Mae West: Ladies I Love

MAE WEST comes to life onstage in Wales this evening thanks to a talented impressionist.
• • The popular female impersonator, cabaret artist, pantomime queen, live entertainer and Penarth, Wales resident Ceri Dupree returns to Barry's Memo with his show "The Ladies I Love!" this Friday evening, on January 20th, at 8:00 o'clock.
• • The show features memorable women from Mae West to Jordan, singer Lady Gaga to romance novelist Barbara Cartland, Shirley Temple to Shirley Bassey, and many, many more.
• • WHERE: Barry Memorial Hall Theatre in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales
• • WHEN: Friday, 20 January 2012, at 8:00pm
• • Al Hirschfeld [1903 — 2003] • •
• • Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Albert Hirschfeld moved with his family to New York City where he received his art training at the Art Students League of New York.
• • Al Hirschfeld [21 June 1903 — 20 January 2003] was a caricaturist best known for his simple black and white portraits of Broadway stars, dancers, mimes, dramatists, and other celebrities of the stage and screen.
• • Hirschfeld sketched Mae West numerous times. When you've seen a lot of his work, you can tell which performers he admired or personally grooved to. In my opinion, judging by his portraits of Mae West, he didn't much care for her. What's your opinion?
• • George Burns [1896 — 1996] • •
• • Born in New York City in January, George Burns [20 January 1896 — 9 March 1996] toured in vaudeville, trodding the boards during the same years as Mae West. In 1923 the Jewish comedian partnered with Gracie Allen and they became a team.
• • Built in 1914, the Darress is an old gem of a playhouse in The Garden State. Its stage has been graced by Mae West, George Burns, and Abbot and Costello.
• • The Darress Theater is still standing: 615 Main St, Boonton, NJ 07005.
• • On Saturday, 20 January 1934 • •
• • Born on the Lower Eastside of New York in January — — on 31 January 1892 — — Eddie Cantor was an American comedian, singer, actor, songwriter, and one of the most popular entertainers in the USA in the early and middle 20th century.
• • On Saturday, 20 January 1934, Eddie Cantor was the M.C. during a stage show at the Paramount Theatre (Broadway and West 43rd Street). In one number, he appeared in a Mae West costume. Yes, this actually happened onstage, so try to imagine it.
• • Mae West & Sgt Pepper • •
• • Which of the people represented on the cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band along with Mae West have died?
• • One actor who died in the month of January is handsome Johnny Weissmuller, who left us on 20 January 1984. He died from pulmonary edema at the age of 79.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I freely chose the kind of life I led because I was convinced that a woman has as much right as a man to live the way she does if she does no actual harm to society."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article about the Mapes Hotel in Nevada mentioned Mae West.
• • Filing his copy from Reno, AP reporter Scott Sonner wrote: Historic preservationists abandoned a last-ditch attempt at a federal court order to save the Mapes hotel on Wednesday but insisted they have other plans to block the January 30 demolition of the historic hotel-casino. ...
• • Scott Sonner explained: Built in 1947, the Mapes was the first building in the nation constructed specifically to house a hotel, casino, and live entertainment under one roof. During its heyday in the 1950s, entertainers such as Mae West, the Marx Brothers, Sammy Davis Jr., and Ray Bolger performed in its top-floor, window-walled Sky Room with its spectacular views of the Sierra Nevada. ...
• • Source: Article: "Attempt to save Mapes abandoned" written by Scott Sonner for Associated Press; published in Las Vegas Review-Journal on Thursday, 20 January 2000
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2183rd 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 • • 1949 • •
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Mae West: Al Hirschfeld

Many pens, pencils, paintbrushes, and pastels have swirled around the famous face and figure of MAE WEST, especially when she brought her revival of "Diamond Lil" to Broadway and played there from 1949 — 1951.
• • One illustrator who had sketched Mae West in 1940 for The New York Times when she was starring in "My Little Chickadee" also got a second chance to draw her for that newspaper a decade later. Since he was born during the month of June — — on 21 June 1903 — — a few words will be said.
• • Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Al Hirschfeld [21 June 1903 – 20 January 2003] was a Jewish caricaturist best known for his simple black and white satirical portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars. After he relocated to New York City, he took classes at the Art Students League.
• • After his cartoon appeared in the Times, Al Hirschfeld autographed and sold a limited edition of his etching of Mae West; the original sketch was done in pencil and its dimensions were 14 1/2 inches x 19 inches.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • circa 1949/ 1950 • •
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Mae West: Mickey Carroll

A very special actor who worked with MAE WEST has met his final curtain.
• • Word comes that Mickey Carroll, one of the last surviving Munchkins from the iconic 1939 screen classic "The Wizard of Oz" died recently at age 89. It was his only motion picture but his brief cameos were most memorable. .
• • Born in St. Louis on 8 July 1919, Mickey Carroll's birthname was Michael Finocchiaro. The son of Italian immigrants who carved marble cemetery monuments, he grew up with a twin sister and four older siblings, all of whom are deceased.
• • It was a pituitary condition that caused Carroll's height to stop at 4-foot-3.
• • What he lacked in stature he made up for with an abundance of appeal, personality, and comedic timing. When presidential hopeful Franklin D. Roosevelt was campaigning in New York City, Mickey Carroll helped warm up the voters. He was also hired as a crowd-getter during Harry Truman's whistlestop campaign.
• • In St. Louis, Carroll tripped the light fantastic at the Muny Theater when he was still an elementary school pupil. Afterwards, he appeared in Chicago clubs and on the Orpheum Theater vaudeville circuit.
• • Expanding his specialties, Mickey Carroll also did Phillip Morris live radio ads — — "Call for Philip Morris!" — — and appeared in shows with Mae West. He followed up those successes with radio shows with George Burns, Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, and Al Jolson.
• • In November 2007, Mickey Carroll received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame along with six other surviving Munchkins: Ruth Duccini, Jerry Maren, Margaret Pellegrini, Meinhardt Raabe, Karl Slover, and Clarence Swensen.
• • Until January of this year, the pint-size performer enjoyed living in his own home in Bel-Nor. After he got a pacemaker, however, he began boarding with a caretaker, who told the press that he died in his sleep, very peacefully, and perhaps dreaming of following the yellow brick road in the wonderful land of Oz.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West: Secret Sisterhood

In "Diamond Lil" MAE WEST refers to her character Lil as "one of the finest women who ever walked the streets." That description also fit Frankie Baker, whose sense of frontier justice in October 1899 had inspired the folktune "Frankie and Johnny."
• • "You say, boy, of Frankie she had dice in one hand and a gun in the other." Frankie Baker of St. Louis, and the sporting circuit, Omaha, Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, Chicago, shot her man in her twenty-seventh year, having already gained notoriety by her open handedness, good looks, and her proud and racy bearing, wrote John Huston in Frankie and Johnny [NY: Boni, 1930]. Clearly, this was a dame Mae could admire.
• • "[Frankie Baker] was a beautiful, light brown girl, who liked to make money and spend it. She dressed very richly, sat for company in magenta lady's cloth, diamonds as big as hen's eggs in her ears. There was a long razor scar down the side of her face she got in her teens from a girl who was jealous of her. She only weighed about 115 lbs, but she had the eye of one you couldn't monkey with. She was a queen sport."
• • The actress Mae West sang "Frankie and Johnny" from 1928 until the 1970s, when she performed it — — accompanied by a shimmy — — at a California party for The Masquers. She made the folktune her trademark. Why? Possibly because the woman who was Mae West realized that, in Frankie Baker of St. Louis, she met her match, her diamond diva, her secret sharer. The scarlet sisterhood had its queen sport — — and Mae paid her homage till the end.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Cartoon: • • Mae West as Diamond Lil • • 1928 • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: St. Louis

Actor John Huston, enthralled by Diamond Lil's rendition of "Frankie and Johnny" on Broadway in 1928, gave MAE WEST a copy of this fascinatin' news clipping that had appeared in the St. Louis-Post Dispatch on the 19th of October in 1899.
• • Note: Frankie Baker's weapon was a knife — — not a noisy gun [in the newspaper account].
• • The unnamed third party in this fatal love triangle was Alice Pryar, an 18-year-old prostitute [nine years younger than Frankie Baker]. In the song, the "other woman" is called Nellie Bly.

• • Amid the Suffering . . . • •
• • .Allen Britt's brief experience in the art of love cost him his life. He died at the City Hospital Wednesday night from knife wounds inflicted by Frankie Baker, an ebony hued cake-walker. Britt was also colored. He was seventeen years old. He met Frankie at the Orange Blossom's ball — — and was smitten with her. Thereafter they were lovers.
• • In the rear of 212 Targee Street lived Britt. There his sweetheart wended her way a few night's ago and lectured Allen for his alleged duplicity. Allen's reply was not intended to cheer the dusky damsel and a glint of steel gleamed in the darkness. An instant later the boy fell to the floor mortally wounded.
• • Frankie Baker is locked up at the Four Courts.
• • The City Hospital's account was quite different.
• • According to a doctor, Allen Britt died at 2:15 AM on the 19th of October 1899 with a bullet wound of the liver. He lived seventeen years in the city [St. Louis, Missouri] before his death. He was born in Kentucky.
• • Allen Britt's occupation at the time of entering the emergency room was given as "job worker."
• • George and Nancy Britt, Allen's parents, buried their son in St. Peter's Cemetery on 22 October 1899.
• • Why was the ballad called "Frankie and Johnny" and not "Frankie and Allen"?
• • When John Huston interviewed her in 1929, Nancy Britt was still living at 32 Johnson [formerly Targee] Street in St. Louis. Mrs. Britt had asked the composer, she claimed, not to use her son's name. Perhaps because a "john" is a customer of a prostitute, Johnny was substituted.
• • These details were provided to the Mae West blog exclusively by NYC historian LindaAnn Loschiavo, author of the play "Courting Mae West." If you copy this info, please affix this CREDIT LINE in full.
• • Tring to escape notoriety, Frankie Baker moved around. She wound up at the Eastern Oregon State Hospital. According to news accounts, she was eventually committed to this facility, where she died shortly thereafter on 10 January 1952.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Cartoon: • • Mae West as Diamond Lil/ Lady Lou • • 1933 • •
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Mae West.