skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Rona Barrett called her friend MAE WEST "the star that will not dim." But in January 1930 the inner illumination that guided the actress failed.
• • As the Los Angeles engagement of "Diamond Lil" was winding down, a telegram arrived. The condition of Matilda West was worsening; the cancer had spread to her liver. Mae West hired a private train. On 14 January 1930 — — after their last performance in California — — Mae and the cast left for Brooklyn, New York.
• • The death of 59-year-old Matilda West in January 1930 "was a staggering blow," admitted Mae, who was inconsolable.
• • Born in December 1870 in Bavaria, Matilda died in an apartment on Euclid Avenue in Brooklyn, perhaps being nursed there by relatives. [Matilda and Jack had also owned a house on 88th Street in Woodhaven, Queens according to the 1920 Census. By 1927 the West family was residing on Jericho Turnpike in Floral Park, Queens, New York.]
• • On 27 January 1930 Mae West attended the funeral.
• • In this photo, crime boss Owney Madden waits for her by the door of the sedan, wearing a dark topcoat with a Persian lamb collar.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Owney Madden • • 1930 • •
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/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Owen Moore • • 1933 • •
NYC
Mae West.
NEWSDAY [13 January 2008] reported a collaboration between MAE WEST and The Naked Stage in Suffolk County on Long Island, where the play "SEX" will be presented next month.
• • According to columnist Aileen Jacobson, The Naked Stage is a 8-year-old troupe — — a theatrical collective that stages readings of plays with established actors but without scenery or costumes. Already flourishing at East Hampton's Guild Hall, where it's been in residence since 2002, the group is branching out to communities where, especially in winter, there's generally not much to do.
• • In her column "On the Isle" Aileen Jacobson interviewed the founder: "I think of myself as a cultural warrior," says Josh Perl, 47, who started The Naked Stage in 2000 at Southampton College, where he taught dance in the theater department while enrolled in the creative writing program. Formerly a dancer with Pilobolus Dance Theatre, he teaches English at Suffolk County Community College.
• • Josh Perl says he hopes to spread the readings to more East End communities where live theater is rare or nonexistent. The company's committee of six readers looks for works that are new, rarely revived, or otherwise worth a look, and audiences are invited to give feedback after performances. It's easy, he says, to get well-known actors involved. "Actors like to work, and they will work with relatively unknown people just to do an interesting play," he says.
• • Mercedes Ruehl has participated at Guild Hall, and Harris Yulin acted in Chekhov's "The Seagull" at a test run (to gauge audience interest) at Montauk Library in February, says Perl.
• • The series at Guild Hall is already running strong. Josh Gladstone, artistic director of the John Drew Theater there, is his partner at the East Hampton venue, Perl says. Guild Hall's next offering, on Tuesday, 15 January 2008, is Marsha Norman's 1983 Pulitzer Prize-winning "'Night, Mother," with Sloane Shelton and Kate Mueth. Coming up at rapid clip — — two or three a month — — are works by such big names as MAE WEST, Woody Allen, and some non-marquee local writers.
"'Night, Mother" Tuesday, short comedies by Jonathan Wallace of Amagansett and by Woody Allen Jan. 29, "Sex," by Mae West on Feb. 12, 2008, and more — — at 7:30 p.m., Guild Hall, 158 Main St., East Hampton, NY 11937 — — free, call 631-324-0806 or visit guildhall.org.
— — Source: — — • • Newsday — — www.newsday.com/
• • Byline: Aileen Jacobson | On the Isle
• • Published on: 13 January 2008
• • 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.
• • The event's board of directors met and approved the director's pitch — — and the compelling history play "COURTING MAE WEST" has cleared the first hurdle to be onstage this summer during their annual early July festival in a theatre in Manhattan.
• • The Fresh Fruit Festival offers over 30 live acts. Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets is one of the two plays they will produce. The 95-minute serious-minded comedy will be shown FOUR times onstage [in a theatre with approximately 80 seats].
• • Details and ticket prices will be posted when available.
• • After the 9 February 1927 performance of "SEX," Mae was hauled off to Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue, where she spent the night locked up in Jefferson Market Jail with streetwalkers, pickpockets, and drug addicts.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" is based on true events during 1926-1932 when Mae West was arrested and jailed for trying to stage two gay plays on Broadway.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Illustration: Michael DiMotta • • Mae West star of SEX • • 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.
"MAE WEST herself, not to be outdone by Sadie Thompson, kissed hither and yon with abandoned passion," reported the New York American [27 April 1926], reviewing the play "Sex" [then onstage at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre in New York City]. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Broadway blockbuster "Rain" also had featured military men in the plot. Early advertisements for "Sex" promised the play was "more sensational than 'Rain'!"
• • The following year, during the obscenity trial, Mae famously quipped, "People want dirt in their plays, so I give 'em dirt."
• • What Mae West never admitted to publicly, though, was the anger and resentment that motivated her to write certain scenes, such as this explosive exchange. It wasn't selling yourself that irked Mae; it was selling yourself short. And clearly Brooklyn-born Mae chafed when scrutinized by society's high hats such as Connecticut-bred Clara Stanton.
• • Listen in on ACT III, Scene 1 of SEX:
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
CLARA: I'll not listen.
MARGY: Oh, yes you will. You've got the kind of stuff in you that makes women of my type. If our positions were changed — — you in my place, and I in yours — — I'd be willing to bet that I'd make a better wife and mother than you are. Yeah, and I'll bet without this beautiful home, without money, and without any restrictions, you'd be worse than I have ever been.
CLARA: No, no — —
MARGY: Yes you would. You'd do it and like it.
CLARA: For God's sake stop it, I can't endure any more — —
MARGY: Now you're down off your pedestal. You're down where you can see — — it's just a matter of circumstances. The only difference between us is that you could afford to give it away.
• • Dialogue between Margy LaMont, a prostitute, and Clara Stanton, a wealthy woman, from Mae West's play Sex, a Comedy Drama, 1926 [NY: Routledge, 1997].
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West in SEX • • 1926 • •
NYC
Mae West.
January-born diva Dolly Parton admires MAE WEST.
• • Back in June 2003, when Parton was expecting to portray the Brooklyn bombshell in an upcoming (though aborted) TV movie, she used a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Dixie Stampede (a $28 million attraction in Orlando, Florida) to discuss the project with a reporter.
• • "I really relate to her,'' Parton said in a once-over-slightly interview in an upstairs conference room at her Dixie Stampede dinner theater, an establishment operated by her family.
• • "We have very similar attitudes toward life and business. It turns out she wrote a lot of her own material and so do I. She also had a healthy attitude about sex and men, and so do I,'' Dolly hurriedly told news man Jim Abbott from the Orlando Sentinel.
• • Like Mae West, Tennessee native Dolly Parton [born 19 January 1946] wears many hats — — including author, actress, singer, and high earner. Unlike Mae, Dolly probably needs a brassiere constructed by the likes of Roebling to keep her exaggerated silicone curves afloat. Self-enhanced but self-deprecating, Dolly enjoys saying, "It costs a lot to look this cheap."
• • Willem de Kooning's famous line — — "I always seem to be wrapped in the melodrama of vulgarity" — — could easily be Dolly's trademark. Ultimately, the TV producers felt she was too tawdry and low-class to portray the empress of sex.
• • Last weekend Dolly Parton's dinner theater, the Dixie Stampede, abruptly closed its Orlando branch after receiving a lucrative offer for the 13 acres of land it sits on. Over 200 employees found themselves out of work but it's quite a January birthday present for the multi-millionaire entertainer.
• • 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 was famously jailed at Jefferson Market Jail in Greenwich Village [once located between Greenwich Lane and West Tenth Street], and tried at Jefferson Market Police Court in 1927. By 1927, the PRISON housed only female felons — — and, making the best use of her incarceration, the Broadway star took notes on the inmates and used this material in her play "Diamond Lil." Mae especially admired Lulu, an experienced stick-up woman in her cell. "It really takes a lot of nerve to hold up a man," the awed actress told a news man who covered the trial. "If I wanted local color, I sure got it in that place."
• • Misinformed people have spread the incorrect assumption that Mae West was in the tall, modernized Women's House of Detention. Not only was the House of Detention not around in 1927, since it was designed during the Prohibition Era, it would look quite unlike the elaborate nineteenth century jail, which beautifully matched the rest of the judicial complex. [The left foreground area shows a low-rise masonry market building designed by Douglas Smith in 1883.] • • People who make this mistake include actor David Duchovny, whose motion picture "House of D" [2004] paid homage to the former correctional facility [erected 1931, Sloan and Robertson, architects; demolished 1974]. When I interviewed the Yale-educated actor, he proudly told me Mae West had been locked up there. I winced.• • In this 1883 illustration, the Jefferson Market Jail is on the far left. That is the structure that would be razed and replaced with an ugly Art Deco House of Detention [1931-1974] that resembled an upright milk container. This one acre lot — — formerly a jail, and once a house of detention — — is now a garden.
• • Preservation takes many forms. Greenwich Villagers, led by Margot Gayle, stopped the city from destroying the courthouse and clock tower. Another Greenwich Villager has preserved some of the cultural history of the jail and courthouse by situating a few scenes in her play Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets here.
• • Jefferson Market history buffs might enjoy jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/
• • What's left? What was spared by the wrecking ball? • • What is left of the magnificent nineteenth century courthouse, with its iconic fire tower and "Old Jeff" (its beloved chiming clock), is in deplorable condition — — an unsafe deterioration that has been ignored by the great minds that run the New York Public Library.
• • Instead of fixing the front portico of the former courthouse, for instance, which had dangerously detached from the building (letting the rain and snow penetrate and rust the iron framework), the Fifth Avenue goons diddled away almost $200,000 of City funding [i.e., taxpayers' money] by planning a teen music lounge for the library's basement. Oh, yes, it's clear the New York Public Library bigwigs need to read more books about architecture and landmark preservation, we'd say.
• • Here is an article that appeared (shortly after Mae West's birthday) about the overdue restoration of the New York City landmark. Staffmembers at The New York Times are no longer as careful about fact-checking as they used to be, alas. Fortunately, reporters can refer to the blogosphere and correct their errors with our guidance [even if they do not credit our blogs].
• • A Long-Needed Restoration for a Victorian Gothic Masterpiece • •
• • Jefferson Market Courthouse • •
• • The former Jefferson Market Courthouse, a Victorian Gothic masterpiece in Greenwich Village, will undergo a $7 million renovation to fix its façade, windows, roof, and tower and shore up its structural integrity, city officials announced today.
• • The building — — at 425 Avenue of the Americas at West 10th Street — — now houses a branch of the New York Public Library. But it is in a precarious state.
• • A report completed in February by LI/Saltzman Architects, an architectural preservation firm, found significant deterioration in the building’s sandstone and brickwork. The deterioration, which included open mortar joints and cracked stone, had allowed water to penetrate the building’s façade, causing the stonework to move and settle and rusting the iron framework.
• • A sidewalk bridge has been in place for four years outside the library to protect passers-by from falling pieces of sandstone, caused by the corrosion of the iron framework and cracks throughout the stonework. The entrance portico on the Avenue of the Americas has detached from the building and is leaning slightly toward the street. The funding will go to not only correct these issues and return the façade to its original splendor, but also to shore up the previous deficiencies that led to the original deterioration.
• • About $7 million has now been dedicated to the project.
• • The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, a Democrat who represents the Village, has allocated about $4.1 million to the renovations, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has contributed about $2.2 million. State Senator Thomas K. Duane allocated about $700,000 to the project when he was a Council member. Ms. Quinn and Mr. Duane joined the president of the New York Public Library, Paul LeClerc, for a financing announcement at the library this afternoon.
• • Christopher Gray of The Times described the building’s rich history in a Streetscapes column in 1994.
• • Designed by Frederick Clark Withers and Calvert Vaux, the building was erected between 1875 and 1877. Over the years it was used, among other things, as a Women’s House of Detention [sic — if reporter Sewell Chan cannot get this straight, then I hope he reads this!], and a police academy. It was a courthouse until 1946, and after that, changed hands among various agencies. ...
• • • • After noticing his errors called out here on the MAE WEST Blog, Sewell Chan adjusted the date the courthouse closed from an incorrect 1927 to a corrected 1946. He also revised the following paragraph.
• • Designed by Frederick Clark Withers and Calvert Vaux, the building was erected between 1875 and 1877. Over the years it was used, among other things, as a jail and a police academy; an adjacent Women’s House of Detention stood on the site from 1929 (when construction started) until 1973 (when it was demolished). The main building served as a courthouse until 1946, and after that, changed hands among various agencies. By 1959, when the preservationist Margot Gayle began a local effort to save the building, it had been abandoned and slated for demolition. Local residents — — including the architect Harold Edelman, the urban theorists Jane Jacobs and Lewis Mumford, the poet E. E. Cummings and the actor Maurice Evans — — joined Ms. Gayle’s effort, and in 1961, Mayor Robert F. Wagner announced the building would be converted to a library, which occurred in 1967.
• • In the mid-1960s, the building was painstakingly restored under the direction of the architect Giorgio Cavaglieri. Mr. Cavaglieri, who died in May [2007] at the age of 95, inserted air conditioning, elevators and library furniture into the building.
• • “He took countless photos to ensure accuracy in replacing a stained-glass window and carved black walnut doors,” Douglas Martin wrote in his obituary of Mr. Cavaglieri. “But features he designed as new — — rather than copied — — were contemporary in material and style. The new entrance to the old circular stair tower, for instance, was through a sleek glass door set into the old carved limestone. The most striking addition was a stark catwalk above the main reading room.”
• • Mr. Gray described the restoration as “the first real instance of a successful historic preservation project in New York City, at a time when skepticism to such a novelty remained very high.”
• • In 1995, the two-ton bell in the tower of the courthouse was tolled, for the first time since 1898, to mark a new slate roof and the completion of the library’s renovation. Now, it seems, the building is crying out for restoration yet again.
— — Source: — — • • The New York Times — — www.nytimes.com/• • Byline: Sewell Chan — — http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/author/schan/2007/08/21/
• • Published on: 21 August 2007
• • The Jefferson Market Branch Library is located at 425 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10011. Greenwich Villagers still refer to the roadway as "Sixth Avenue."
• • 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 pirouettes through a mirrored corridor of a book called: Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design [NY: HarperCollins, Nov. 2007].
• • The unexceptional froth icing the flap copy reminds the book browser of the obvious: "the most memorable movies all have one thing in common: they rely on the magical transformations rendered by the costume designer." [Yawn! Yawn!] Moreover, the dustcover text reveals that "a movie costume must be more than merely a perfect fit." [Tighten your pace-maker for the finale, you clothes horse.] "Each costume speaks a language all its own, communicating mood, personality, and setting, and propelling the action of the movie as much as a scripted line or synthetic clap of thunder" — — and, yes, we realize you cannot bear much more of this hollow style guile.
• • More than a few acting careers were launched on the basis of an unforgettable costume, and many an era defined by the intuition of a costume designer — — think curvy Mae West in I'm No Angel (Travis Banton, costume designer); Judy Garland in A Star is Born (Jean Louis and Irene Sharaff, costume designers); Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (Ruth Morley, costume designer); or Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Deborah Nadoolman Landis, costume designer — — our intrepid author, by jove).
• • "Ah like gowns that are tight enough to show I'm a woman and loose enough to show I'm a lady," proclaimed Mae West (and, yes, this is one of the many quotes dressing up the book).• • In Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design, Academy Award-nominated costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis [her again] showcases one hundred years of Hollywood's most tantalizing costumes and the characters they helped bring to life.
• • Beverly Hills resident Deborah Nadoolman Landis recently completed her second term as president of the Hollywood Costume Designers Guild, where's she clocked a membership for nearly thirty years. Costume design credits include Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Three Amigos, and Coming to America, for which she received an Academy Award nomination.
• • Clearly, Edith Head (though lacking formal education) scarfed up far more annual accolades than Landis, who earned a Ph.D. in the history of costume design from the Royal College of Art — — which is telling. Lacking a lengthy red-carpet trail to Oscar ownership, Landis has deliberately tried for her legacy moment here, by fashioning a solid doorstop of a tome [592 pages], as shapely as a laurel wreath.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST draws a bead of sweat in an earnest review of an Ethel Merman bio.
• • Like Mae, Ethel Merman was born and bred in New York City; fibbed about her birthdate; remained close to her family; was not the introspective type; did not interrupt her strong work ethic with the missteps of drug abuse, recreational pill addiction, breakdowns, nor a stint in rehab. Nevertheless, the two entertainers were quite unalike.
• • Newsday's book maven Liz Brown observes about the Astoria native, who died in 1984 of a brain tumor: "The performer didn't exude the vulnerability of Judy Garland, nor the subversive carnality of Mae West. For all the intimate testimonies, there's very little tension in Merman's personal makeup. Not much evolution, not much growth — — maybe she applied Gershwin's advice [i.e., to never take a singing lesson] too broadly — — and ultimately not enough complexity to grip the reader. ..."
• • We have not yet seen the tombstone-sized biography churned out by Professor Caryl Flinn — — Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman [University of California Press, 556 pages] — — but if you enjoy reading about dames reeking of "subversive carnality," we recommend authors Jill Watts and Emily Wortis Leider on the ever fascinatin' Brooklyn Bombshell.
• • 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.
On 20 January 2008, you are invited to come up and see MAE WEST in the central New York State area [in the vicinity of Oneonta, NY] — — and, yes, even the fresh popcorn is on the house.
• • Thanks to someone's brilliantly quirky idea, the New York Power Authority's Blenheim-Gilboa Pumped Storage Power Project is screening motion picture classics during January. The flickers will begin at 2 o'clock inside the admission-free visitors center.
• • On tap for Sunday 20 January 2008, you can enjoy "Belle of the Nineties" [1934], starring Mae West with music by Duke Ellington.
• • Other Sundays in January will feature "Annie Get Your Gun"; "Brigadoon" [1954], starring Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse; and Ronald Reagan in "This Is the Army" [1943].
• • Popcorn will be available for all the free showings in the visitors center theater.
• • The visitors center is located on state Route 30. For more information, call (800) 724-0309 or visit NYPA on the Web at www.nypa.gov.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST pops up this week in Pontiac. That is "a city in Michigan" — — not the vehicle.
• • The Museum of New Art (MONA) in Pontiac has made space for eighteen talented art students from Oakland University. It is hoped that the exhibition "New Kids on the Block" will be more exciting that the lame name chosen by curator Candace O'Leary, an Oakland senior who happens to be the assistant director of MONA.
• • [If you've ever read those dreadful squibs known as (ahem!) "The Artist's Statement," you know this crew is better off wielding a brush not a fountain pen.]
• • Describing the FREE exhibition for The Detroit News, Michael H. Hodges writes: "Also worth a peek is Thomas Rowland's Mae West video that lightly mocks the art-gallery experience. The image of Mae West never changes — — but beneath it appear constantly changing captions with contradictory, interpretations."
• • "New Kids on the Block" will not over-stay its welcome, so get to the Museum of New Art [7 N. Saginaw St., Pontiac, Michigan; Tel: 248-210-7560] this week.
• • 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-mavens recall when MAE WEST is mentioned in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller "The 39 Steps" [1935].
• • On 4 January 2008, "The 39 Steps" debuts at the American Airlines Theatre [227 West 42nd Street, NYC 10036] in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production. A theatrical reinterpretation of Hitchcock's famous film will follow Richard Hannay, who is lured into a world of intrigue by a mysterious woman claiming to be a spy.
• • In honor of the Broadway opening this week — — described as part espionage thriller and part slapstick comedy — — here is the famous Mae West moment with "Mr. Memory."
• • How many remember the opening sequence of the 1935 thriller "THE 39 STEPS"? Actor Wylie Watson [1889-1966] played the role of Mr. Memory. When a rowdy customer stands up during the Music Hall scene in Alfred Hitchcock's film classic, and repeatedly yells, "How old's Mae West?" Mr. Memory politely refuses to reveal the lady's age.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Scene 1 went something like this: • •
• • • Barker: Ladies and gentlemen... with your kind attention and permission... I have the honor of presenting to you... one of the most remarkable men in the world.
• • • Crowd: How remarkable?
• • • Crowd: He's sweating.
• • • Barker: Can you be surprised at that, gentlemen? Every day he commits to memory new facts... and remembers every one of them. Facts from history, from geography, from newspapers... from scientific books, millions and millions of them. Think of the strain involved by his prodigious feat.
• • • Crowd: His feet ain't half as big as yours, cully.
• • • Barker: I'm referring to his feats of memory. Test him, please. Ladies and gentlemen, ask him your questions... and he will answer you, fully and freely. Mr. Memory. I also add, ladies and gentlemen, before retiring... that Mr. Memory has left his brain to the British Museum.
• • • Crowd: Hurray!
• • • Barker: A question, please.
• • • Crowd: How old is Mae West?
• • • Mr. Memory: I know, sir, but I never tell a lady's age. Next, please. ...
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 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.
Fixated on her career as much as on her Dionysian urges, MAE WEST had a lot in common with Al Jolson, with whom she shared the stage a few times.
• • It's nice to know they both are still touring in "Jolson & Company" — — though some theatre reviewers mistakenly think the two vaudevillians once walked down the aisle.
• • [Geeeez. Get thee to Wikipedia or the Internet Broadway Database, New Jerseyans.]
• • The Princeton Packet's drama critic had this to say in his overview of the best dozen plays and musicals in central New Jersey during 2007.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Referring to the Off-Broadsheet production of "Jolson & Company," Stuart Duncan writes: We go way back to mid-January [2007] for our first show and a terrific trip down memory lane. Al Jolson was one of the nation’s finest performers, a man of huge appetites, and his songs — — “Mammy,” “Rockabye My Baby,” “April Showers” and “Toot, Toot, Tootsie” — — were only some of the 17 in this biographical smash. Bob Thick played Al Jolson, using his opera-trained baritone/ bass voice exquisitely. Heather Diaforli played all the women in his life, including wives Mae West [sic] and Ruby Keeler. Peter Wright made his debut at the piano and sellout audiences roared their approval at Hopewell’s dessert theater. What a delicious beginning to the new year.
• • Source: The Princeton Packet (Princeton, NJ)
• • Byline and errors credited to Stuart Duncan
• • Published on 26 December 2007
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 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.
May you have an a-MAE-zing year ahead! 
• • Mae West rang in her banner New York year, 1928, with a one-night stand, hosting a nightclub, a la Texas Guinan, at Club Deauville — — then located at Park Avenue and East 59th Street [the night of December 31, 1927 — January 1, 1928].
• • During the Prohibition Era, Mae West had bought a townhouse for herself — — at 266 West End Avenue — — shortly before she moved to Hollywood. She lived there with her sister Beverly, whose Russian husband had divorced her over a scandal related to the out-of-town premiere [Bridgeport, Connecticut] of Mae's gay play "The Drag." There was an arrest at the Arcade Hotel and Beverly West along with director Edward Elsner were charged with "disorderly conduct" [i.e., being drunk]. The police action made headlines. Uh-oh!
• • A happier topic would be Mae's old haunts — — the neighborhood known as the Upper West Side [stretching roughly from West 61st to West 76th Street]. This is the single-most-star-studded area in Manhattan, according to the "Star Sleuth" Larry "Wolfe" Horwitz. Within this neighborhood is an area that Larry Horwitz has labeled a Star Walk: a ten-block strip along Central Park West that contains "the greatest concentration of movie stars and other celebrities anywhere in the world," according to him.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • circa 1930 • •
NYC
Mae West.
Rona Barrett called her friend MAE WEST "the star that will not dim." But in January 1930 the inner illumination that guided the actress failed.
