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MAE WEST was shocked to learn that her friend Texas Guinan died on 5 November 1933.
• • In 1928 — — while chatting with reporter Sidney Skolsky — — Texas Guinan joked, "I want my funeral to be the speediest ever given. A cop on a motorcycle is to lead it." 
• • Tommy Guinan went to Vancouver to sign the papers and accompany his sister home.
• • Twelve thousand turned out for a final viewing. Show business buddies filled Frank Campbell's Funeral Chapel — — then located on Broadway and West 66th Street in New York, NY — — with large floral tributes. Movie cameras recorded it all.
• • The New York Herald Tribune noted: "She was a master showman, and accomplished psychologist. . . . She had ability, too — — and would have been successful in any one of a dozen more conventional fields. To New York and the rest of the country Texas was a flaming leader of a period which was a lot of fun while it lasted. . . ."
• • Born on 12 January 1884 in Waco, Texas, she was only 49 years old when her life came to an end. Texas Guinan often said: "I would rather have a square inch of New York than all the rest of the world." Non omnis moriar.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1933 funeral • •
NYC
Mae West.
Mae West, whose 1926 Broadway play "SEX" is having a revival in a West Coast theatre this season, breathed her last on 22 November 1980.
• • These somber moments are described by her biographer Jill Watts:
• • Soon [Mae West's] personal physician arrived. He announced that nothing more could be done. [Paul] Novak summoned a priest from the church just down the block, who gave Mae a blessing. Only a few minutes later, at 10:30 A.M., Mae West passed away [at the age of 87 years old].
• • ... At [Stanley] Musgrove's urging, Paul Novak organized a private service. On the afternoon of November 25, 1980, one hundred of Mae's family, friends, and acquaintance gathered at Forest Lawn's Old North Church to memorialize Mae West.
• • ... That night Mae's body was flown home to Brooklyn, New York and the following morning Paul Novak and Dolly Dempsey arrived at Cypress Hills for the interment. Two priests and a bishop offered short prayers and blessed the casket.
• • [Source: Mae West: An Icon in Black and White. Author: Jill Watts. NY: Oxford University Press, 2001.]
• • Her funeral was invitation only, at the Old North Church in Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills, California. 100 mourners attended. Mae was laid out in a white negligee in an open casket. The lower half was covered in white roses. A Presbyterian minister characterized her as a "good woman," and that "goodness had everything to do with it," a play on her famous line. As mourners left, "Frankie and Johnny," the song she sang in Diamond Lil, was being played on the organ.
• • [Source: Mae West page on "Find a Death" website.]
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• • Mae West was born on 17 August 1893 in Brooklyn, NY.
• • Mae West died on 22 November 1980 in Los Angeles, CA.
• • The Empress of Sex lives forever in our hearts.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/________ Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST, who avoided discussing death or illness, might have been horrified to learn that a death cab was shuttling her back and forth to a Cleveland theatre. In 1941, however, when Mae was booked for a week at the Palace Theatre, her chauffeur was the local funeral home director.
• • Born in 1914, Howard W. Edwards had proudly displayed in his home a photo of himself with Mae West. He often retold the tale of driving the brassy blonde from the Statler Hotel to Mass every morning — — and on to the Palace during her weeklong engagement. Edwards was hired to drive the limousine that was leased from Cleveland Memorial Temple Funeral Home, where he worked, according to an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer [3 October 2007].
• • Plain Dealer Reporter Maggi Martin wrote: "At 14, Edwards decided on a funeral career when he worked as a professional pallbearer in New York City [in 1928] as an apprentice at Walter B. Cook Inc., the busiest funeral parlor in the city. He earned 50 cents for carrying the casket out of the home and another 50 cents for carrying it into church."
• • A native Clevelander, Howard W. Edwards became a licensed Ohio funeral director in 1936. He owned Edwards Funeral Home in East Cleveland for nearly 40 years.
• • After he died on 28 September 2007 at age 93, his friends told the media that none of his passengers had left the lasting impression that Mae West did.
• • Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer
• • Byline: Maggi Martin wrote the obituary that this info was extracted from.• • 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.
