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Nineteen-year-old MAE WEST claimed to be "The Original Brinkley Girl." 
• • During 1912-13, when Mae was still trying to find her way in her career, she was billing herself as a "Nell Brinkley Girl." At the time, she was a fresh-faced brunette teenager with a penchant for physically energetic routines in vaudeville. Unlike other performers who had but one act to offer the audience, Mae was always testing new approaches and buying new material. She tried to dazzle the ticket-holders with her versatility: fast tap dancing and acrobatic feats onstage combined with "character" [novelty] songs often in an ethnic idiom.
• • Nell Brinkley [1886—1944] • •• • What's there to remember about Nell Brinkley — — born on the 5th day in the month of September? Plenty.
• • Seven years older than the Brooklyn bombshell, beautiful Nell Brinkley [5 September 1886 — 21 October 1944] was born in Denver, Colorado, and taught herself portraiture. 
In 1903, while she was still in high school, the Denver Post hired her to draw romantic cartoons. Her enchanting "Brinkley Girls" — — with their free flowing dresses and curly hair depicting a vivacious feminine beauty — — were quite unlike the passive, sedate (and sedated looking) Gibson Girl.
• • Her exposure in a Denver newspaper led to an invitation, in October 1907, to come to The Big Apple as an illustrator/ reporter for publisher William Randolph Hearst (and his editor Arthur Brisbane) at the New York Evening Journal. Now her drawings became even more popular.
• • Soon Nell Brinkley was getting assignments as a reporter to interview celebrities such as Evelyn Nesbitt-Thaw, the wife of the millionaire murderer Harry Thaw (who had killed architect Stanford White).
• • Within a few months, her artistic talent inspired a spin-off onstage. Her "Brinkley Girl" became the theme for the 1908 Ziegfeld Follies, played by Mae Murray. A young Helen Hayes also played a Brinkley Girl in the play "Jack the Giant Killer" [1909].
• • As Mae West did in her plays, Nell Brinkley widened her scope to include pen and ink depictions of working women. Brinkley used her fame to campaign for better working conditions and higher pay for women who had joined in the war effort, and who were suffering economic and social dislocation due to acting on their patriotism.
• • Unlike most of her contemporaries, she drew women of different races and cultures.
• • Nell Brinkley's illustrations influenced many artists. Brinkley's career was the model for Dale Messick's "Brenda Starr, Girl Reporter" comic strip series.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • circa 1913 • • Nell Brinkley in 1915 • •• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
Marion Davies’s neighbors included MAE WEST, Louis B. Mayer, Samuel Goldwyn, Cary Grant, and J. Paul Getty — — some of whom would walk over for dinner or enjoy a midday swim at her splashy seaside hideaway. A well-paid Paramount Pictures star, Mae had purchased a 22-room beach house in the same enclave, though she was not known for sun-bathing.
• • Actress Marion Davies • •
• • Born (like Mae) in Brooklyn, NY, Marion Davies [3 January 1897 — 22 September 1961] was a motion picture actress who had a long relationship with William Randolph Hearst [1863 — 1951] — — a married newspaper tycoon who tried to destroy Mae's career. Despite his pique over the comedienne's morality, Hearst dallied long in the forbidden zone, unable to curb the longing Mistress Marion aroused.
• • Interestingly, while the Empress of Sex worked hard for everything she acquired and paid her own bills in Hollywood, Marion's sinful 34 years older sugar daddy set her up in jaw-dropping splendor in Southern California.
• • Santa Monica was a celebrity magnet long before Malibu became one, according to an article in The New York Times. Laura M. Holson emphasizes the grandeur Hearst's dewy plaything enjoyed: And Ms. Davies’s mansion was by far the grandest on the beach. In the 1920s, the Santa Monica Land and Water Company sold 30-foot beachfront parcels near the Santa Monica Pier that were acquired mostly by Hollywood’s power brokers as homes and vacation retreats, according to a research study commissioned by the City of Santa Monica.
• • Laura M. Holson adds: Ms. Davies, a talented actress who was ferried by car from Santa Monica to MGM and Warner Brothers, where she worked, never wed the much older Mr. Hearst. He remained married to Millicent Willson Hearst, although his love affair with Ms. Davies lasted three decades. He acquired several adjoining lots for her and consulted Julia Morgan on the project, the architect with whom he collaborated on Hearst Castle.
• • Once completed, the estate was dubbed the Versailles of Hollywood. The pool was 110 -feet long. There were 37 fireplaces and 55 bathrooms. Ms. Davies lived there until 1942 .... — — and you are hereby invited to consult the published piece or imagine this well-feathered lovenest on your own.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "A Dip Into Hollywood"
• • BY: LAURA M. HOLSON | Santa Monica based journalist
• • Published in: The New York Times — — www.nytimes.com
• • Published on: 28 August 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST was tailed and hounded by the muck-raking newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst — — with a Javert-like blood lust.
• • Born in California and educated at Harvard, William Randolph Hearst [29 April 1863 — 14 August 1951] moved to New York City and acquired The New York Journal. He found the power of the pen intoxicating. By crusading for civic improvement and exposing municipal corruption, he greatly increased the paper's circulation. Through his publishing empire, he exercised enormous political influence and aired his opinions.
• • This is how The Daily Mirror, a Hearst paper, greeted "Sex" when it opened in 1926: "a monstrosity plucked from the garbage can, destined for the sewer."
• • Then, during the 1930s, William Randolph Hearst called on Congress to do something about the Mae West menace.
• • Maybe what Hearst resented most was not just her increased influence but her affluence. In 1934, Mae West became the highest-paid entertainer in America, with an income of $399,166. The following year, her earnings went up to $480,833 — — exceeded only by the tabloid tycoon William Randolph Hearst.
• • In an interview, Mae West spoke about him: "Originally, I started writin' 'cause I had to, nobody else understood how I made fun of sex, so I couldn't find the right vehicles. When I came to movies, I was already a skilled writer, I coulda made it on the writin' alone. I always took it serious: when the papers printed I made more money than anybody but Hearst, he phoned and asked me up to San Simeon. He wanted a romance. I coulda married him, but I was busy. See, I never was one for parties, I always been two people, with two jobs — — writer and star. An' listen, you gotta think to write."
• • Hypocritical Hearst comes to mind during mid-August — why? — because he died on 14 August 1951. He will always be remembered for his bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, which led to the creation of "yellow journalism" — — sensationalized stories of dubious veracity. What? You mean I can't believe what I read in the newspapers? Shucks.
• • 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 will dazzle and delight The Windy City on Monday 14 January 2008.
• • At 7:45 PM "She Done Him Wrong" [1933] will be shown at The Gene Siskel Film Center [164 N State St at Randolph St Loop/ West Loop, Chicago; tel 312-846-2600].
• • Directed by Lowell Sherman, this 66-minute classic set on the Bowery during the Gay Nineties was a blockbuster. Produced for $200,000 — — half of which went to West for writing and starring — — it returned $2 million domestically on its initial release and another $1 million in international markets. Despite Mae's claims to the contrary, the box office bonanza was NOT enough to pull Paramount Pictures out of the red. But the film did raise studio morale and their image enough to help them edge back toward profitability. The film made Mae West a household name and boosted the career of co-star Cary Grant, who was just starting in motion pictures. He would later claim that he inhaled his lessons about playing comedy from watching the Brooklyn bombshell.
• • "She Done Him Wrong" made the hourglass figure trendy again and encouraged a rush of films set in the 1890s. A backlash was not far behind.
• • Mae West's suggestive song "A Guy What Takes His Time" was so heavily cut by the censors that Paramount recalled all release prints to cut the middle stanzas. Other lines were cut by local censors, and the film was banned outright in Java, Latvia, Australia, and Vienna. It also resurrected renewed cries for national film censorship that led to the strengthening of the Production Code in 1934. That, in turn, would create even more battles between Mae West and the censors, though the blue-noses could do nothing to diminish the sexual independence of her characters
• • An interesting side-trip down memory lane revisits Owen Moore [12 December 1886 — 9 June 1939], who portrayed Chick Clark, Mae West's imprisoned ex-boyfriend in "She Done Him Wrong." The novel Diamond Lil opens with the prison inmate on page 1, chafing at Lil from behind bars, angry that she done him dirt.
• • An Irish silent film star, Owen Moore wed 19-year-old Mary Pickford [8 April 1892 — 29 May 1979] on 7 January 1911. The marriage was stormy due to Moore's alcoholism and they divorced in March 1920; she gave Owen Moore $100,000 to go along with their quickie Nevada divorce scheme. A few days later, Mary wed her dashing lover and colleague Douglas Fairbanks.
• • By 1936, Pickford had also divorced Fairbanks. Is this when she acquired her reputation as an arch-prude? Certainly, Tinseltown's critics turned "America's Sweetheart" into a joke by circulating the story of how she ended Mae West's career by complaining to William Randolph Hearst about the bawdy lyrics of West's songs. Was she jealous of Mae for giving her ex-husband the role he would always be remembered for?
• • Owen Moore has a star of the Hollywood Walk of Fame: 6743 Hollywood Boulevard.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Owen Moore • • 1933 • •
NYC
Mae West.
It was December 1935, the height of the Great Depression, and newspapers began posting the annual earnings of adults in the United States who had made over $15,000. Only about 18,000 Americans had a salary that topped $15,000 during the mid-1930s. Publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst received half-a-million that year. MAE WEST was right behind her nemesis with salary checks totaling $339,166.65 during the same period. 
• • Obviously, Hollywood's talented top doll was bringing in top dollars at a time when breadlines and soup kitchens were a common sight across this nation. However, "Hundreds of corporation officials were revealed as making as much salary in one year as most men dream of accumulating in a lifetime of work," noted The New York Times, quoting figures furnished by the U.S. Treasury Department. "Salaries of $100,000 and more were not rare."
• • Financially speaking, MAE WEST outpaced her male and female movieland peers. Dozens of salaries are memorialized in this lengthy year-end report. Here are a few.
• • Bing Crosby, actor — — $104,449 — — in addition to $88,499 he earned as a crooner from Crosby Productions, Inc.
• • W.C. Fields, actor — — $155,083.
• • Marlene Dietrich, actress — — $145,000.
• • Charlie Chaplin, actor — — $143,000.
• • William LeBaron, producer — — $114,711.
• • Adolph Zukor, Paramount Pictures Distributing Co. — — $52,193.
• • Walt Disney, creator of Mickey Mouse — — $51,500.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1932 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST as a moral menace — — it seems absurb doesn't it? 
• • Nevertheless, during the 1930s, influential citizens such as the powerful muck-raking tabloid publisher William Randolph Hearst called on Congress to do something about the Mae West menace. Hypocritical Hearst comes to mind during August — why? — because he died on 14 August 1951.• • Religious leaders, too, condemned Mae West as a negative role model, and forced the Hollywood studios to curtail or sanitize her films. Catholic church spokespeople complained about ambiguous lines such as: "Between two evils, I always pick the one I haven't tried before"; "Why don't you come up and see me sometime"; and "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"
• • After decades of battling over a moral minefield such as Mae West, however, some priests seemed to have turned to other matters involving bad behavior quite unrelated to Tinseltown.
• • Share your Mae West memories on Friday evening 17 August 2007, when a guided tour will explore Manhattan's WEST-side during the "Mae West Side Story" walking tour. The event — — open to the public — — is timed to salute Brooklyn's own sexpot on her birthdate. [See the Annual Mae West Gala posting below.]• • Only 9 more days until Mae's birthday!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Sketch: • • Mae West • • 1935 • •
NYC
Mae West.
In 1903, while she was still in high school, the Denver Post hired her to draw romantic cartoons. Her enchanting "Brinkley Girls" — — with their free flowing dresses and curly hair depicting a vivacious feminine beauty — — were quite unlike the passive, sedate (and sedated looking) Gibson Girl.
