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Character actor Adrian Morris played a minor role in a MAE WEST motion picture "Every Day's a Holiday" [1937].
• • Born in Mount Vernon, NY in the month of January — — on 12 January 1903? (1907?) — — Adrian Michael Morris was the younger son of the prominent Broadway actors William Morris and Etta Hawkins. Adrian was the younger brother of stage and film star Chester Morris.
• • In 1931, he made his (uncredited) screen debut in "Arizona" and his parts were usually the minor supporting roles: a policeman, a gangster, etc.
• • He played a henchman in "Every Day's a Holiday."
• • The other colorful characters he played included the chatty carpetbagger — — who promised a gathering of freed slaves that they'd each receive "40 acres and a mule" — — in "Gone With the Wind" [1939]. He was memorable as the heartless hiring agent who delivers impossible ultimatums to the transient "Okies" in "The Grapes of Wrath" [1940].
• • In the space of a decade, Adrian Michael Morris appeared in over seventy features — — often unbilled or sometimes billed as Michael Morris.
• • His career was cut short. Adrian Morris died in Los Angeles, California on 30 November 1941.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.
Alexander Hall directed "Goin' to Town" [1935], starring MAE WEST. We are thinking of him on his January birthday.
• • Born in Boston on 11 January 1894, Alexander Hall made his stage debut at 4 years old in 1898. By 1914, Hall was working in silent films as an actor.
• • Leaving the motion picture sector to serve in the American Army in World War I, Hall returned from military service in 1917 and re-entered the business — — except he had then decided to become an editor and assistant director.
• • He made his directorial debut in 1932, specializing in comedies. In Hollywood, Hall turned out a number of sophisticated, light-hearted movies.
• • The director lived to be 74. On 30 July 1968, Alexander Hall died in San Francisco, having suffered a stroke.
• • "Goin' to Town" re-cap — —• • After an exclusive engagement at their own theatres, Paramount released this title to hundreds of American movie houses on 17 May 1935. However, no amount of fanfare could have persuaded the critics of its merits.
• • According to the 1935 review published in Variety, this motion picture was "Mae West's poorest." Film critic Abel predicted: Exhibs and exploiteers will have to go to town to sell "Goin' to Town." Uh-oh.• • Paramount production and release. Stars Mae West. Directed by Alexander Hall. Produced by William LeBaron. Original by Marion Morgan and George B. Dowell; screenplay and dialog. Miss West. Songs, Sammy Fain, Irving Kahal; camera, Karl Struss. At the Paramount N.Y. — — week of 10 May 1935. Running time, 75 mins. • • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • "Goin' to Town" • • 1935 • •
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Mae West.
Emerysworld.com has dedicated the month to MAE WEST by introducing several useful items embellished with her image.
• • The Empress of Sex graces their two-year calendar, buttons, magnets, keychains, mirrors, and a handy dandy address book.
• • As a special good luck gift to "Courting Mae West," Emery made a few items expressly for the playwright and the cast! Wow!
• • We know you will really love seeing the Brooklyn bombshell on a come-up-and-see-me keychain as well as on these other nifty items.• • Located in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, the clever creators at Emerysworld can be found online at their EBAY emporium as well as their virtual boutique — — Emerysworld.com, Emerysthestore.com, and Emerysworld.etsy.com — — and wait until you see what intriguing gifts and a-Mae-zing treats they have in store for you. Emery makes Valentine's Day shopping easier.
• • Be sure to come up and see Emery (whose idea bank is never empty) and tell 'em Mae sent you.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • made by Emery • • 2009 • •
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Mae West.
Sixty years ago, MAE WEST — — always feisty, lively, and hard-working — — was suffering with various health problems during January 1949. Portraying the insouciant Diamond Lil was even more difficult while ailing and touring, even for this indefatigable trouper.
• • No doubt these headlines in The New York Times added more stress to both the star and her producers when reporter Sam Zolotow's article was printed in Monday's newspaper on 17 January 1949: MAE WEST REVIVAL DROPS TORONTO RUN; Star's Illness in Baltimore to Halt Buffalo, Syracuse Visits — — Play Due Here February 3rd
• • Sam Zolotow wrote: A gallant attempt by Mae West to minimize her illness hasn't been successful. The star of "Diamond Lil," scheduled to arrive February 3 at the Coronet in the revival of her play, had appeared in Baltimore last week through Friday night [14 January 1949 ], when she was taken ill. . . .
• • Ironically, this distressing announcement appeared in the paper on page 15 in their section called "Amusements" [N.Y. Times, 17 Jan 1949]. We know who was not amused!
• • Perhaps the difficulty of continuing to perform in a three-hour-long stage play even when unwell — — in order not to disappoint ticket-holders and her fans — — contributed to Mae's accident in February 1949, when she fell and broke her ankle.
• • The 1949 Broadway revival at the Coronet Theatre on West 49th was a run Mae West would not forget.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST worked with director Wesley Ruggles, who died on January 8th.
• • Here is what The New York Times film critic had to say about "I'm No Angel" in his review (printed in the newspaper on 13 October 1933). Mordaunt Hall wrote: "Miss West plays her part with the same brightness and naturalness that attended her second film role. There is no lack of spontaneity in her actions or in the utterance of her lines. She is a remarkable wit, after her fashion. Cary Grant is pleasing as Clayton and Walter Walker is excellent as the considerate old judge. Gregory Ratoff does well as Tira's lawyer. Wesley Ruggles has directed the film with his usual intelligence. ..."
• • Born in Los Angeles was Hollywood director Wesley Ruggles [11 June 1889 — 8 January 1972]. A younger brother of actor Charles Ruggles, Wesley directed one of Mae West's most successful films in 1933.
• • In 1915, he began his career as an actor, appearing in several silent films — — a few with Charlie Chaplin. In 1917, he turned director, making more than fifty insignificant and forgettable films before he won acclaim with "Cimarron" [1931] and the financially flush and critically astounding blockbuster starring Mae West the following year. "I'm No Angel" raked in even more profits than "She Done Him Wrong" — — and this was in the height of the Depression.
• • Wesley's brother, actor Charles Ruggles had one of the longest careers in Hollywood, lasting more than 60 years and encompassing more than 100 films.
• • Wesley Ruggles died on 8 January 1972 — — at age 82 — — in Santa Monica, California.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1933 • •
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Mae West.
Key elements of MAE WEST's persona were rooted in black traditions.
• • Mae West herself said that her earliest influence was the black entertainer Bert Williams. She popularized the sexually charged black dance the shimmy. Some believed she had invented it but she didn't; she learned it in a Chicago nightspot.
• • Mae West tinted photographs to make herself look like her black maid. And chronicler Zora Neale Hurston in a 1934 essay, ''Characteristics of Negro Expression,'' said that Mae West ''had much more flavor of the turpentine quarters than she did of the white bawd.''
• • Speaking of Zora Neale Hurston's 1934 essay "Characteristics of Negro Expression" — this was perhaps the first attempt to define the jook joint. Of course, Mae West set "Diamond Lil" in a Bowery saloon that was not too far distant from a jook — — i.e., the "turpentine quarters."
• • In January it's an ideal time to look back at the sharp-eyed writer Zora Neale Hurston.• • Born in Alabama, Zora Neale Hurston [7 January 1891 — 28 January 1960] was a folklorist and an author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance; her best known work was the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God [1937]. In 2002, scholars listed Zora Neale Hurston among the 100 Greatest African-Americans.
• • Huston's essay appeared in a volume that was privately printed in Great Britain at the expense of Nancy Cunard, its editor. Negro: An Anthology was rejected by American publishers during the Prohibition Era. Wishart, a London imprint, released only 1,000 copies in 1934. This formidable door-stop of an anthology brought together 250 contributions by 150 black scribes and ran to 855 pages. Heiress Nancy Cunard [1896 — 1965] was a visionary and, fortunately, her small press run was eventually reprinted in the USA in wider release. If you have the book, read Zora Neale Huston's entries on behalf of her birthday: January 7th.• • 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, who starred and wrote the screenplay for "Sextette," had asked Van McCoy [1940 — 1979] to write the theme song, and to make a cameo appearance in her motion picture. 
• • "Sextette" was released on 3 March 1978.
• • Singer, songwriter, and music producer Van Allen Clinton McCoy was born in January — — on 6 January 1940 — — in Washington, DC.
Van McCoy's musical venture started early on when she sang in the choir.
• • When his brother, Norman, Jr. and two high school buddies formed doo-wop group called the Starlighters, Van became the lead singer, writer, and music director for the group.
• • During the 1960s, Van McCoy penned numerous hit songs for such artists as the Shirelles ("Stop the Music"), Jackie Wilson ("I Get the Sweetest Feeling"), Gladys Knight & the Pips ("Giving Up"), Betty Everett ("Getting Mighty Crowded"), Ruby and the Romantics ("When You're Young and in Love"), Brenda & the Tabulations ("Right on the Tip of My Tongue"), Chris Bartley ("The Sweetest Thing This Side of Heaven"), and Barbara Lewis ("Baby, I'm Yours").
• • In 1966 Van McCoy recorded a solo album for Columbia Records, produced by Mitch Miller.
• • In addition to his many projects, Van McCoy arranged several hits for the Stylistics, formed his own orchestra [Soul City Symphony], and — — with singers Faith, Hope, and Charity — — recorded several albums and gave numerous live performances.
• • In 1975 Van McCoy, then 35 years old, scored an enormous smash hit with a catchy disco instrumental "The Hustle"; his #1 hit peaked on the Billboard charts during July 1975, sold over a million copies, and won a Grammy Award. He became a household name — — associated with the youth culture and trendy disco fever.
• • Unfortunately, the 39-year-old star was stricken with heart failure in his fashionable home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Without regaining consciousness, he died on 6 July 1979 at Englewood General Hospital.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1978 • •
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Mae West.
Despite having an ambivalent relationship with her father, MAE WEST took after him and also worked for him when he peddled fruit in Brooklyn and when he helmed a "detective agency" in New Jersey and New York City. 
• • Born on Manhattan's Lower East Side in March 1866, John West [called "Jack"] grew up feisty, impatient, and strong. As a child he boasted that he'd rather fight than eat. He got his Irish up rather quickly, remembered Mae. He was easily angered and "always ready to do physical violence when the urge was on him." In 1969, Mae revealed in an interview that she thought her father was cruel — — but realized "all his fighting was done doing other people's fighting for them."
• • Jack West was 7 years old in 1873 when his family moved to Brooklyn, settling first in Red Hook, and then in Greenpoint.
• • Though he had no inclination to follow his father's vocation as a ship rigger, Jack knew his parents wanted him to learn a trade; they apprenticed him to a boilermaker in 1880 when he was 14.
• • But Jack West was contemplating starting a fire in the arena. At 11 years old, "Battling Jack" had fought in his first boxing match as a featherweight and yearned to become a bare-knuckles champion. These matches were often arranged by local racketeers. His favorite place to hang out was the gymnasium. His closest companions were weightlifters and boxers — — both black and Caucasian.
• • During the late 1880s, Jack was sidetracked from his vigorous athletic routine after meeting a buxom young lady named Matilda Delker [born in 1870 in Bavaria]. Youthful rebels, Jack and Tillie had much in common. Both defied their parents' expectations, Jack through boxing and Tillie through entertaining the idea of a theatrical career.
• • Initially, the couple forged a passionate bond. Mae explained, "My father had swept her off her feet." But Tillie's youthful transgressive ambitions met an end with Jack West.
• • On 19 January 1889, in Greenpoint, Battling Jack West and Tillie Delker took their wedding vows before a local minister with Jack's sister Julia West acting as maid of honor.
• • On 5 January 1935, "Battling Jack" heard the final countdown; he passed away in Oakland, California of a stroke. The previous November, Mae's father had a severe heart attack and was under the care of a Bay Area heart specialist. A funeral was held in Hollywood within days. Shortly thereafter, the deceased was taken back to Brooklyn to be placed next to his wife in the West's family crypt. Accompanying the body was his son John, his daughter Beverly, and Jim Timony.
• • On this date we remember John Patrick West with love and respect.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • John West attending a prizefight in 1934 • •
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Mae West.
Only one of MAE WEST's motion pictures received an Academy Award nod. Alas, a wink is not a win. The Brooklyn bombshell's big box-office for "She Done Him Wrong" left no impression on the gold-plated statuette's baby-sitters. And so, anticipating the season of Oscar, New York Times writer Dave Kehr offers his analysis about the tug-of-war between wowing the audience versus winning the laurels.
• • According to Dave Kehr: One of the enduring traditions of the Academy Awards is that the Oscar for best picture almost invariably goes to a film that isn’t. This will not be news to anyone who has sat through some genuine groaners from Oscars past: pictures like Frank Lloyd’s 1933 “Cavalcade,” Robert Z. Leonard’s 1936 “Great Ziegfeld” and Cecil B. DeMille’s 1952 “Greatest Show on Earth.”
• • But even when good movies win, the other nominees are usually of equal or even greater interest. Most famously there was the banner year of 1941, for which John Ford’s magnificent “How Green Was My Valley” was named what the academy then termed “outstanding motion picture” (a more modest, defensible claim and perhaps one the academy should revive) while Orson Welles’s game-changing “Citizen Kane” went home with only the original screenplay award.
• • If the Oscars aren’t a reliable guide to artistic accomplishment, they provide an infallible index to how the leaders of the motion picture industry want their business to be seen in any given year. In 1933, for example, pressure was mounting from civic and religious groups for Hollywood to clean up its act — — pressure that would result in the renewed enforcement of the Production Code in 1934.
• • By selecting “Cavalcade” — — a numbing historical pageant, derived from a Noël Coward play, about a wealthy couple (Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook) stiff-upper-lipping their way through 40 years of English history — — the members of the academy distanced themselves from the racy entertainments that then dominated the box office.
• • Hollywood's 1932 — 1933 Season of O
• • Among the other nominees of the 1932 — 1933 season: the flesh-baring, garter-snapping backstage musical “42nd Street”; Mae West’s “She Done Him Wrong” — — the film in which she sings the innuendo-laden ballad “Where Has My Easy Rider Gone?” [sic]; and Frank Borzage’s adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s “Farewell to Arms,” a film so forthright in its depiction of premarital sex that 12 minutes had to be cut when it was reissued into the more prudish, post-Code world of 1938. . . .
• • For most of the ’30s the academy whipsawed between popular entertainments (“It Happened One Night,” 1934) and prestigious literary adaptations (“Mutiny on the Bounty,” 1935) meant to assure would-be censors that Hollywood was a dignified, pipe-smoking kind of place, tirelessly working for the moral improvement of American audiences. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Big, Important Picture? Sure. But Is It Best?"
• • Byline: DAVE KEHR
• • Published in: The New York Times
• • Published on: 31 December 2008• • 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.
Thirty-five year ago MAE WEST was starting the year by going over some of her most recent interviews with the news media.
• • There is, for example, that famous Mae West interview with W. S. Eyman — — published in Take One Magazine (Montreal, Canada) in the January 1974 issue. Many biographers quote from this in-depth interview with Mae.
• • 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.
A short story "Single Night" by Louis Bromfield became the backbone of the Paramount film "Night After Night" [released on 30 October 1932] — — which was a triumphant screen debut for MAE WEST.
• • January 1st • •• • Two months after the film was distributed to movie houses across the country, bootlegger Larry Fay met a spectacularly crimson-soaked death inside 33 West 56th Street on 1 January 1933.
• • Janus, the Roman god of gates and doorways, looks both ways. And the house on West 56th Street certainly looked different from the perspective of George Raft, Mae West, Louis Bromfield, and Larry Fay.
• • January 2nd • •• • A more pleasant January memory for Mae West took place a year later. On 2 January 1934, when her sister Beverly applied for a marriage license in Chicago, it was hoped that her second Russian husband would be a better companion than her ex-husband Sergei Treshatny. The groom Vladimir Baikoff made Beverly's acquaintance when both were booked on a radio program. Beverly was doing her famous Mae West impersonation for a broadcast — — and Vlad was eager to conjugate some sultry Slavic verbs with her in private, after the show.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST wishes you and your loved ones the very best for the New Year!
• • Special announcements, event details, and news will be noted shortly — — so don't stray too far from Mae.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1930 • •
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Mae West.
On orders from MAE WEST herself, her publicity department does not write stories about her anymore.
• • To those who ask for interviews, manager James Timony tactfully explains that Mae is extremely busy writing the next scenario. There has been, Mae and her studio have concluded, "Too much West."
• • Mae's appearance in court here for several days, to tell how she was robbed of diamonds and money, was of no little concern to herself, her manager, and her studio — — but not so much for reasons of justice as for those of career. She knew beforehand that she'd be quoted and photographed, the very things she had been trying to avoid. . . .
• • As to the effect of this publicity, consider the declaration of a former West admirer and inveterate picture-goer, who told me: "I haven't seen the new Mae West picture. I've read so much about her and seen her photographs so often that I don't want to see 'I'm No Angel'!"
• • This attitude is one which Mae and Paramount fear may become too prevalent. If it does gain ground, the excellence of future Mae West pictures will be of little matter.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Screen Life in Hollywood by Hubbard Keavy [1934]• • 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 once said, "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
• • As the Bronx-born entertainer Jennifer Lopez, age 39, prepares to ditch her hispanic hubby Marc Anthony, who no longer rules her heart, she is welcome to borrow that line.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.
Lowell Sherman directed one of the hottest motion pictures that starred MAE WEST.
• • Born in San Francisco, Lowell Sherman [11 October 1885 — 28 December 1934] was an actor and a director. Lowell Sherman's acting career began by being cast largely as a playboy or a villain. Perhaps it's no wonder that he was eager to become a director.
• • His best known motion pictures were She Done Him Wrong [1933] starring Mae West — — and also Morning Glory [1933] with Katharine Hepburn, which helped her snag an Academy Award.
• • His third marriage was to actress Helene Costello younger sister of Dolores Costello.
• • At the age of 49, Lowell Sherman died in Hollywood three days after Christmas 1934 from pneumonia.• • 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.
Thirty five years ago, MAE WEST was attended by several "Gentlemen in Waiting" — — such as Steve Allen — — when she received the Masquers Club Award in 1973.
• • Born in New York City, Steve Allen [26 December 1921 — 30 October 2000] was a TV personality, musician, actor, comedian, and writer.
• • Steve Allen was the son of Isabelle Allen (née Donohue), a vaudeville comedienne who performed under the name Belle Montrose, and Carroll Allen, another vaudevillian. Steve Allen was raised on the south side of Chicago by his mother's Irish Catholic family. Milton Berle once called Allen's mother "the funniest woman in vaudeville."
• • Though he got his start in radio, Allen is best-known for his television career. He first gained national attention as a guest host on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. He graduated to become the first host of The Tonight Show, where he was instrumental in innovating the concept of the television talk show.
• • After this glorious beginning, he hosted numerous game and variety shows, including the Steve Allen Show, I've Got a Secret, The New Steve Allen Show, and was a regular panel member on "What's My Line?" the popular CBS program.
• • Allen was also known as a prolific composer, having penned over 10,000 songs, one of which was recorded by Perry Como and Margaret Whiting. Allen won a Grammy award in 1963 for best jazz composition, with his song The Gravy Waltz. Additionally, Allen wrote more than 50 books.
• • He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.• • 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.
An annual erotic poetry event in sunny California was inspired by MAE WEST. Who knew? 
• • Taking place on December 29th this month at Priya Indian Cuisine [see below for the complete address in Berkeley], Poetry Express extends an invitation to its sixth annual "Between the Holidays Erotic Poetry Night."
• • The name of the event is a syntactic nod to Mae West, says Poetry Express host Mark States, who explains that the bawdy thespian "named her legs Christmas and New Year's and asked if you would 'come visit her between the holidays.'" [Perhaps we should state the obvious — — that this was well-known quip was not a line from one of the actress's movies for Paramount Pictures — — because a comment like this in a screenplay surely would have been red-lined by the film board's purity police.]• • Throughout the evening, attendees' readings at the open mic will be interspersed with Mae West witticisms, quips, and quotes.
• • Although Poetry Express happens almost every Monday evening throughout the year . . . PE's erotica theme nights are a popular tradition in the local open-mic scene. One year, States remembers, "a triad — — one wife, two husbands — — came and read their group-sex poems to each other. Somehow," he laughs, "the rest of us felt left out." Another year, "the sensuous lesbian love stories were the most popular and sweat-inducing. ... Good erotic poetry does not have to be obscene, nor technical like the Kama Sutra," advises States, a noted performance poet whose books include Reinvention from Mother's Hen, Grip of the Past, and Tongue Control. "It should engage the audience, make them see and smell and taste the experience as though they were there. . . . If you can make me blush and sweat, you've written a great erotic poem." . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: Do Tell: Warm up a winter night with erotic poetry, performed live.
• • Byline: Anneli Rufus
• • Published by: East Bay Express — — www.eastbayexpress.com/
• • Published on: 24 December 2008
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Priya Indian Cuisine is located here: 2072 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, California 94702; 510-644-3977• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Xmas greetings • •
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Mae West.
In the winter of 1929, MAE WEST was interviewed by Edgar Waite of the San Francisco Examiner. Here is a portion of their conversation. 
• • Edgar Waite: Is it your purpose to reflect life as it is lived — — or are you trying to elevate the stage?
• • Mae West: Don't kid me. I've had one dominating purpose in writing such plays as "Diamond Lil," "The Drag," "Sex," "The Wicked Age," and "Pleasure Man."
• • Edgar: Moral uplift?
• • Mae: Box-office uplift.
• • Edgar: What luck?
• • Mae: Assorted. Last Monday at the Curran, we took in $300 more than Ethel Barrymore on her opening night last summer. On the other hand, if the district attorney of New York hadn't closed "Sex" because the curbstone bidding for tickets took too many cops off their regular beats, I'd have owned my own theatre by now.
• • Edgar: Do you consider your plays quite moral?
• • Mae: I consider them a theatrical representation of those phases of life which interest the public more than anything else, and have since the days of Sappho, Aspasia, and Delilah.
• • Edgar: And when was that?
• • Mae: Forever. . . .
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • The Curran Theatre, where Mae West performed her play in 1929, is located at 445 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94102.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1928 illustration • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST has a tie to two individuals linked to December 25th. 
• • Evelyn Nesbit Thaw — — born on 25 December 1884
• • No doubt Mae, an aspiring entertainer, would never forget her booking on 4 August 1913 — — when Hammerstein had scheduled the vivacious teenager to perform at his vaudeville playhouse situated in Longacre [later Times] Square. The location was popularly known by New Yorkers as "the corner."
• • On this sultry August evening, Mae West was there to open for a world-famous star: Evelyn Nesbit [1884 — 1967]. Despite a low-cut gown and provocative songs, Mae failed to fire up the audience.
• • The critic from The New York Tribune [whose coverage ran on 5 August 1912] commented that even Mae's low neckline and raunchy bumps and grinds were not enough to sway the hoi polloi.
• • In 1899, Oscar Hammerstein built his fifth showplace — — the Victoria Theatre — — at the corner of West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. Stars like MAE WEST, Will Rogers, W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Ethel Barrymore, Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Buster Keaton, Harry Houdini, Evelyn Nesbit, and Eva Tanguay were among the thousands of performers who made Hammerstein's Victoria the vaudeville "nut house" of Times Square.
• • W.C. Fields — — died on 25 December 1946
• • Fields co-starred with Mae in the motion picture "My Little Chickadee," which began production on 12 November 1939 and wrapped up in December just before Christmas.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1935 • •
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Mae West.
Fifty-five years ago, a book was published that discussed many aspects of MAE WEST's career in variety. Here is a tiny selection from a fascinating book written from a first-person perspective by Joe Laurie, Jr., who had worked with Mae and composer-pianist Raymond Walker [born 1883]..
• • Joe Laurie, Jr. writes: When vaude fell apart, many of the piano players did very well writing hit songs, and others spread around cafes and night clubs.
• • Many, too many, have changed their piano for a harp!
• • Of all the old-time vaude accompanists, there are still two who are working at their trade and doing great. Raymond Walker (writer of "Good Night, Nurse" in 1912 and other songs), who played for Sophie Tucker, Mae West, and Marie Fenton when they first started, and who has played everything from the Chatham Club in New York's Chinatown to vaude and then to night clubs, now at the age of seventy is still accompanying the future greats in the plush cafes of Florida. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Vaudeville: From the Honky-tonks to the Palace
• • Chapter: ACCOMPANIED BY . . .
• • Author: Joe Laurie, Jr.
• • [NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1953]• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1912 • •
NYC
Mae West.
