Mae West: "Gorilla" Honored

MAE WEST was attracted not just to character actors but to genuine characters such as William "Gorilla" Jones [1906 — 1982]. News comes today that the former boxer will be honored next year.
• • According to Adelaide Now, three-time heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis headlines the 2009 induction class into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
• • Lennox Lewis enters as a modern era fighter, along with American bantamweight champion Orlando Canizales and South African junior lightweight champion Brian Mitchell.
• • Posthumous honorees are middleweight champion William "Gorilla" Jones, welterweight champion "Mysterious" Billy Smith, and middleweight champion Billy Soose.
• • Inductees were voted in by members of the Boxing Writers Association and a panel of international boxing historians. The induction ceremony is June 14, 2009 . . . .
• • The new nominees include William "Gorilla" Jones
• • WILLIAM "GORILLA" JONES • •
• • Born in Memphis, Tennessee, May 12, 1906. Turned pro in 1924. Jones stopped Oddone Piazza with a sixth-round TKO to win NBA middleweight title in 1931. After title loss to Marcel Thil, Jones regained the NBA crown in 1933 with a seventh-round KO of Sammy Slaughter. Retired in 1940 with a career mark of 101-24-13 and 52 KOs. In retirement, became chauffeur and bodyguard for Hollywood starlet Mae West. Died January 4, 1982. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Published in: Adelaide Now — — www.news.com.au
• • Published on: 10 December 2008
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: Graham Avenue

By the late 1890s, MAE WEST's family had moved to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
• • Since John West often found work as a "special policeman" and a bouncer — — jobs that kept him on his feet until very late at night and early in the morning — — he gravitated towards neighborhoods where an efficient mass transit system was already in place. And the long expected operation of trolley cars across the Brooklyn Bridge began in January 1898 with the Graham Avenue line of the Brooklyn Heights Railroad. [The Graham Avenue Line was selected because it carried the largest number of passengers to the bridge in 1898.]
• • Supporting his growing family [which included little Mary Jane/ "Mae" born in August 1893 and baby Mildred born in December 1898] forced John West into odd employment situations — — for instance, as a watchman who was hired in 1899 to patrol Grand Avenue. One of the burglars he apprehended was stealing from the Belvidere Bicycle Company on Grand Avenue; John West ran to the corner of Grand and Graham Avenue where he got assistance from Officer Golden at the Stagg Street Precinct to help arrest the brazen 24-year-old thief.
• • But one of her father's jobs gave flight to Mae's career aspirations.
• • In November 1901 the superb Folly Theatre opened on Debevoise Street and Graham Avenue within walking distance of the West household. John West was hired as a bouncer and he soon got on speaking terms with the vaudevillians who performed there. And his loved ones enjoyed a free pass to many features. Matilda took young Mae to shows at this flagship of Hyde and Behman's Brooklyn houses. Measuring 36' by 80', the stage could accommodate the most elaborate scenery. The main floor of the auditorium had 850 seats and the balcony held an additional 600 chairs. Three ceiling paintings, floral artwork, and other decorations added to the splendor and luxuriousness of this playhouse. When the crowd applauded an actress, Matilda told Mae that she could be important like that. A star was born on Graham Avenue.
• • Graham Avenue was named for John and James Lorimer Graham who were land-jobbers in Williamsburg during the first part of the nineteenth century. Jobbers sought to purchase lots for the sole purpose of making a profit. Look who we New Yorkers have named our streets after: profiteers who drive up our real estate prices. Just once though I'd like to see a local street named for Mae West, wouldn't you?
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • in Mae's footsteps • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: Fans with Pens

MAE WEST makes an appearance in a new release by a film-buff.
• • Star-struck by age four, Jan Wahl has penned "an autobiography of sorts" titled, Through a Lens Darkly, which chronicles his life in the film industry, detailing his experiences rubbing elbows with Hollywood notables such as Mae West, Rita Hayworth, Robert Mitchum, among others.
• • This Sunday, Jan Wahl will appear at Way Public Library [101 East Indiana Avenue, Perrysburg, Ohio 43551] at 2 o'clock to promote this title, according to the author who now makes his home in Toledo, Ohio.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West.

Mae West: A New DVD

MAE WEST pops up onscreen again in a new DVD released this week.
• • The title is: "WHY BE GOOD: SEXUALITY & CENSORSHIP IN EARLY CINEMA" [Image, unrated, 2008] — — hey, hey, hey, this is hoo-ha central!
• • Accompanying this frisky footage is the actress Diane Lane, who narrates a breezy documentary that looks at the ways in which sexpots Mae West, Clara Bow, and Marlene Dietrich pushed the va-va-voom envelope in the days before Hollywood adopted proto-MPAA Production Code. Extras: None.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West.

Mae West: Arch Obler

Close to Christmas — — on 12 December 1937 — — MAE WEST appeared in two separate sketches on ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's radio show, The Chase & Sanborn Hour, that shocked both the listening audience and NBC executives. Since Mae was promoting her latest film, the studio felt that this popular weekly program would give her free exposure — — and Edgar Bergen [1903 — 1978] had attracted his own substantial fan base.
• • Gowned and bejeweled, Mae West appeared as herself, flirting very heavily with Charlie McCarthy, Bergen's dummy, utilizing her usual brand of sexy wit and risqué sexual references.
• • Even more outrageous was a sketch earlier in the show, written by Arch Oboler, that starred Mae West and Don Ameche as Adam and Eve in the Garden Of Eden. The conversation between the two was considered so bawdy, bordering on blasphemous, that she was banned from being featured, or even mentioned, on the NBC network. She did not appear on radio for many years.
• • Arch Obler • •
• • Script writer Arch Obler suffered no consequences, however.
• • Hired pen Arch Obler was born in the month of December — — on 7 December 1909 — — and chances are good that Mae did not waste much money sending him birthday cards.
• • Arch Oboler [7 December 1909 — 19 March 1987] was a scriptwriter, novelist, producer, and director who was active in films, radio, and television. Born in Chicago, to a Bavarian-Jewish German father and an Irish Catholic mother, he grew up Protestant.
• • Arch Oboler generated much attention for his radio scripts, and his work in radio remains the outstanding period of his career. Although some noted a tendency for gruesomeness, he received praise as one of broadcasting's top talents, and he is regarded today as one of the innovators of old time radio.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1937 • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: Pal

While Broadway is playing musical chairs, the return of a 68-year-old musical to the Gay White Way on 18 December 2008 has a whiff of MAE WEST.
• • Which names would you cast in the principal roles in Rodgers & Hart's "Pal Joey"?
• • The Hollywood Reporter reminded readers this has never been a creampuff of a show.
• • According to the Hollywood Reporter: For all its legendary status today, the reviews for the original production — — it opened December 25, 1940, at the Barrymore and made a star of Gene Kelly — — were decidedly mixed. It lasted less than a year (374 performances), with the 1952-53 revival (540 performances) being much more warmly received. Later revivals were done with the title role played by Bob Fosse (1963) and Christopher Chapman (1976).
• • Meanwhile, Columbia bought the film rights early on, but for various reasons — — including hassles from the Production Code Office because of the "Joey" story line and lyrics of several of its songs — — it took 17 years before cameras turned.
• • Along the way, however, several interesting casting ideas for it were announced: Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth, the latter playing the young love interest, in the 1940s; Marlon Brando and Mae West as the older woman in the early 1950s; as well as Jack Lemmon and Marlene Dietrich — — Dietrich eventually turning it down because, at the time, she'd never heard of Lemmon.
• • It was finally done in 1957 with Frank Sinatra as Joey and the older woman played by Hayworth, who at 39 was three years younger than her boy toy. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Published in: Reuters/ Hollywood Reporter
• • Published on: 5 December 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West.

Mae West: The Lyric

Some people in Alabama still remember their first visit to the Lyric, the magnificent old vaudeville and movie palace at Third Avenue and 18th Street North downtown, where MAE WEST once wowed the audience.
• • According to a local scribe Jesse Chambers: Built in 1914 when Birmingham, Alabama was a raucous young boomtown with a thriving entertainment district, the Lyric Theatre once played host to the greatest names in entertainment but is now all but forgotten — — in urgent need of both renovation and public rediscovery. . . .
• • The people of Birmingham get a rare opportunity to visit the Lyric and, perhaps, to experience the same thrill of discovery that Burrow did [i.e., Holly Burrow, Director of the new Hill Arts Center], this Sunday, December 7th, 2008, from 2 — 4 p.m., during the 2008 Christmas Open House at the Alabama, the Lyric, and the Hill Center. On hand to answer questions about the Lyric . . . will be Dan Liles, a former history instructor at Marion Institute who is now the unofficial historian of the Lyric and the Alabama. . . .
• • For event information, phone: (205) 252-2262.
• • Legendary theatrical promoter Jake Wells built the Lyric as a top-tier vaudeville house, with 1,200 great seats, magnificent acoustics and elegant decor, and it quickly became the premier venue in Birmingham. Vaudeville was the name used to describe the wildly eclectic, often bawdy variety shows that were the most popular form of entertainment in America before the coming of radio and sound films. All the greats played the Lyric — Mae West, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Buster Keaton, George Burns, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, Sophie Tucker, Billie Burke, and the Marx Brothers.
• • The good times for the Lyric, and for vaudeville, came to an end with the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. Wells lost his theatres, including the Lyric, to the mortgage company. The Schubert organization leased the Lyric and continued to present vaudeville, but the form was dying and, by the mid 1930s, the theatre was sold to the Waters family of Birmingham and became a second-run movie house. It closed in 1958 and has been largely unused since then. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "The voice of the theatre: Holiday open house to showcase the Alabama Theatre and the lovely Lyric"
• • Byline: Jesse Chambers
• • Published in: Birmingham Weekly — — www.bhamweekly.com/
• • Published on: 5 December 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West.

Mae West: Ignited

An article on blonde bombshells fired up the name of MAE WEST.
• • According to journalist Matt Bechtold: While the 1940s saw major changes in the gender roles of women when the “Rosies” went to work in factories to support the war effort, it was the Hollywood starlets and pin-up girls that would take empowerment and sexual redefinition to the next level in the 1950s.
• • Blonde bombshells • •
• • Blonde bombshells like Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Grable planted the idea that women could be more than the domestic roles that had previously defined them. Then-pin-up girls like Bettie Page — — and burlesque stars like Lili St. Cyr — — took such rebellion to the extreme.
• • Today, the pin-up girl is making a comeback.
• • Just as pin-ups and burlesque shows were a rebellion against the ‘50s social construct of the obedient housewife, the pendulum is now swinging back in rebellion against the way “sexy” has been reduced to “slutty” — — the empowered, sexy woman reduced to a powerless sex object in everything from pornography to fashion.
• • There's a growing desire to once again leave a little something to the imagination while still being sexy and fun, and a return to the pin-up makes that possible. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Pins and pompadours: The return of rockabilly"
• • Byline: Matt Bechtold
• • Published in: The Kansan — — www.kansan.com
• • Published on: Thursday, 4 December 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West.

Mae West: Make 'Em Laugh

MAE WEST is featured in a new title about American comedy and in a new series on PBS.
• • Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America
• • Written by: Michael Kantor & Laurence Maslon (Twelve, 384 pages, 2008)
• • An enlightening book review by John Grooms appears below.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Too often, books created to accompany major PBS documentary series make a crucial mistake: They try to reproduce the series, using still pictures and text. With a couple of notable exceptions (Ken Burns' The War and Lewis and Clark), it rarely works, and what had promised to be great coffee table books turn into dust collectors bound for the used bookstore. Fortunately, the authors of Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America took a different approach.
• • Let's back up a bit.
• • In January, PBS will broadcast Make 'Em Laugh, a 6-hour series about American comedy of the last century. The series, which promises to be extraordinarily wide-ranging, especially considering its time constraints, will be divided into six hour-long episodes. Series creator Michael Kantor (who produced and directed PBS' Emmy-winning Broadway: The American Musical) decided not to move chronologically through the years from, say, Laurel and Hardy to Chris Rock. Instead, he divided American comedy into six genres. "I was afraid if we broke it down by decade, it would get predictable," Kantor says. "With comedy, we wanted to have more surprise."
• • • • Here's how Make 'Em Laugh breaks down: • • • •
• • Episode One, "The Knockabouts," features masters of physical humor including, among others, Charlie Chaplin, Lucille Ball, Harpo Marx, The Three Stooges, and Jim Carrey.
• • Episode Two, "Satire and Parody," takes in everything from Will Rogers through Laugh-In and The Daily Show.
• • Three, "Smart-Alecks and Wiseguys," showcases the likes of Groucho Marx, Jack Benny, the great Tim Moore ("Kingfish" from Amos 'n' Andy), and Larry David.
• • Four, "Nerds, Jerks, Oddballs and Slackers," highlights everyone from Harold Lloyd and Bob Hope to Phyllis Diller, Jonathan Winters, and Andy Kaufman.
• • Five, "Breadwinners and Homemakers," looks at sitcoms through the ages, from radio's The Goldbergs and early television's George Burns and Gracie Allen to Seinfeld and The Simpsons.
• • Finally, Episode Six explores "Groundbreakers" (i.e., artists who got into trouble for their language and attitudes) such as Mae West, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and, of course, George Carlin.
• • The series features tons of classic clips, interviews with performers, and a cast of knowledgeable talking heads to provide context; all in all, Make 'Em Laugh promises to be a great mix of comedy, biography, and American history.
• • The only problem with the series is that it has too much ground to cover in too short a time. (Yes, six hours is a long series, but trying to fit all of American comedy of the last century into six hours? Come on.) That's where the accompanying book comes in. Lucky for us, the authors — — Kantor and Laurence Maslon, editor of Library of America's George S. Kaufman collection — — made their book into a solid, entertaining addition to the series. The pair realized how quickly a comedy routine deflates when it's merely described, so they took a different approach. Instead of replicating the series, they created a font of extra information about America's greatest comedians' lives and art, and made the book a source of additional insight into those artists' work — — not to mention a storehouse for hundreds of great photos. The book's widely varied chapters contain unexpected surprises, such as a series of essays on early developments in American comedy including vaudeville and radio comedies, or a well-told reminder of the explosive and important role played by "All In The Family" in the evolution of sitcoms.
• • There are also several moving chapters on the private struggles of some comic actors, including Mae West, Gilda Radner, and Charlie Chaplin. Perhaps none of the stories are more poignant, or odd, than that of Paul Lynde, a supremely sardonic, gay comic actor who did relatively well in theater and films during a still-closeted era, but wound up doing some of his funniest work as a perpetual guest on the Hollywood Squares game show.
• • Kantor structured the TV series and the book differently, but he says they both share the same purpose: to reveal truths about particular places and times by examining, and celebrating, what enchanted its audiences. Kantor explains that he hopes "to show how our greatest comedians have reflected America's social climate ... In the same way you can learn about the state of the country by the song, 'Brother, can you spare a dime?' or the musical Hair, you can learn about the Great Depression or Mae West's era by the jokes they were telling."
— — Source: — —
• • Book Review: "Make 'Em Laugh examines comedy greats"
• • By John Grooms
Published in: Creative Loafing — — charlotte.creativeloafing.com
Published on: 2 December 2008
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: December 1977

On 1 December 1977 MAE WEST was very busy.
• • "Sextette" began production on that date.
• • Synopsis: Marlo Manners is enjoying her honeymoon with Sir Michael Barrington, husband number six. As Lady Luck would have it, an international conference is taking place in the same hotel and the Russian delegate (one of Marlo's former husbands) is threatening to derail the negotiations unless he can have one more fling with his ex.
• • "Sextette" was released on 3 March 1978.
• • Mae West attended the screening of that film with her longtime buddy Herb Kenwith — — who remembered that the leading lady said very little afterwards except that she had to move on. Tsk.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West.