Showing posts with label Ohio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ohio. Show all posts

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Mae West: Strongsville, Strong Men

MAE WEST will be in Ohio today, portrayed by Julie Wang Warren, who is part of a touring performance group called Women in History. The actresses go to a variety of venues to present a number of American females — — from Josephine Baker and Madame C.J. Walker to first ladies, do-gooders, risk-takers, etc. — — to a live audience.
• • On other occasions Julie (who specializes in women from the 1930s) will portray singer Ruth Etting or aviatrix Amelia Earhart.
• • WHEN: 7:30 pm Saturday, 12 May 2012
• • WHERE: Olympia 55+ Community, 12887 Olympus Way, Strongsville, Ohio
• • Tell them you heard about it on the Mae West Blog.
• • Photo: Julie Warren
• • William Landon Jones [12 May 1906 — 4 January 1982] • • 
• • William Landon Jones enjoyed a close friendship with Mae West for 50 years.
• • Born in Memphis, Tennessee on 12 May 1906, he was known in boxing by the moniker "Gorilla" Jones.
• • The 22-year-old Jones met Mae West in a New York night club during 1928. He had enjoyed a long career in the ring and was about to come into the big time in 1929, when he would earn a $100,000 purse — — about $1.2 million in today's money — — for winning a bout in Madison Square Garden.
• • The five-foot-nine fighter was inducted posthumously into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y. After Mae's death, it's said he lost the will to live. He died on 4 January 1982. He was 75.
• • On Wednesday, 12 May 1943 in Santa Monica • •
• • Dear Don:
• • I am just getting settled.  It is sunset of my third day here which seems like the third month at least. I have taken a little 2-room apartment in Santa Monica, nothing at all grand, in fact a very honky-tonk air about it with stained wallpaper and a plaster model of Mae West on the dresser and very gaudy curtains.  ...
• • Source: Tennessee Williams's letter to Donald Windham, dated 12 May 1943.
• • On Wednesday, 12 May 1971 • •
• • On Wednesday, 12 May 1971 Mae West, UCLA’s Woman of the Century, spoke to students after a screening of her 1933 classic movie “I’m No Angel.”
• • On Tuesday, 12 May 1998 • •
• • The record album "Mae Day: Masquers Club Salutes Mae West" was released on Tuesday, 12 May 1998 on the label Bacchus. The original recording date was on 14 April 1973.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "Tired of all those jokes about my figure and my 'man' talk? No. If people expect me to be the same off-stage — — why I call that flattery."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article on the boxer Albert “Chalky” Wright mentioned Mae West.
• • Kathy Klump wrote: Chalky became the chauffeur and bodyguard for the famous actress Mae West.  He helped her deal with a series of extortion threats while in her employ.  As a boxing fan and using the wealth from her Hollywood career, she backed Wright’s career.  A magazine called Hollywood Confidential alleged in one of its stories that West and Wright had an intimate relationship.  West’s ex-husband, Frank Wallace, also named Chalky Wright among those having an affair with West in his divorce filing.  West and Wright filed suit against the magazine for libel.  Just before Wright was to testify at the hearing, he was found dead face down in the bathtub at his mother’s home.  Mae West alleged his death was not accidental.  Nothing was ever proven, and it was stated he died in Los Angeles on August 12, 1957 after slipping in his bathtub. ...
• • Source: Article: "National Hall of Fame Boxer was Willcox native" written by Kathy Klump for Willcox Range News; posted on 9 May 2012
By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2298th 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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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Mae West: Rare On the Air

Your Christmas stocking will be hung with care [well hung] if there's a copy of MAE WEST On the Air tucked inside. These rare recordings from 1934 — 1960 are available now on a CD. Don your gay apparel and get ready to enjoy these five appealing tracks:
• • • • "My Old Flame"
• • • • The Chesterfield Supper Club with Perry Como — January, 1949
• • • • The Chesterfield Supper Club with Perry Como — 16 February 1950
• • • • The Dean Martin Show — NBC-TV — 1959
• • • • The Red Skelton Show — CBS-TV — 1 March 1960
• • Invited to sing a duet with ol' Rat Pack Dino on a "Dean Martin Special," Mae West performed "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" with her host in "point style" (that is, making asides to the lyrics).
• • Dean Martin was born on 7 June 1917 Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, to Italian parents. He died during the month of December — — on Christmas Day 1995.
• • Tell Santa you deserve to have Mae's rare CD because you've been good — — but, of course, goodness had nothing to do with it.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Monday, December 13, 2010

Mae West: Raymond Hubbell

MAE WEST was cast in "A Winsome Widow," a musical comedy farce that was produced on Broadway from 11 April 1912 — 7 September 1912. The music was by Raymond Hubbell.
• • Born in Urbana, Ohio on 1 June 1879, Raymond Hubbell attended local schools but earned serious musical training in Chicago. Like most young men at the time, he formed a dance band in Chicago. Ready for serious employment, he accepted a position as a staff arranger and pianist with the influential firm Charles K. Harris Publishers.
• • By 1902, the 23-year-old began composing for theatrical musicals in The Windy City. And, fortunately, his very first show then transferred to New York City.
• • By 1905, he was regularly being pulled in to Broadway projects. In a short time, Raymond Hubbell was composing light fare for productions starring Nora Bayes. By 1911 he was assigned to the Ziegfeld Follies, which kept him on for later editions.
• • In 1912 he was hired to do the score for "A Winsome Widow." Following up these successes, he would write for Bessie McCoy, Will Rogers, Julian Eltinge, Irene Dunne, Leon Errol, and others.
• • After he worked on "Three Cheers" in 1928, he returned to Miami, Florida. Raymond Hubbell died there in the month of December — — on 13 December 1954.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Sunday, June 20, 2010

Mae West: Artists and Models

Laid off from an iron foundry in 1932, Harry George "Ben" Hartman started thinking about how nice it would be to have MAE WEST in his garden at 1905 Russell Avenue in Springfield, Ohio. Disinclined to be idle, the self-taught artisan bought his first bag of cement for fifty cents and browsed in the library for pictures of Mae in the newspaper.
• • By the time he had sculpted and painted his delicately scaled tribute to the screen goddess, Hartman was also busily adding complex elements like The White House (and other famous landmarks in miniature), religious scenes, and 1930s pop culture figures — — such as boxer Joe Louis and the Dionne Quintuplets — — all made from cement embedded with small stones. By 1939, when he finally rejoined the work force, Ben had created a full tableau he named "Hartman's Historical Garden," as promoted on an antique postcard. Though Hartman died in 1944, this one-of-a-kind garden has been maintained by his widow and then youngest son, until he, too, passed away in 2007. Recently, a foundation has raised funds to catalogue and restore the figurines so that visitors can enjoy this amazing site once again.
• • Even today Mae West continues to inspire artists. An article in The Times of India, discussing a renewed passion for collecting decorative objects, quoted artist Baba Anand, who held a local exhibition recently [April
May 2010] inspired by Dali and Mae West. Anand's garishly colored Tarot card "The World" prominently featured Anand's own spin on Dali's Mae West face and lips.
• • Mae West's Saliva Sofa • •
• • Tomorrow (or the day after) we just might share the latest dish on Dali's close buddy, Oscar Tusquets Blanca, the man who helped to design the plump red “saliva sofa” in the shape of Mae West’s lips that is one of Dali’s best-known and most provocative works of art. Tusquets has been dragged into an ugly censorship tussle that Mae would certainly sympathize with. Should we even get into this? Well, tune in to find out.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Monday, December 07, 2009

Mae West: Cincinnati

MAE WEST, Rosemary Clooney, and Sammy Davis, Jr. were onstage 6 December 2009, thanks to a trio of talented impressionists dedicated to the goal of raising funds for tots.
• • The 20th Century Theatre in Oakley hosted this Benefit, announcing that "celebrity impersonators of all America's greatest legends will perform." All proceeds were intended for their local Children's Hospital.
• • Designed by Fred W. Stritzel in the Neoclassical Moderne or Art Moderne style, the 20th Century Theater opened in 1941 on Madison Road in Cincinnati, Ohio. That's a fine setting for Mae West and the audience was well pleased with the stagebill assembled for this charitable cause.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Friday, October 30, 2009

Mae West: John Kenley

The showman who asked MAE WEST to come up and see him in The Buckeye State has died.
• • According to Associated Press, John Kenley began acting in New York City in the 1920s — — and once served as an aide to famed producer Lee Shubert. He became a summer theater producer in 1940 in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania, and worked in other eastern cities, including Washington D.C. Kenley produced hundreds of plays and musicals. His Kenley Players, a summer stock circuit that began in Dayton, Ohio, in 1957, featured such stars as Mae West, Arthur Godfrey, Ethel Merman, Burt Reynolds, Billy Crystal, Gypsy Rose Lee, Tommy Tune, William Shatner, and Robert Goulet.
• • According to The New York Times, Mr. Kenley was born John Kremchek in Denver on 20 February 1906. His parents were saloon keepers who later moved the family to Cleveland. In the 1920s he made his way to New York, hoping to break into show business. He performed with Martha Graham as a dancer-acrobat in John Murray Anderson’s Greenwich Village Follies. It was Mr. Anderson who suggested he change his name to Kenley.
• • The New York Times obituary offered this background detail: In 1928 Mr. Kenley began reading plays for the Shuberts. In 1930 he became assistant to one of the Shubert brothers, Levi, who was known as Lee — “Mr. Shubert’s left-hand man,” as Mr. Kenley put it in an interview with Martha Schmoyer LoMonaco for her history “Summer Stock! An American Theatrical Phenomenon” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). ...
• • John Kenley opened Ohio-based theaters in Warren, Columbus and Akron before moving into the Playhouse Square Center in downtown Cleveland in 1984.
• • The vibrant Midwestern impresario was celebrated for his producing clout, casting coups, and a passion for live entertainment that brought pleasure and glamor to hundreds of thousands of hard-working coal miners and Ohio residents.
• • On 23 October 2009 John Kenley died at the Cleveland Clinic from complications of pneumonia. He was 103.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Mae West: Jim Traficant

Now being sold, the paintings of an expelled congressman are all earmarked with his tribute to MAE WEST.
• • As shown on his Betty Boop canvas, the capital "M" in the moon on each of Jim Traficant's work is a striking tribute to the Brooklyn blonde.
• • Everybody in the whole cell block/ Was dancin' to the jailhouse rock ... • •
• • The convicted felon, freed after a 7-year stint in prison, also admires (and has sketched) Elvis. In Ohio, his welcome home booze-and-shmooze fest featured Elvis Presley impersonators. What an opportunity for a deejay to play "Jailhouse Rock"!
• • Born in Youngstown, Ohio on 8 May 1941, James Traficant, Jr. became an amateur artist as a way to pass time during his incarceration. The disgraced politician was once a Democratic Representative in the United States Congress from Ohio during 1985 to 2002. In 2002, however, Traficant was convicted on 10 felony charges — — bribery, racketeering, tax evasion, forcing his aides to perform chores at his Ohio farm and on his houseboat, and obstruction of justice — — lawlessness brought about by his demanding kickbacks from his staff and "forgetting" about paying taxes, among other criminal arrogance. Ousted from the House in a vote of 420 to one, Traficant was sent to the Big House, his devil tail between his legs.
• • A number of inmates have been moved to charitable acts. Mae West, for instance, funded a library for female prisoners confined to the Women's Workhouse in 1927.
• • Jim Traficant promised to auction off a few paintings to benefit retirees from his district whose company went bankrupt earlier this year. Thus proceeds from the paintings will benefit the Delphi Salaried Retiree Association, a group of autoworkers who are afraid of losing their pensions after the company turned the pensions over to the government's pension insurer. (The group filed suit against the insurer.)
• • Throughout his prison term, the enterprising lawbreaker sold his drawings online as well as through sympathetic Ohio galleries.
• • Released from jail on 2 September 2009, Traficant posted his Betty Boop caricature and others on EBAY. The auction ends Saturday.

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Mae West: Remembrance

MAE WEST loved music but her choices had little to do with with Mozart, Grieg, Chopin, or salon society. The blues compositions that got Mae moving had more in common with the wooden tables of smoky saloons. Many music-makers have grooved to the Empress of Sex. Hollywood resident Ramfis Diaz — — a handsome 47-year-old musician possessed of charm and deftly adorned by a-Mae-zing tattoos inspired by the Brooklyn bombshell — — is in that group.
• • Having read an article about the screen queen's long-standing relationship with the professional fighter William "Gorilla" Jones, Ramfis Diaz decided to give the journalist a ring — — and here is the aftermath.
• • Mark J. Price, Beacon Journal staff writer, did a follow-up feature, titled "Gorilla Jones story a virtual knockout: Mae West fan pleased to learn about Akron boxer's role in life of actress."
• • Mark J. Price writes: Hollywood musician Ram Diaz, 47, called to say he loved our story about Akron boxer William ''Gorilla'' Jones (1906
1982), a former middleweight champion who was posthumously inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame this month.
• • Ramfis Diaz is a big fan of screen legend Mae West (1893
1980), who employed Jones as a bodyguard and chauffeur after he retired from the ring. Jones and West were close companions for 40 years and might have been romantically involved.
• • ''I didn't know much about Gorilla Jones because she was so secretive about her men,'' Diaz said. ''Mae West didn't kiss and tell. She might have given you a clue here and there.''
• • He believes such a clue can be found in West's 1932 movie "Night After Night," in which George Raft plays an ex-boxer. It was the same year that Jones won the middleweight title.
• • In one scene, Mae West remarks: ''Hey, Gorilla. Come here.''
• • ''She was given full right to rewrite her scenes in that movie,'' he said. ''So I know for a fact that she put that name in there.''
• • A lifelong collector of memorabilia, Diaz has been enamored with West since he saw My Little Chickadee on TV as a boy in the 1960s. He lives in a building near the late star's Ravenswood apartment complex.
• • ''I can actually see her bedroom window from my bedroom window,'' he said.
• • Since 1988 [when he was 26 years old], Ramfis Diaz has thrown a Hollywood birthday party in Mae West's honor every August 17 on the roof of Gramercy Tower in Hancock Park and in his top-floor apartment. The potluck dinner, which is open to the public, includes some of West's inner circle of friends, including Kevin Thomas, Tim Malachosky, and Chris Basinger.
• • Not all guests are acquainted with Mae West's work, though.
• • ''There's a lot of people that really don't know much about her, but they get educated when they arrive,'' Diaz said.
• • He praised the Beacon Journal article for teaching him something new.
• • ''That's the fascinating thing with Miss West,'' he said. ''There's always something new.''
• • Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send e-mail to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
— — Source: — —
• • Column: "This Place, This Time: Going West"
• • Gorilla Jones story a virtual knockout: Mae West fan pleased to learn about Akron boxer's role in life of actress
• • Byline: Mark J. Price | Beacon Journal copy editor
• • Published in: The Akron Beacon Journal — — http://ohio.com
• • Published on: Monday, 29 June 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • In her hometown, New Yorkers also celebrate Mae West's birthday. One event open to the public is the Annual Mae West Walking Tour, which will be held on Sunday 16 August 2009. This year the walking tour begins at Shubert Alley and proceeds uptown to Mae's WESTside apartment. To get more details, read this blog and/ or post your email. [Your info will not be posted nor available so that miscreants and rascals can access it.]

• • The tour takes a path up and down blocks associated with Mae West's career. For instance, the speak run by the George Raft character in "Night After Night" [1932] was based on Club Napoleon, a speakeasy on the grand scale, once located at 33 West 56th Street on a fancy block of Beaux Arts mansions. Years before it became an illegal ginmill, 33 West 56th had been the childhood home of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Mae West: Gorilla Jones

William Landon Jones enjoyed a close friendship with MAE WEST for 50 years.
• • Born in Memphis, Tennessee on 12 May 1906, he was known in boxing by the moniker "Gorilla" Jones. This weekend, the five-foot-nine fighter will be inducted posthumously into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y. He died at age 75 on 4 January 1982. After Mae's death, it's said he lost the will to live.
• • The 22-year-old Jones met Mae West in a New York night club during 1928. He had enjoyed a long career in the ring and was about to come into the big time in 1929, when he would earn a $100,000 purse — — about $1.2 million in today's money
— — for winning a bout in Madison Square Garden.
• • Often photographed in a ringsize seat, the daughter of "Battling Jack" also befriended other black pugilists such as Chalky Wright and Joe Louis.
• • In a colorful feature for the Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio, reporter Mark J. Price covers the career of Gorilla Jones as well as his private life with Mae West. Many pleasures await you.
• • Mark J. Price writes: Outside the boxing ring, Gorilla Jones was an unforgettable personality. He wore impeccable suits, flashed diamond rings, drove a Lincoln coupe, consorted with a Hollywood vixen — — Mae West — — and walked a lion cub on a leash.
• • Inside the ring, stripped of all excess, he was equally memorable
— — except perhaps to the dozens of fighters he knocked out. They were excused for not recalling a thing after Jones' right glove cratered their faces.
• • One of the greatest boxers in Akron's history, Jones won the world middleweight title twice in the 1930s. He will be inducted posthumously this weekend into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y.
• • Jones fought in 138 professional bouts, winning 101, losing 24 and drawing 13. He KO'd 52 opponents, but never suffered a knockout or serious injury.
• • ''I have been blessed with a mind that works rapidly in the ring and hands that work as rapidly as my mind tells them,'' Jones told the Beacon Journal early in his career. ''I think I can figure fight moves a bit faster than can the fellows I am fighting, and once figured out, my hands move as they should to carry me to victory.''
• • Why did they call him "Gorilla"? • •
• • The nickname ''Gorilla,'' politically incorrect in today's world, was attributed to Jones' long reach — 75 inches — in the ring. In 1932, Beacon Journal sports scribe Jim Schlemmer said the Gorilla moniker didn't fit ''in looks or actions,'' and called Jones ''as classy a piece of fighting machinery as the game has known.''
• • ''He is an unusual type of fighter,'' Schlemmer wrote. ''He doesn't like to hurt anybody. He wishes every fellow he fights could be as good or nearly as good as himself.''
• • William Landon Jones was born in 1906 in Memphis, Tenn. He confessed to doing a lot of things wrong in his youth, such as giving up on education after grammar school. He worked for a bootlegger, ran with a tough crowd and learned to fight.
• • The ring was his way out. At age 18, Jones started boxing for $7.50 a bout. He stood 5 feet 9 inches and tipped the scales at 145 pounds.
• • Jones' first fight outside Memphis was at the Akron Armory in 1927. He beat welterweight K.O. Kelly and won $100. Unfortunately, Jones tried to add to his earnings in a late-night dice game and lost everything.
• • He begged Akron boxing promoter Suey Welch for another fight so he could buy a train ticket to Memphis.
• • Jones won the rematch, but stayed in Akron after the promoter offered to be his manager and train him at the Welch Athletic Club at 219 S. Main St.
• • Welch called Jones ''the greatest fighter in the world, pound for pound.'' The two made a fortune together.
• • Jones pummeled his way through a long line of foes: Sailor Maxwell, Mickey Fedor, Tommy Freeman, Bucky Lawless, Al Mello, Izzy Grove, Jackie Horner, Nick Testo, Meyer Grace, Jock Malone. The purses grew larger, and soon he was fighting as a middleweight at Madison Square Garden in New York.
• • In 1929, Jones earned $100,000 — about $1.2 million in today's money — and went on a spending spree. He bought his parents a Ford sedan and $10,000 home in Memphis, then rewarded himself with a $5,400 Lincoln. He bought three suits after each bout, giving away older outfits to pals. He added a diamond-collared lion to his act, walking the cub on a leash to matches and personal appearances.
• • ''In 1929 when I was in the so-called 'big' money, I spent too much,'' he later recalled. ''I liked fast horses, fast autos, fast airplanes. I had too many friends who helped me spend.''
• • Jones hit the big time in January 1932 with a sixth-round knockout of Italian boxer Oddone Piazza in Milwaukee for the National Boxing Association middleweight crown. A cheering crowd greeted him at Union Depot as he returned to Akron.
• • Five months later, he lost the title to Marcel Thil before 70,000 spectators in Paris, but regained it in 1933 by knocking out Sammy Slaughter at Cleveland Public Hall. He declined to defend the title after that.
• • Jones boxed for seven more years, but his right punch lost its sting. His final fight at the Akron Armory was a 1938 loss to Babe Risko. Jones retired in 1940 after losing a bout in Idaho. ''Gorilla Jones will never stay in the fight game until he's ready to cut paper dolls,'' Jones vowed.
• • Mae West met Gorilla Jones in a nightspot in 1928 • •
• • In many respects, the next chapter of his life was flashier than boxing. He went to work as Hollywood legend Mae West's chauffeur and bodyguard.
• • He first met the wise-cracking actress at a New York nightclub in 1928. Mae West's father had been a prizefighter, and she enjoyed bankrolling boxers.
• • ''The boxers had a hard time, even some of them who were pretty good,'' West told biographer Charlotte Chandler in 1979. ''There was one I backed named Gorilla Jones. I don't know why he was called 'Gorilla.' He wasn't that kind of fighter. I saw he was getting pounded too much, and he really didn't like fighting anymore, but he didn't know what else to do.''
• • She asked him if he could drive a car. Sure, he could. Even with a lion cub in the back seat.
• • ''So I hired him as my chauffeur,'' West said. ''He turned out to be a very good driver — — and he was also protection.''
• • Mae West also employed Jones' mother, Daisy, as a wardrobe assistant when the actress traveled. She bought homes for the boxer and his mother in Los Angeles, and served as Jones' financial manager and personal manager.
• • Biographers agree that the relationship wasn't all business. West and Jones remained close companions for 40 years. In public, he referred to her as ''The Lady,'' never by her name.
• • One time, a heckler made a bawdy remark to the actress, and the boxer threatened to rearrange the man's face.
• • ''Let 'em talk,'' Mae West told him. ''It's good for business.''
• • According to Hollywood lore, West got aggravated when house managers tried to block Jones from visiting her sixth-floor suite in the Ravenswood apartment complex. She bought the building and hired new staff.
• • ''A motion picture company offered me a quarter-million to film my story, but they wanted to make me say I was her lover,'' Jones told Jet magazine in 1974. ''That would be a lie because she was my manager and my friend. All the money in the world would be no good without a friend who has done everything to keep me on top and let me live the life I wanted to live.''
• • When Jones began to suffer from diabetes and lose his eyesight, West kept him on the payroll and handled his bills.
• • Jones was devastated in 1980 when West died in Ravenswood at age 87. She left him two apartment buildings and three houses.
• • Acquaintances said Jones gave up the will to live after ''The Lady'' passed away.
• • As his health deteriorated, his weight plunged to 102 pounds. In 1982, William ''Gorilla'' Jones died of arteriosclerosis at age 75.
• • The final bell sounded for an Akron boxing legend.
• • Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send e-mail to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
— — Source: — —
• • Article: Akron's king of rings: Boxer Gorilla Jones conquers the world and lives the high life
• • Byline: Mark J. Price | Beacon Journal staff writer
• • Published in: Ohio.com
• • Published on: 8 June 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Mae West: Fans with Pens

MAE WEST makes an appearance in a new release by a film-buff.
• • Star-struck by age four, Jan Wahl has penned "an autobiography of sorts" titled, Through a Lens Darkly, which chronicles his life in the film industry, detailing his experiences rubbing elbows with Hollywood notables such as Mae West, Rita Hayworth, Robert Mitchum, among others.
• • This Sunday, Jan Wahl will appear at Way Public Library [101 East Indiana Avenue, Perrysburg, Ohio 43551] at 2 o'clock to promote this title, according to the author who now makes his home in Toledo, Ohio.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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