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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Mae West: Tennessee Williams

His appreciation of MAE WEST was well-known. They enjoyed a mutual admiration until Mae began to suspect he was copying her.
• • Born in Columbus, Mississippi in the month of March — — on 26 March 1911 — — Tennessee Williams included a chalkware statuette of the screen legend in "A Streetcar Named Desire."
• • Excerpt from a letter in Spring 1943 • •
• • • • 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 apt. 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. ...
• • • • Tennessee Williams, Letter to Donald Windham, 12 May 1943.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: November 22nd

While you may think MAE WEST passed from your life on 22 November 1980, the happy news is that authors are keeping the Empress of Sex very much alive.
• • Remember Charlotte Chandler — — whose second book, The Ultimate Seduction, included conversations with Mae West, Tennessee Williams, Henry Moore, and others? Well, Charlotte Chandler's newest book is She Always Knew How — — Mae West, a Personal Biography [NY: Simon & Schuster]; this hardcover will be released on 10 February 2009.
• • Charlotte Chandler is a member of the board of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and is active in film preservation. She lives in New York City — — and is currently finishing a book on Bette Davis.
• • On the West Coast, former film critic Kevin Thomas — — who enjoyed conversing with Mae for many years — — is busy doing a book about her.
• • On the East Coast, who is a native New Yorker — — as Mae West was — — is at work writing an illustrated book: Mae West's New York.
• • Mae West — — many individuals have said that to know her was to love her.

Mae West: Canadian Club

A San Francisco production promises to draw on musical sources that include MAE WEST, Maria Callas, Ethel Merman, and Judy Garland. The dynamic duo at the heart of "2boys.tv" have been applauded as "the darlings of the Montreal cult cabaret scene" — — which sounds like KiKi and Herb mixed with Canadian Club. Hic!
• • While we're getting our drinks mixed, let's lend an ear to what The Bay Area Reporter has to say about this West Coast concoction imported from the poor man's Riviera.
• • TV or not TV
• • That is the question, as New Conservatory Theatre Center launches its season with a most unusual offering from Canada. 2boys.tv, beginning its run on 6 August 2008, is also the name of the duo (Stephen Lawson and Aaron Pollard) who have been called "the darlings of the Montreal cult cabaret scene."
• • Using burlesque, drag, video projections, opera selections, show tunes, and old films, the pair will present two selections from its repertoire. In Puree, Lawson and Pollard look at the queer politics of marriage, religion, displacement, and liberation using musical sources that include MAE WEST, Maria Callas, Ethel Merman, and Judy Garland. Zona relates the story of an actress descending into madness using elements of Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, Bette Davis, and Katharine Hepburn.
• • This will be the San Francisco debut of 2boys.tv, billed as a special event (i.e., not part of the Pride subscription series), and it will continue through Aug. 31. Call 861-8972 or go to www.nctcsf.org.
— — Source: — —
• • Article: "Global outreach for work on gay liberty"
• • Byline: Richard Dodds
• • Published in: The Bay Area Reporter — — www.ebar.com/
• • Published on: 7 August 2008
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Tallulah-ed

MAE WEST posed with actress Tallulah Bankhead at an event during the 1950s.

• • Tallulah Bankhead [31 January 1902 – 12 December 1968] was an American actress, talk-show host and bonne vivante.
• • At 15, Bankhead won a movie-magazine beauty contest and moved to New York. She quickly won bit parts. During these early New York years, she became a peripheral member of the Algonquin Round Table, and was reputed to be a hard-partying girl-about-town.
• • In 1931 her name was tossed out as Paramount Pictures' "next Marlene Dietrich", but Hollywood success eluded her in her first four films of the 30s. Critics agreed that her acting was flat, that she was unable to dominate the camera, and that she was generally outclassed by Dietrich, Carole Lombard, and others.
• • In Hollywood, Tallulah rented a home [1712 Stanley Street], and began hosting frisky parties. On 9 September 1932, she was on the cover of Film Weekly.
• • She was outspoken and uninhibited.
• • In 1932 she briefly expressed interest in spirituality and met with an Indian mystic.
• • In 1933 Tallulah Bankhead nearly died following a 5-hour emergency hysterectomy for an advanced case of gonorrhea, contracted – – she said – – from either actor George Raft or Gary Cooper. Only 70 pounds when she was able to leave the hospital, she stoically said to her doctor, "Don't think this has taught me a lesson!"
• • In 1963 she gave her last theatrical performances in a Tennessee Williams play, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Any More.
• • Tallulah Bankhead died in New York City in December of double pneumonia arising from influenza, complicated by emphysema, at the age of 66 [12 December 1968] and is buried in Saint Paul's Churchyard, Maryland.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West’s beauty tip

Charlotte Chandler: Tinsel Town's other blonde
• • The Californian-born author of several bestsellers about Hollywood, Charlotte Chandler won the show business scoop of last century when she interviewed Mae West before the iconic movie star died. "I never see women interviewers," West snarled. Nevertheless, the blonde bombshell spent six hours primping and preening for their first meeting. Charlotte Chandler was invited to stroke West’s porcelain complexion. "I did so very nervously," she recalls.
• • Mae West’s beauty tip? "Warm baby oil - - applied daily by a man."
• • Mae West told her the secret of perfect skin. Federico Fellini cooked pots of pasta for her and Tony Curtis revealed all about his affair with Marilyn Monroe. Name any Hollywood star and the likelihood is that Charlotte Chandler will have interviewed them - - from the siren of the silent screen, Gloria Swanson, to Pierce Brosnan.
• • Mae West stared in disbelief at the unmarried Chandler’s ringless fingers. "You have no diamonds!" she exclaimed. "You must find a man to buy you some." But later she confided to Chandler that she had bought her own king’s ransom of jewels herself.
• • As the New York-based author listened to the tape - - the interview was chosen for the Penguin anthology of Great Interviews of the Twentieth Century - - she was puzzled by a soft susurration in the background. "It was as if a butterfly was beating its wings, then I realised that it was the sound of Mae’s false eyelashes flapping," says Chandler, whose latest book, Nobody’s Perfect, is a personal biography of the great director Billy Wilder.
• • Chandler is adept at getting big-name interviews, although in the case of Mae West blonde undoubtedly responded unto blonde. For Chandler also has a luxuriant mane of pale golden hair, untouched by peroxide. Photographs of her - - whether she is lunching with Fellini, about whom she wrote an international bestseller, or sharing a joke with Wilder - - always feature her smiling glamorously beneath her crowning glory. Indeed, Groucho Marx used to say of her fabulous follicles: "You’ve got your own beret."
• • She jests that her fine head of hair helped her to persuade stars such as Gloria Swanson, Barbara Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers, Kirk Douglas, James Stewart, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis (who admitted that he had slept with Marilyn Monroe before she was famous) to be interviewed for the Wilder book. ("Superb name-dropping!" exclaims Chandler.) I suspect it has much more to do with her undoubted skills as an interviewer and writer.
• • Mae West, Henry Fonda, Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis, and Tennessee Williams stalked freely to her for her second book, The Ultimate Seduction, about people who are seduced by their creative work.
• • Dressed in a smart navy-blue trouser suit, Chandler is a well-preserved woman of uncertain age - - she politely refuses to tell how old she is. She has a gracious manner and wears her famous hair piled on top of her head. . . .
• • Come up and see Mae online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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