Mae's portrait will be in good company. The prints featured in this show will also include a sixteenth-century engraving from the Netherlands of Elizabeth, Queen of England by Crispin de Passe the Elder; an oil from 15th-century Italy by Benedetto Ghirlandaio Portrait of a Lady; and many others.
• • Born in Luxembourg, Edward Steichen [27 March 1879 — 25 March 1973] was a photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. In 1881, his family moved to the United States and he became a naturalized citizen in 1900.
• • The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA), home to one of the finest encyclopedic art collections in the country, houses more than 80,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history. MIA is located here: 2400 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55404.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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