Mae West: In Long Island City

MAE WEST has a role in a special live event that takes place very soon in Queens.
• • Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles — — but please let gusty Hurricane Irene blow away in time for Monday. On the evening of 29 August 2011 there will be a one-night-only outdoor performance, “Odysseus at Hell Gate,” created by Brooklyn residents Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles — — and Mae West will be a player in this unique site-specific work commissioned for Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, NY.
• • From Astoria, journalist Melena Ryzik describes this experience for her readers: For “Odysseus at Hell Gate,” Mr. Alex Kahn and Ms. Sophia Michahelles, a couple from Red Hook, N.Y., who are artistic directors of a nonprofit group called Processional Arts Workshop, researched the history of the sometimes forgotten spaces that dot the East River, like Hart Island, a potter’s field; North Brother Island, home to the hospital that quarantined Typhoid Mary; and Hell Gate, a traditionally treacherous maritime passage and the site of the 1904 burning of the excursion ship the General Slocum. They found many parallels in these stories to those in “the Odyssey.”
• • Melena Ryzik continues: Roosevelt Island, which is visible from the sculpture park, was once known as Welfare Island; it housed a women’s prison, “and the two most famous inmates who spent some time there were Mae West and Billie Holiday, so we thought they would be fantastic sirens,” Ms. Michahelles said with a smile. There are no siren songs per se, but a score that Mr. Kahn composed includes a Billie Holiday recording of “Comes Love (Nothing Can Be Done),” interspersed with Mae West beckoning, “Come up and see me sometime.” ...
• • Source: Article: "Odysseus Is Parading Into Queens" written by Melena Ryzik for The N.Y. Times; posted on 26 August 2011
• • Mae West on the Bookshelf • •
• • Published in 1997 by Routledge Three Plays by Mae West: Sex, the Drag, the Pleasure Man edited by Lillian Schlissel. Her essays and the source material she has selected are nothing short of excellent. A book you must own.
• • Reviewer Pamela Robertson Wojcik said: Feminists for the most part were not interested in Mae West in the 1970s (when West had a major comeback), but became attracted to her image in the late 1980s and 1990s due to changes that occurred in feminist thought and culture — — changes epitomized and, maybe, made possible by Madonna's emergence — — that made West's over-the-top, sexually aware style seem transgressive rather than regressive. ...
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West wrote this: "Don’t marry a man to reform him — — that’s what reform schools are for.”
• • Mae West wrote this: "Opportunity knocks for every man — — but you have to give a woman a ring.”
• • Mae West wrote this: "You're never too old to become younger."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Blogger Jennifer Stewart wrote: Mae West became famous for pushing the envelope on matters of how women should behave, morally and sexually. Her first play was called "Sex". She was arrested on a morals charge, but that didn’t daunt her. As far as she was concerned, any publicity was good publicity, and she went on to great Broadway success. When movie producer Paramount Pictures discovered her films were so popular that she saved them from bankruptcy.
• • Anybody who stands out against conservative morals of the day gets targeted, and West was no exception. Conservative critics constantly tried to get her censored and in 1937, when she was at the height of her movie and radio career, they succeeded. . .
• • Source: Article: "Mae West, Hollywood Icon, Undaunted by Catholic Decency Groups Moral Superiority & NBC Censors" written by Jennifer Stewart for Stepping Out of History; posted on 16 January 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2036th 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 • • on Welfare Island, May 1922 • •
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Mae West: Queen of the Third Sex

Many people think of MAE WEST as a movie queen. But she was also a writer who worked hard honing her witticisms and comic comebacks. The Brooklyn bombshell discussed her habits with Dick Cavett on "Backlot USA" [1976], revealing that she did not know how to type and she always wrote longhand in bed. Mae also confessed that, since she knew the censors would want to red pencil her manuscripts, she would deliberately put extra material in.
• • In preparation for the walking tour at 3:00 pm on Sunday, 14 August 2011, here's some background on Mae's battles with the purity police during her Broadway career in the 1920s. Instead of pursuing gun-toting bootleggers, City Hall kept the city safe and sanitized by jailing individuals like Mae and some lesbian novelists (like Eve Addams), and also giving O'Neill legal grief over minutiae such as Sunday performances of his plays. Dramatist and resident of "Bohemia" LindaAnn Loschiavo has prepared this look back in time.
• • The artwork, drawn by Michael Di Motta, is taken from his preliminary sketches for The Courting Mae West Comic Book.
• • • • "Mae West in Bohemia — — Gin, Sin, Censorship, and Eugene O'Neill" • • • •
• • The Jazz Age in Greenwich Village might seem like one big party. In spite of the weighty Eighteenth Amendment, which enacted the Prohibition Era in the USA on 16 January 1919, speakeasies were all the rage. The “pansy craze” made drag balls a hot ticket not only for gays but also heterosexuals. And more publishers were renting storefronts in Washington Square and printing left-wing journals, radical essays, little magazines, and controversial plays.
• • Despite the appearance of a free-wheeling society, censorship was ever present. The Catholic Church found a champion in New York’s Gov. Alfred E. Smith [elected governor in 1922, 1924, and 1926]. And The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV or SSV), founded in 1873 by Anthony Comstock, was a leading force in banning books by James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence, and lodging complaints about “dirt” plays on Broadway. [After his death in 1915, Comstock was succeeded by John S. Sumner, who headed the NYSSV until 1950.]
• • • • MAE WEST & CENSORSHIP • • • •
• • In February 1927 Mae was arrested and jailed shortly after her gay play The Drag had a midnight performance on 31 January 1927. Her play Sex (which had been doing good box office at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre for 10 months) was raided and padlocked. After a jury found her guilty, she served a short sentence in the Women’s Workhouse in April 1927.
• • In October 1928, Mae was arrested again when her gay play Pleasure Man opened at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway. Though her well-connected lawyer Nathan Burkan kept her out of jail, the trial in 1930 bankrupted her.
• • • • EUGENE O’NEILL & CENSORSHIP • • • •
• • Throughout his career, Eugene G. O'Neill faced protests and efforts at censorship over material that some found objectionable and scandalous — — or immoral such as The Hairy Ape in 1922.
• • May 15, 1924 After a newspaper noted a "white Actress to kiss Negro's hand" in O'Neill's play All God's Chillun Got Wings [starring Paul Robeson], a member of the Salvation Army and the Society for the Suppression of Vice called for the production to cease. During rehearsal, the Provincetown Players got threatening letters from the Ku Klux Klan. Under a bomb threat, the play opened with a large police presence at the Provincetown Playhouse [15 May 1924]. The Mayor’s office showed their disapproval, too. The directors of the theater had applied for a permit to use a group of children in the first scene and the permit had been refused, no explanation being offered.
• • With its depiction of a passionate relationship between a young man and his stepmother, O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms outraged New York District Attorney Joab Banton after it opened on Broadway in 1924. Banton had also targeted other productions at the time. . . . But Desire, he said, was "too thoroughly bad to be purified by blue pen," and he threatened to convene a grand jury if the play was not shut down. After the producer refused, Banton created a citizen jury to evaluate the morality of Broadway productions. Upon seeing Desire, the play jury reached a verdict that it was not obscene, and the show went on. O'Neill bemoaned the final result. "We got a large audience, but of the wrong kind of people," O’Neill said. "They came for dirt and found it in everything.”
• • • • Greenwich Village's "queen of the third sex" • • • •
• • Eva Kotchever, a Jewish Polish emigre, took the name Eve Addams and proclaimed herself to be "queen of the third sex." At Eve's Hang-out on MacDougal St., social activities included poetry readings, salons, and discussions focused on sexual topics. A few newspapers raised an alarm about this cafe "where ladies prefer each other" and a sign on her door that announced MEN ARE ADMITTED BUT NOT WELCOME. Tipped off, an under-cover policewoman stopped by, and began to drop in and flirt with Eve, who shared some of her writing with the newcomer, a book titled Lesbian Love. The police raided the premises in June 1926. Charged with obscenity, Eve was sent to the Women’s Workhouse, then deported at the end of the year.
• • Mae West & Eugene O'Neill: Off-beat Links • •
• • Eugene O'Neill loved to watch boxing as much as Mae West did. Anyone who went to take in the fights at Madison Square Garden during the 1920s or early 1930s might have spotted Gene or Mae in a good seat. Of course the Brooklynite had an advantage here in that she could also date the prizefighters after the bout.
• • On Sunday afternoon, 14 August 2011 • •
• • "Mae West in Bohemia — — Gin, Sin, Censorship, and Eugene O'Neill"
• • Mae West's birthday is August 17th. Join us at 3:00 pm on Sunday afternoon, 14 August 2011. The title of this illustrated historical theme walk is "Mae West in Bohemia — — Gin, Sin, Censorship, and Eugene O'Neill." Rare vintage illustrations will show you how the buildings and blocks looked as these two theatre people saw them.
• • Where: This illustrated walking tour begins at 62 West Ninth Street, NYC (near Sixth Avenue). Join us and take a walk on the wild side this weekend on August 14th.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West told this to a reporter (but maybe it was said tongue-in-cheek): "Right now I think censorship is necessary. The things they're doing and saying in films right now just shouldn't be allowed. There's no dignity anymore and I think that's very important."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Celia Walden writes: Mr. Chow had pulled off every restaurateur’s dream: transposing a restaurant and its atmosphere from one city to another. Not that the idiosyncrasies of the Sixties Brit Pack could rival this lot. Chow can still remember Mae West being given a standing ovation for finishing her meal and scrawling “for food that’s best, ask Mae West” in the visitor’s book. ...
• • Source: Interview: "Mr. Chow — — How the world's starriest restaurateur turned feeding the famous into an art" written by Celia Walden for The Telegraph (UK); posted on Monday, 08 August 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2017th 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 • • 1927 • •
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Mae West: Steel Swan

Most often linked to Brooklyn, MAE WEST moved to Queens (an area still known as "Long Island" then) sometime after 1917 — — when her family secured a modest dwelling in suburban blue-collar Woodhaven, New York. In 1920, when the census-takers interviewed the household, John West, 53, was engaged as a masseuse, teenage John was clerking at a newspaper, 21-year-old Beverly (though married to Sergei since 1917) was still living with her parents and jobless, and 26-year-old Mae was touring steadily in vaudeville.
• • Blackwell's Island Bridge • •
• • The 59th Street Bridge had opened to the public on 30 March 1909, having cost about $18 million and dozens of lives. A ceremonial grand opening was held in June 1909. It was then known as the Blackwell's Island Bridge. The double cantilevered span, also called the Queensboro Bridge, crosses the East River, connecting Long Island City with Manhattan, passing over the once bustling Women's Workhouse on this curious spit of land that had also housed a hospital and a lunatic asylum.
• • Thanks to this graceful steel swan, Long Island acreage that had been farmland, cemeteries, and swamps became growing neighborhoods accessible by the streetcar, trolley, bicycle, railways, and the automobile.
• • As a working actress, Mae West crossed this bridge dozens of times as she returned to the parental abode after a performance. Encouraged by her mother, during March 1921 Mae mailed her slim playscript "The Ruby Ring" to the Library of Congress. At 20 pages, this manuscript was more of an extended "sketch" than a play. Gloria, the female lead, is a man-trap who is able to pick the gents off with ease.
• • Her family was still living there in 1922 when 29-year-old Mae added a full-length play — — "The Hussy" — — to these Washington, DC archives. Nona, the female lead, likes generous fellows who demonstrate their devotion to a gal by dropping jewelry on her.
• • But a different path in late January 1927 would lead to events that took the ambitious trouper across the span with other inmates to the Women's Workhouse.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Roosevelt Island — — At one point in time, New York City exported most of its problems to Roosevelt Island, now a cozy off-shore town, explains Amanda Cormier. The small strip of land in the East River — — known first as Blackwell’s Island, then Welfare Island in 1921, and Roosevelt Island in 1973 — — housed some of the city’s most famous “undesirables” in its penitentiary: Boss Tweed, Mae West, and Billie Holiday, who served a four-month term for prostitution charges.
• • “The river became the place where they put all sorts of public institutions,” says Edwin Burrows, professor of history at Brooklyn College, holder of a doctorate from Columbia, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898.” He adds, “It wasn’t until the early 1940s and 1950s that it became prime real estate.” ....
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Reconstructing History — — professors speak on New York’s forgotten buildings and blocks
• • BY: Amanda Cormier | Columnist
• • Published by The Eye | The Columbia Daily Spectator — — eye.columbiaspectator.com
• • Published on: 28 January 2010
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Jim Traficant

Now being sold, the paintings of an expelled congressman are all earmarked with his tribute to MAE WEST.
• • As shown on his Betty Boop canvas, the capital "M" in the moon on each of Jim Traficant's work is a striking tribute to the Brooklyn blonde.
• • Everybody in the whole cell block/ Was dancin' to the jailhouse rock ... • •
• • The convicted felon, freed after a 7-year stint in prison, also admires (and has sketched) Elvis. In Ohio, his welcome home booze-and-shmooze fest featured Elvis Presley impersonators. What an opportunity for a deejay to play "Jailhouse Rock"!
• • Born in Youngstown, Ohio on 8 May 1941, James Traficant, Jr. became an amateur artist as a way to pass time during his incarceration. The disgraced politician was once a Democratic Representative in the United States Congress from Ohio during 1985 to 2002. In 2002, however, Traficant was convicted on 10 felony charges — — bribery, racketeering, tax evasion, forcing his aides to perform chores at his Ohio farm and on his houseboat, and obstruction of justice — — lawlessness brought about by his demanding kickbacks from his staff and "forgetting" about paying taxes, among other criminal arrogance. Ousted from the House in a vote of 420 to one, Traficant was sent to the Big House, his devil tail between his legs.
• • A number of inmates have been moved to charitable acts. Mae West, for instance, funded a library for female prisoners confined to the Women's Workhouse in 1927.
• • Jim Traficant promised to auction off a few paintings to benefit retirees from his district whose company went bankrupt earlier this year. Thus proceeds from the paintings will benefit the Delphi Salaried Retiree Association, a group of autoworkers who are afraid of losing their pensions after the company turned the pensions over to the government's pension insurer. (The group filed suit against the insurer.)
• • Throughout his prison term, the enterprising lawbreaker sold his drawings online as well as through sympathetic Ohio galleries.
• • Released from jail on 2 September 2009, Traficant posted his Betty Boop caricature and others on EBAY. The auction ends Saturday.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • "M" stands for Mae • •
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Mae West: Woody Eney

Woody Eney appeared in a TV bio-pic about MAE WEST.
• • Born in Canberra, Australia during the month of June — — on 8 June 1937 — — Woody Eney was cast in the role of Warden Schleth in the small screen biography "Mae West" [1982] when he was 45 years old. In that docu-drama, Ann Jillian portrayed Mae West, who had died two years before the script was written.
• • Who was Warden Harry O. Schleth? • •
• • During April 1927, Mae West was confined to the Women's Workhouse on Welfare [currently renamed Roosevelt] Island. Reporters scolded Prison Warden Harry O. Schleth for granting the Broadway star some privileges and pandering to a celebrity by taking her for evening drives, letting her dine with him in his private quarters, and so on. In real life, Harry Schleth — — who called Mae "a fine woman" during her exit interview from the jailhouse — — was not from down under, so it's curious that Mr. Eney was chosen for this role and not an American.
• • Though Woody Eney has lent his voice to animated films, his resume more often notes his versatility as a character actor.
• • Between 1976 and 1993, he has appeared in several dozen productions including onstage in an Obie Award winning drama, numerous TV projects, and some small-screen biographies about controversial women. Woody Eney is best known for his participation on TV shows such as "Rags to Riches" and "Friendly Fire" and family fare including Disney's "Homeward Bound: the Incredible Journey" [1993].
• • The Mae West Blog wishes Woody Eney a very happy 72nd birthday today!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: East River

On 27 April 1927, shortly after daybreak, MAE WEST was released from her jail cell.
• • The week before, one of her hometown papers ran with this headline: "Common Nuisance Mae West Goes to Jail."
• • On 20 April 1927 Mae West had been sentenced to ten days in the Women's Workhouse (then located on Welfare Island) in the middle of the East River.
• • During the trial in March and early April — — presided over by Judge George Donnellan — — Mae West had argued in a written statement that her plays were a work of art. Her lawyers made a case that "Sex" was a morally instructive drama. Mae did not take the stand. At Jefferson Market Court, Justice Donnellan had suggested a guilty verdict would be fitting, before the jurors went off to deliberate. Six hours later, the verdict came in. At her sentencing, Mae West was fined $500 and given 10 days to repent at an off-shore detention center.
• • The warden shortened her sentence by two days for good behavior.
• • The play "Courting Mae West" dramatizes the trial and the melee in court when the verdict comes in.
• • Mae was paid $1,000 to write about her experiences for a women's magazine. Some of her essay appears elsewhere on this blog. [Mae donated the $1,000 to the workhouse to establish a library for female inmates.]
• • Released from the lock-up on April 27th, Mae told the reporters — — who were waiting for her like Stage Door Johnnies — — that she had enough material for several plays now. Criminal street cred served the playwright well when she sat down to write "Diamond Lil" about a woman with a thing for bling, whose motto is, "My career is diamonds."
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Just Feel It

L.A. Times reporter Steve Harvey, who pens the amusing "Only in L.A." column, was dipping into newspaper archives, recalling MAE WEST, and contemplating jail-wear.
• • Steve Harvey writes: I couldn't help but think of Paris Hilton's recent stay in the pokey when I read in a collection of articles from the old New York World newspaper about the similar experience of actress Mae West. West, sentenced to 10 days in custody [at the Women's Workhouse] in April 1927 for an allegedly obscene stage production, was shocked by the clothing she was issued.
• • "Warden, I can't wear this cotton underwear," Mae West protested. "I never wore anything like it in my life. It scratches. Just feel it."
• • "Wait a minute," responded the warden. "I'll take a chance on almost anything — — but I'll not feel your underwear."
• • Source: L.A. Times — — (800) LATIMES
• • Byline: Steve Harvey
• • Published: 12 August 2007
• • Book some time with Mae West 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 5 more days until Mae's birthday!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1927 visit, leading socialites around the Women's Workhouse • •
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