Mae West: RIP Reg Lewis

In 1954, Reg Lewis, an 18-year-old muscleman, joined The MAE WEST Revue, the youngest in her cast. Sadly, he died last month. Let's  learn more about his close relationship with Mae and his career.
• • Reg Lewis, Actor and Mae West Muscleman, Dies at 85 • •
• • California native Reg Lewis  [23 January 1936 – 11 February 2021] worked alongside the legendary actress in a Las Vegas and touring revue as well as in her 1977 film, 'Sextette.' • •
• • Mike Barnes wrote: Reg Lewis, the champion bodybuilder and actor who was a member of Mae West's beefcake stage act that played in Las Vegas, Hollywood and around the country, has died. He was 85.

• • Mike Barnes wrote: Lewis died Feb. 11 in Los Angeles, his sister Jeannine Abbott told The Hollywood Reporter. No cause of death was immediately available.
• • Mike Barnes wrote: Reg entered his first bodybuilding contest, a Teenage Mr. Oakland event, and won, then prevailed in a Junior Mr. Olympics event in 1953 and was crowned Mr. Pacific Coast in 1956.
"Competition had always been my goal," he said.  ...
• • Mae West and Reg Lewis in 1958 • •
• • Mike Barnes wrote: Reg Lewis said he got $250 a week to work for Mae West at the Sahara hotel in Las Vegas, and their revue would play at Ciro's in Hollywood and in cities from Miami to San Francisco over the next year or so (during the mid-1950s).
• • Mike Barnes wrote: In 1960, Reg Lewis joined  Mae West (and Don Knotts, the physical opposite of Lewis) for an episode of CBS' The Red Skelton Hour to promote Mae's memoir.
• • Mike Barnes wrote: Also he was one of the swimsuit-clad musclemen surrounding her in her notorious final film, Sextette (1978). His measurements included a 50-inch chest and 30-inch waist.
• • Mike Barnes wrote: Off-screen, he would accompany Mae West to events such as film premieres and nightclub openings.
• • Mike Barnes wrote: "Mae was my lifetime friend, a beautiful lady and top-notch performer. She was all about glamour and glitz," he said in a 2002 interview with Iron Man magazine. "I appreciated and enjoyed Mae's love of life. When she passed [in 1980], we lost someone very, very important to the world of entertainment."
• • Mike Barnes wrote: Reg Lewis said that in 1978 he appeared in another Las Vegas act, this one fronted by Debbie Reynolds. She "would imitate Mae West and pull me onstage via a chain, which I'd then proceed to break," he recalled. "'Mmm,' she'd say, 'Let's see what other talents you have.' She threw a lot of Mae West lines at me, and it was fun."
• • Source: The Hollywood Reporter; published on Monday, 1 March 2021.
• • On Sunday, 16 March 1930 • •
• • Multiple outlets reported that Mae West's "Pleasure Man" trial began on 16 March 1930. But since March 16th was actually a Sunday, that date is imprecise. Postponed from its scheduled start on 4 February 1930, the battling finally did get under way on Monday, 17 March in New York, NY.
• • The courtroom proceedings had a certain entertainment value.
• • Though somber, bereaved, and wearing mourning for her late mother, Mae West had to stuff a black handkerchief in her mouth to keep from laughing at the antics of her actors.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Mae West told reporters this about her wriggling on stage: "It was nothing more than an exercise involving control of my abdominal muscles, which I learned from my father when I was a child.” [No, Mae did not take the stand during her trial in 1927.]
• • These trials are dramatized in the stage play "Courting Mae West."
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "Here are the things I never can resist:  tall, dark handsome men, diamonds, writing stories in bed, reading, calling policemen by their christian names, and food, more food!"
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The Los Angeles Examiner mentioned Mae West.
• • The Los Angeles Examiner did not go crazy for "My Little Chickadee." Their man on the aisle wrote that "'some moments are funny but others are embarrassing."   . . '
• • Source: review in The Los Angeles Examiner;  published on Saturday, 9 March 1940
• • The evolution of 2 Mae West plays that keep her memory alive • •
• • A discussion with Mae West playwright LindaAnn LoSchiavo — —
• • http://lideamagazine.com/renaissance-woman-new-york-city-interview-lindaann-loschiavo/
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 16th anniversary • • 
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past fifteen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,600 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fifteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4,688th 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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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • with Reg Lewis in 1958 • •
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Mae West: Reg Lewis

MAE WEST hired several marvelous looking musclemen for her "Mae West Revue" and, if she was looking for a Mr. America type, she found it. On 27 June 1954, Mae West launched her innovative show at the Sahara Hotel in Vegas (built in 1952). The first bodybuilders in the cast included: Richard DuBois, Mickey Hargitay, Zabo Koszewski, Charles Krauser [aka Paul Novak], Gordon Mitchell, Dan Vadis — — and Reg Lewis.
• • In 1957, this innovative sold-out stage show, which had toured from coast-to-coast, would close in Las Vegas — — again at the Sahara.
• • A handsome hunk who was born in Fremont, California was dark and curly-haired Reg Lewis, whose birthdate is 23 January 1936 and who is celebrating a birthday today. Body conscious from his youth, by 17 he had won the title of Junior Mr. Olympics (1953) and that launched him on a winning streak: Mr. Olympics (1956), Mr. Universe (1957), Mr. America (1963), and Mr. America Over Forty (1983).
• • After the "Mae West Revue" ended, and he hung up his lioncloth for the last time, he tried to break into the sword and sandal genre. Reg Lewis did appear as the titular hero in the Italian movie "Maciste contro i mostri" / "Fire Monsters against the Son of Hercules" [1962]. As the muscle-bound Maxus, he battled a legion of fire-breathing minions to save the residents of a remote valley. This led to no further advancement, however, of his silver screen ambitions.
• • He was hired to show off his physique in a few motion pictures including "Don't Make Waves" [1967] with Tony Curtis and "Sextette" starring Mae West. Additionally, he occasionally escorted the movie queen to Hollywood parties and press events.
• • To Reg Lewis, may you continue to blow out candles for many more years. Happy 76th Birthday!
• • On Sunday, 23 January 1927 in the New York Herald Tribune • •
• • The New York Herald Tribune sent a journalist to cover "Sex" and this newspaper printed perhaps the longest diatribe against Mae's play in their weekend edition on Sunday, 23 January 1927.
• • The Herald Tribune drama desk reviewer wrote: "It may be said of [Mae West] and "Sex" that they do not make sin attractive. The hell they picture is uninviting, a horrible place whose principal lady-viper has a tough hiss, an awkward strut and an overplump figure. ..."
• • The newspaper had published another harsh review months before on 27 April 1926 but, for some reason, sent a reporter to take a second look. Since when is it fair to mock an actress because she's carrying a few extra pounds, eh? A stunning example of what critics scratch out when lost for words or unable to make valid points about a play.
• • On Wednesday, 23 January 1929 in Variety • •
• • "Diamond Lil" had its Chicago premiere on 20 January 1929 at the Apollo Theatre. But a few days later, Mae West was troubled by terrible stomach pains that forced showtime delays or unusually long intermissions. Variety reported on Mae's suffering and its effect on her engagement in The Windy City in their issue dated on Wednesday, 23 January 1929.
• • Recorded on Monday, 23 January 1950 by NBC • •
• • This radio program was recorded on Monday, 23 January 1950 for a national broadcast on NBC on 16 February 1950. The network wanted to make sure that any unforeseen blips or sultry innuendo could be erased by their audio engineers.
• • "The Chesterfield Supper Club," sponsored by Chesterfield cigarettes, was pre-taped on January 23rd. Mae sang a duet with Perry Como and she told her version of "Little Red Riding Hood." The 28-minute show starred the host Perry Como, Mitchell Ayres and His Orchestra, and guest-starred Mae West and The Fontane Sisters. Martin Block was the announcer. This is a funny episode and a good audio is available.
• • On Sunday, 23 January 2011 • •
• • On Sunday 23 January 2011 BookReporter posted a review by Bronwyn Miller. The title Miller critiqued was "She Always Knew How: Mae West — A Personal Biography" by Charlotte Chandler [NY: Simon & Schuster, 2009].
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West wrote this in "Babe Gordon," a novel renamed "The Constant Sinner" after a contest. Macauley printed the first run in November 1930 and took out a half-page ad (featuring Mae's picture) in The New York Times Book Review section; the newly titled edition was released in 1931.
• • Mae West wrote: "Babe Gordon leaned against the crumbling red brick wall of the Marathon Athletic Club in Harlem, at 135th Street off Fifth Avenue, and pulled at a cigarette."
• • Mae West wrote: "Babe was eighteen and a prizefighter’s tart, picking up her living on their hard earned winnings. Her acquaintances numbered trollops, murderers, bootleggers and gambling-den keepers."
• • [After a detective warns Babe she is in a tight spot, she answers back:] "I can always handle tight spots."
• • [Passing a group of guys in Harlem, Babe murmurs this teasing remark:] "Come up sometime, boys! I'll tell your fortune." [In the 1932 screenplay for Paramount, Mae West's character will say exactly the same thing to Captain Cummings, played by Cary Grant.]
• • During July 1931 Mae began a discussion with the Shuberts about a stage version of "The Constant Sinner," based on her bi-racial novel set in Harlem published in hardcover and being snapped up.
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A section in a memoir mentioned Mae West.
• • According to Stanley Walker, Mae West once became irritated at the gossip about her and wrote this letter to The New York Times in 1931:
• • "Because my book 'The Constant Sinner' [1931] is but another in a string of hits I have turned out — — my batting average being 1,000 In this respect — — and because my plays have dealt with sex and the dregs of humanity, some persons see fit to assume that I write vividly about such subjects because I know them by experience. . . . Nobody ever saw me In the dives I am supposed to know so intimately. . . . The reason is I never was in one. Nobody ever sees me in night clubs or cabarets anywhere. Even if I cared for night life, which I don't, I wouldn't have time to indulge myself In It. People who know their Broadway will bear me out that there is no star on the stage today who is less of an exhibitionist, or who shows herself less in public places than myself. I am, in fact, retiring by nature, in my private life to the point of shyness. I even do all my shopping by telephone, because I cannot stand the attention other shoppers give me in a store. I am not upstage or conceited, or anything like that, as anyone who knows me will agree, but it is averse to my nature to feel myself being pointed out in public as a celebrity. . . . I do not drink. I do not smoke, I have my books, my writings, my friends that is my private life." ...
• • Source: "Mrs. Astor's Horse" written by Stanley Walker [NY: Frederick A. Stokes, 1935, 320 pages
• • Much of this is pure bunk, of course, but Mae was always carefully designing her white lies, varnishing her public image, and fortifying her own myths.
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2186th 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
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • her 1931 book • •
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Mae West: Beefcake Booster

Continuing to mourn the passing of Richard DuBois [1933 — 2007] last week in southern California, the MAE WEST BLOG is offering an excerpt from Chapter Four of this book by Brad Harris, which discusses "The Mae West Revue" that DuBois starred in during 1954, and also Mae's immense contribution to the growth of muscle mania in publications and in foreign films:
IMMENSE AND IMMORTAL: The Wild World of Italian Peplum Films
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • CHAPTER 4: THE BEST, THE REST & EVEN MAE WEST
Steve Reeves and Hercules owe at least some degree of their success to a growing interest in the sport of bodybuilding. It had long been little more than a fringe sport, hardly more than a step or two above carnival sideshows. In the1950's that started changing. More and more bodybuilding magazines were showing up on the newsstand, and people were starting to get curious. They were looking at those ads in the back of comic books for that Charles Atlas Dynamic Tension system, and they were thinking to themselves, "Yeah, I am tired of getting sand kicked in my face!" 90-pound weaklings all over the country were dreaming of the day bikini-clad beauties would be chanting "Hero of the beach!" to them.
• • Reeves and countless other men became the centerpieces for bodybuilding magazines, which were often a blend of profiles, fitness articles, and photos of the men in various states of undress.
• • No self respecting peplum film would be caught dead without a buff beefcake actor in the lead role. The names, faces, and hairstyle might change, but the bodybuilding origins of the hero remained a constant. After all, no one wants to pay good money to see some weakling in the role of Hercules, getting sand kicked in his face by all the other gods down on Muscle Beach.
• • Steve Reeves went on to star in several sword and sandal films . . . .
• • Dozens of men would step up to the peplum plate looking to be the next Steve Reeves. There were some decent guys in the lot, a couple exceptional stars that shone nearly as brightly as Reeves, and a lot of serviceable if unremarkable workhorses. Most of them came from America, not so much in imitation of Steve Reeves as it was a reflection of bodybuilding's greater popularity abroad than at home in Italy.
• • Of the handful of memorable stars, many had one thing in common, a certain unifying thread of terror: they'd all been part of Mae West's traveling revue.
• • In her heyday, Mae West was something of a bombshell, but by the 1960s the bomb had exploded and all that was left was the shell. Gloriously unable to act her age, Mae West decided to launch a traveling burlesque revue with her own ancient body as the star attraction. While this may have worked had it toured under the title of "Sideshow by the Seashore," The Ripley's Believe it or Not set was not Mae West's intended audience.
• • In order to offset the fact that, well, she was really old [age 61] and not wearing many clothes [sic], she surrounded herself with a cast of hunky bodybuilders who would perform the standard issue tasks of carting her about on a palanquin, posing, and just standing around looking buff.
• • West's strange little carnival show was a success for all the wrong reasons. Her men were chosen purely for their physical attributes, which resulted in constant mistakes, missed cues, flubbed lines, and a variety of other screw-ups. Audiences didn't seem to mind however, as the whole affair was all too weird to care about something so trivial.
• • Performing in Mae West's revue was a sort of rite of passage into the world of peplum filmmaking, and several of her company of bodybuilders escaped her out-of-date shenanigans and headed to Europe to hurl boulders at rubber monsters. Mickey Hargitay, Brad Harris, Reg Lewis, Dan Vadis, Richard DuBois, and Gordon Mitchell all served time as part of Mae's show before impressing the gods with their tenacity and winning roles in films. . . .
— — excerpt — —
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1954 • •
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Mae West.