Mae West: Favorites

Which is your favorite book about MAE WEST?
• • There has been a University of Chicago doctoral dissertation by Pamela Robertson that Duke University Press published in book form under the title "Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna."
• • Another doctoral dissertation, by Princeton University grad student Marybeth Hamilton titled "When I'm Bad, I'm Better: Mae West, Sex, and American Entertainment" was reissued as a paperback by HarperCollins.
• • Too Much of a Good Thing . . . • •
• • In her book (printed by University of Minnesota Press) about the movie queen, "Too Much of a Good Thing: Mae West as Cultural Icon," Ramona Curry predicted that Mae West's popularity will not fade. She wrote: "As expansive and adaptable and profitable as the image has proven over most of the 20th Century, it is likely that Mae West will continue to circulate as an emblem of what is both forbidden and accessible."
• • Tell us your favorite title(s).
• • Tres Chic: A charming Mae Tray • •
• • This decoupage Mae tray is handcrafted by Suffolk County, New York artist, Ben Busko, who creates glass trays out of vintage maps and with endearing quotes.
• • After coloring and producing cheerful cards (designed around a motto or saying) since he was a child of eight in Setauket, Long Island, Ben Busko has branched out. The 27-year-old North Shore Long Islander currently owns Ben's Garden stores in Oyster Bay and Huntington Village, shops that sell his greeting cards and other household decor — — handmade découpage artworks he and his team create by hand.
• • Image: Ben Busko's Mae West Tray — — "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."
• • In November, Let's Remember Tommy Gray [1888 — 1924] • •
• • The "Bard of Broadway" was born in New York City, Mae's hometown in the month of March — — on 22 March 1888.
• • Talented and prolific, Thomas J. Gray was a lyricist and an author who had attended Holy Cross School and was a charter member of ASCAP (1914). He served overseas during World War I, and later wrote scripts for silent movies, songs for Broadway and London revues, plus special material for Mae West, Bert Williams, Blossom Seeley, Frank Tinney, Savoy & Brennan, Trixie Friganza, and many others. His column "Gray Matters" ran in Variety and his byline appeared in the New York Dramatic Mirror as well. His chief musical collaborators included Fred Fisher and Ray Walker.
• • Booked at Hammerstein's Victoria in September 1912, Mae performed jokes and songs that she commissioned from Tommy: "Isn't She a Brazen Thing?", "It's an Awful Easy Way to Make a Living," "The International Rag Song," and "Good Night, Nurse."
• • In 1913, Variety raved: "Thanks to Tommy Gray and her own comedic ability, Miss West looks set as a big-time feature."
• • Bronchitis cut short his brilliant career. Tommy died in November — — on 30 November 1924. He was 36 years old.
• • Though Mae often did not pay his bills until a judge intervened, and she was taken to court more than once by Tommy, she attended his funeral at St. Malachy's in midtown, a standing-room-only affair.
• • 30 November 1948 in The N.Y. Times • •
• • Mae West revived "Diamond Lil" for a Montclair, New Jersey audience. Brooks Atkinson responded to her performance in The New York Times on 30 November 1948: "A fine, full-bosomed woman with lots of glitter and gaudiness, Mae is an original unclassified phenomenon . . . ."
• • 30 November 1969 • •
• • Mae West was featured in The N.Y. Times Magazine on 30 November 1969.
• • 30 November 1980 • •
• • An affectionate remembrance by Richard Meryman, "The One and Only Mae West," was printed in The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner on 30 November 1980.
• • November 1994 in The Collector • •
• • An article "Sex Legend's Apartment Sale" appeared in the November 1994 issue of a magazine, The Collector.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."
• • Oscar Wilde said: "Nothing succeeds like excess." Oscar Wilde [16 October 1854 — 30 November 1900] was an Irish writer and poet. Wilde died of cerebral meningitis at the end of the eleventh month — — on 30 November 1900. Like Mae, he appeared on the cover of "Sgt. Pepper." And like the controversial Brooklynite, Mr. Wilde was hounded and dragged through courtroom trial. In Paris, the Oscar Wilde tomb at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris has traditionally been covered in lip prints left by his adoring fans. A new glass barrier has been erected, however, preventing guests from kissing the tomb and "causing damage."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Would Mae West have been susceptible to the charms of the romantic menace from Venice, Giacomo Casanova [2 April 1725 — 4 June 1798]?
• • Book reviewer Elizabeth Benedict thinks so. Ms. Benedict wrote this: Had the great matchmaker in the sky arranged for Giacomo Casanova and Mae West to meet, they surely would have been notches on each other's holsters, reveling in West's motto: "Too much of a good thing is wonderful.'' In this fecund season of Casanova — — a dazzling new biography, "Casanova: The Man Who Really Loved Women,'' and the paperback of his 12-volume autobiography have just appeared — — we learn that it was not only seduction and dalliance that filled his calendar. By the time this Venetian-born Proteus died, in a castle in Bohemia in 1798, he had had a dozen careers . . . .
• • Source: Book Review: "A Real Casanova: The Man Who Gave His Name to Love Was Far, Far More than a Dashing Roue" written by Elizabeth Benedict for The Boston Globe; published on Sunday, 30 November 1997
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2131st 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: Curry Flavor

It seems that nothing is lost in translation when it comes to MAE WEST.
• • Warming up his Indian readership for an essay on the American humorist Samuel Clemens, a New Delhi-based scribe first named nine notables who were able to marry wit and wisdom.
• • Writing for the Business Standard [on 22 May 2010], Rrishi Raote leads off with this opening paragraph: An enviable immortality is available to those few who can fuse wit and wisdom to greatest effect. Look through your inbox for collections of ‘funny’ and ‘thought-provoking’ quotes your friends have forwarded you, and very likely you will see these names: Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Benjamin Disraeli, Socrates, Eleanor Roosevelt, Billy Crystal, Mae West (“I didn’t discover curves; I only uncovered them”) — — and Mark Twain. ...
• • Notice, please, that only Mae West also gets a full quote shoehorned into that foot-long sentence. It's tempting to say that Indian writers are prone to CURRY favor — — but let's not and say we did.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: West Ninth

Announcing a new eatery on West Ninth Street, Page Six referred to MAE WEST.
• • Former Ninth Street resident and gossip guru Richard Johnson wrote this as his appetizer.
• • Johnson mentioned that: "WEST Ninth Street will soon have a new restaurant. Larry Poston, of the Waverly Inn and Pastis, has teamed up with Johnny Swet, of Balthazar and Freeman's, to take over the space that was once Marylou's, and the Penguin before that. They plan to go back to the building's original 1870 name, Hotel Griffou, an inn run by French-born Marie Griffou who served Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe [!!!], and the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. When Mae West was forced to appear at the nearby Jefferson Market Courthouse to answer obscenity charges, her first stop after the trial was the bar at the Hotel Griffou. The reincarnation will open in late June [New York Post — — 8 May 2009]."
• • If there was a bar at the Hotel Griffou in 1927, when Mae West was first arrested, it certainly was kept hush-hush — — during the Prohibition Era. Certainly by 1909, the "Griffou" was gone; the name had been changed to Hotel Europa by the new owner.
• • Madame Marie Griffou • •
• • The late Madame Griffou was a powerhouse who first established her special brand of Spanish and French hospitality on the corner of West Eighth Street and MacDougal Street, when this short comely stretch was still known as St. Clement's Place. Since the space was too small for Marie Griffou, she soon sublet it to an Italian widow, Madama Gonfarone, whose establishment took off once she teamed up with Ancleto Sermolino.
• • In the 1860s, Marie Griffou sailed to the USA with a Cuban Negro named Xavier Hernandez (and other people born into slavery whom she had purchased). These slaves became the backbone of Hotel Griffou, when Madame opened for business in 1874. Hotel Griffou stretched out between 19 — 23 West Ninth Street. At the basement level, its old-fashioned Rathskeller attracted men of letters and Oscar Wilde was a patron there in 1882 during his American tour. William Dean Howells dined there and it was respectable enough for the daughters of U.S. Presidents as well.
• • How many believe that Marie Griffou served Edgar Allan Poe [19 January 1809 — 7 October 1849] — — when the poet died several years before the Frenchwoman sailed to America?
• • How many believe that Marie Griffou served Mark Twain [1835 — 1910]? Naaaah!
• • The author of the book "Forgotten New York" apologized for his own error on page 157. In reference to Hotel Griffou, he noted, "It is doubtful Mark Twain could have been a regular at the hotel; in the 1880s he was living in Hartford, traveling in Europe, and spending his summers at Nook Farm in Elmira."
• • West 9th resident Thomas A. Janvier, fascinated by the odd Latin Americans who stayed there, featured the stopping place a few times. In one of his works, the restaurant was called "The White Pup." More notably, it was renamed "Casa Napoleon." Recrossing Washington Square and moving up Fifth Avenue, we find at 19 and 21 West Ninth Street the little Franco-Spanish South-American Hotel, which was the original of the Casa Napoleon, the modest and inviting hostelry where lived so many of Mr. Thomas Janvier's men and women . . . .
• • Thomas Janvier, who frequently bent an elbow here, dwelt at length (in his fiction) on the establishment's "attractive look," and the balcony that ran along the line of the second-story windows, in which flowers were growing in great green wooden tubs. The Louis Napoleon of Mr. Janvier's stories is Louis Napoleon Griffou. The Dunbars, Breams, Witherbys, and the rest have taken their departure, but in their place there has sprung up another coterie of newspaper men, flippantly and facetiously known as "the Griffou push."
• • Especially amused by the "Griffou Push" was William Dean Howells. The Casa Napoleon appeared briefly in his "The World of Chance." During the early 1900s, fans of his recognized Hotel Griffou thinly disguised as a little restaurant Howells sent his character Ray to during the young writer's first weeks in New York. And it was here also that the Marches of "A Hazard of New Fortunes" came to dine during the long weeks spent in futile flat-hunting. (The Howells very briefly lived at The Portsmouth on West 9th Street.)
• • There are many more fascinating stories linked to 21 West 9th that can be documented. Maybe some real-life narratives will be served up shortly as the restaurateurs try to unveil the newcomer.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Ken and Then

Ken Hughes once worked with MAE WEST.
• • Then 56 years old when he was at the helm of "Sextette" in 1978, based on Mae West's play ["Sextet"], the British director died in the month of April and is being remembered. Not unlike reading the work of a very clever Marxist, the script's logic is impeccable, even when the premise — — that an actress in her 80s can portray a 26-year-old sexpot — — is wrong.
• • "Sextette" was the middle-aged director's first American film — — as well as Mae West's final screen appearance.
• • Vincent Canby, then the film critic of The New York Times, pursed his lips and gave the project a sound spanking. Canby wrote: The story, based on a play written some years ago by Miss West, is about a world-famous movie star and her attempts to consummate her sixth marriage to Sir Michael Barrington (Timothy Dalton) despite repeated interruptions by former husbands, lovers, dress designers, secret agents, publicity people and delegates attending an international peace conference just upstairs. It's a plot that Miss West has often favored, and it freely reprises a lot of lines from earlier pictures. The movie was directed by Ken Hughes ("The Small World of Sammy Lee," "Cromwell," and so on), a fellow you might think had better things to do than to prop up the Tower of Pisa. In addition to Mr. Dalton, "Sextette" features a number of other people who, in happier circumstances, are decent actors. These include Tony Curtis, George Hamilton, Ringo Starr, and the incomparable Dom DeLuise. There are some original songs and some old ones, a couple of which sound as if they'd been lip-synched by Miss West to old recordings . . . [N.Y. Times 8 June 1979].
• • On 19 January 1922, Kenneth Graham Hughes was born in Liverpool, England.
• • The Hollywood director developed Alzheimer's disease and died on 28 April 2001 in Los Angeles. Several of his obituaries reminded the public that "Sextette" was a camp disaster and, furthermore, that the writer/ director had had a prolific but "remarkably inconsistent career" with only one hands-down triumph: "The Trials of Oscar Wilde." Hard to believe the same person directed the family musical and moneymaker "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," the James Bond loser "Casino Royale," and "Sextette."
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: A New Book

MAE WEST shows up on the best sheets. In this case, the freshly printed sheets lie between the covers of a new book: Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists by James Geary [Bloomsbury, 437 pages].
• • Discussing this new release in the Washington Post, journalism Michael Dirda praised this new compendium of wise words in "short, sharp shocks."
• • According to Michael Dirda, The aphorism is the prose equivalent of a memorable line of poetry, a bit of worldly wisdom or self-understanding reduced to a short, sharp shock: "It is a rule of God's Providence that we should succeed by failure" (John Henry Newman). In The World in a Phrase, his 2005 history of the form, James Geary laid down his "Five Laws of the Aphorism: It Must Be Brief, It Must Be Personal, It Must Be Definitive, It Must Be Philosophical, and It Must Have A Twist."
• • Need some examples? Here are three, honestly chosen at random, from Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists:
• • "Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before." (Mae West)
• • "To live is to lose ground." (E.M. Cioran)
• • "The only things one never regrets are one's mistakes." (Oscar Wilde)
• • Anyone who enjoys such quotations with an attitude probably owns — — or should acquire — — The Viking Book of Aphorisms, compiled by W.H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger, and The Oxford Book of Aphorisms, edited by John Gross. They remain invaluable and irreplaceable collections. But their emphasis is on the great maxims of the past, and they are organized by theme — — that is, chapters proffer a hodge-podge of epigrammatic observations, by various authors, about love, ambition, or human suffering (to name three popular subjects). . . .
— — excerpt — —
• • Source: Book review from The Washington Post
• • Critic: Michael Dirda
• • Published on: 21 October 2007 [page BW10]
• • In this unedited extract from Dirda's recent column, it is more than pleasing to see that a quote by Mae West rises to the top.
• • The quote is in a film scene from "Klondike Annie" [1935-36].
• • If you're going to quote, quote from the best.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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