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MAE WEST always used to say, "You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough."
• • Pro boxer Maxie Baer was one of those handsome ring kings who enjoyed an intimate relationship with the Empress of Sex, and crammed a lifetime of thrills and trophies into his fifty years on earth.
• • Hailing from Omaha, Nebraska, Maxie Baer was born in the month of February [11 February 1909 — 21 November 1959] and was a boxer whose career peaked during the 1930s as well as the one-time heavyweight champ, an actor, and an entertainer.
• • For exactly one year, Baer was Heavyweight Champion of the World — — from 14 June 1934, when he knocked out the massive, 125-kg (275-pound) Primo Carnera — — until his reign ended when he fought James J. Braddock in a Long Island bout on 13 June 1935.
• • Maxie Baer's motion picture debut was in The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) opposite Myrna Loy and Walter Huston. In this MGM movie he played Steven "Steve" Morgan, a bartender that the Professor, played by Walter Huston, begins training for the ring. Steve wins a fight, then marries Belle Mercer, played by Loy. He starts seriously training, but it turns out he has a huge ego and an eye for a women. Featured were Baer's upcoming opponent, Primo Carnera, as himself, whom Steve challenges for the championship, and Jack Dempsey, as himself, former heavyweight champion, acting as the referee. The former title-holder made over a dozen motion pictures.
• • Maxie Baer married twice; his first wife was the actress Dorothy Dunbar [married July 8, 1931-divorced October 6, 1933]. Two years later, he tied the knot with Mary Ellen Sullivan [married on 29 June 1935 until his death in 1959]. With Sullivan, he had three children: actor Max Adelbert Baer Jr. (born 1937), James Manny Baer (born 1942), and Maudie Marian Baer (born 1944).
• • During a separation from his first wife, Max had hot affairs with movie queens Mae West, Jean Harlow, and Greta Garbo.
• • Maxie Baer never enjoyed the TV and movie success of his son, Max Baer Jr. (who played Jethro Bodine in the television series The Beverly Hillbillies). At the time of his death on November 21, 1959, Baer was scheduled to appear in some TV commercials — — which he had planned to do in Los Angeles before returning to his home in Sacramento.
• • Since Max Baer, Sr. was unable to defend himself regarding Ron Howard's unflattering portrayal in Cinderella Man [2005], the task of rehabilitating his father's reputation has fallen to his son.• • 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.
Mae West knew some shady characters — — and Champ Segal had a special place in his heart for Mae. 
• • Sunset Boulevard during the 1940s was where all the guys and dolls nightclubbed, gambled, brawled, and minted gossip. Harry "Champ" Segal, a former boxer and bookie, ran a little joint on the Strip that was disguised as a barbershop (not unlike the bookmaking and loan-sharking operation he ran in a midtown Manhattan barbershop). Nearby in Los Angeles, Champ's bosom buddy Benjamin Siegel had an office at the corner of Sunset and Vine, although Bugsy did not take walk-ins.
• • Although Champ Segal never won a title in the ring, the dapper hoodlum managed many prizefighters — — Charley "Phil" Rosenberg, Ace Hudson, Phil Kaplan, Freddy Beshore, Sal Belloise — — and had 118 fights himself, 78 of which he won by knock-outs.
• • Mae West enjoyed going to boxing matches and she got a kick out of the nattily dressed wheel-dealer. Champ Segal admired Mae and included anecdotes about their friendship in his book.
• • Born in Harlem in 1899, by 1917 Harry had an arrest record for possessing narcotics.
• • In 1927 he was locked up in connection with a homicide at his restaurant on St. Nicholas Avenue and West 112th Street. Throughout his hair-raising past he must have been taking notes for this biography that his brother published in November 1959, which was called "a daring and exciting book about the world of sports, gambling, gangsters, and politicians from the 1920s to the present day." Though Champ was as solitary a figure as Charlie Chaplin, astonishingly he did have a brother; Hyman's name appeared on the dustjacket: They Called Him Champ: the Story of Champ Segal and His Fabulous Era by Hyman R. Segal [NY: Citadel Press, 1959; 480 pages with b/w photographs].
• • Mae West, Texas Guinan, Al Capone, Legs Diamond, Bugsy Siegel, Primo Carnera, Mayor Jimmy Walker — — they're all inside.
• • November 1959 there was a book launch at Lindy's Restaurant with his buddies from Stillman's Gym.
• • That was a better November than nine years earlier for Champ Segal. On 1 November 1950 the 51-year-old bookie was arrested outside of the Park-Sheraton Hotel, where he'd been living. This was part of a Times Square round-up of gangsters by the police. Champ Segal slipped through the grasp of the city's legal eagles, however. The colorful con man was still being indicted in 1974 when he was age 77.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West's pal • • 1967 • •
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Mae West.
