Mae West: Vegas to 47th

MAE WEST gave Steve Rossi his punchy stage name. He was born 76 years ago in the roughneck section of Manhattan then known as "Italian Harlem" and was raised on the West Coast when his musician father was hired by NBC. Mostly known as a Las Vegas resident and night club entertainer, Steve Rossi was cast in "Senior Class," a light-hearted song-laden trip down memory lane, a few years ago. The show featured six golden agers: Steve Rossi, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Ronnie Schell, Ruta Lee, Gary Collins, Marcia Rodd. New producers dieted the ensemble down to a quartet — — and refocused the material before preparing it for The Big Apple.
• • Loyally, The Las Vegas Sun (Steve's hometown paper) did a little puffing. Jerry Fink's article appears below.
• • Jerry Fink writes: After more than half a century of entertaining, Las Vegas singer, comedian, and actor Steve Rossi is set to make his debut in an off-Broadway production. “Don’t Leave It All to Your Children!” begins previews this week at the Actors Temple Theatre and is scheduled to run through June 28, 2009.
• • The 90-minute musical revue is an adaptation of “Senior Class,” both written and directed by Saul Ilson.
• • The 76-year-old Rossi is part of an ensemble cast of four that includes Barbara Minkus (“Picon Pie”), Marcia Rodd (“The Last of the Red Hot Lovers”), and Ronnie Schell (“Gomer Pyle”). Rossi and Schell have done “Senior Class” at the Annenberg Theater in Palm Springs, Calif., for the past four years.
• • “The producers saw ‘Senior Class’ and liked it but they didn’t know if it was strong enough for Broadway,” Rossi says. “Now with the new theme and new material, it looks pretty strong.” The revue is about Baby Boomers becoming seniors. “There are a series of vignettes about getting older and about life,” Rossi explains.
• • Rossi, a native New Yorker who grew up in Southern California, has performed in every medium but a Broadway play. “Don’t Leave It All to Your Children!” gets him close. At 339 West 47th St., the Actors Temple is about a block off the Great White Way.
• • Best known as the straight man of a comedy team with Marty Allen, Rossi says he has always been too busy to pursue the New York stage.
• • “When Marty and I were hot we could have been on Broadway any time we wanted, but we didn’t take advantage of it,” he says. “For some reason our management never thought it was a good career move.”
• • Allen & Rossi, who were brought together by Nat King Cole in 1957, made more than 700 appearances on television (44 on “The Ed Sullivan Show”), made 16 comedy albums and appeared in the spy spoof film “The Last of the Secret Agents” before they split in 1969. They reunited briefly twice. ...
• • Rossi was discovered by Mae West in 1953.
• • He was a 20-year-old student playing the lead in “The Student Prince” at the Civic Light Opera Company in Los Angeles. Mae West caught the performance and hired him for her show, which ended up at the Sahara in Las Vegas.
• • After graduating from Loyola University, he entered the Air Force. While stationed near San Francisco, he became friends with legendary radio announcer Don Sherwood and frequently appeared on his radio and television shows. Rossi, who never seems to slow down, says if the show catches on and he’s in New York for a while, he will produce a burlesque show and probably perform some stand-up comedy.
• • “I don’t feel any older than I did 20 years ago,” he says. “A lot of women take me for like 50 and 55 — — although last night a girl took me for a hundred.”
— — Excerpt: — —
• • THEATER — — Straight man of Allen & Rossi cracks wise just off Broadway
• • Byline: Jerry Fink
• • Published in: The Las Vegas Sun — — www.lasvegassun.com
• • Published on: 6 May 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Henri Sabin

Henri Sabin did an outstanding likeness of MAE WEST in 1936, perhaps as a work commissioned by Paramount Pictures.
• • The Frenchman seems to have relocated to Hollywood during the 1930s, where he found work sketching for motion picture industry books. Using pastels, Sabin created softly glamorous and luminous portraits of the screen royalty of the era. In addition to the Empress of Sex, Sabin did a colorful bust of Joan Crawford, Merle Oberon, and the Mexican lovely Delores Del Rio.
• • In 1965, Sabin turned out a lush oil painting of Parisienne sex kitten Brigitte Bardot [born 1934]. Continuing his specialty of celebrity portraiture, Sabin also did a sizable oil of boxer Mohammed Ali.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: West Ninth

Announcing a new eatery on West Ninth Street, Page Six referred to MAE WEST.
• • Former Ninth Street resident and gossip guru Richard Johnson wrote this as his appetizer.
• • Johnson mentioned that: "WEST Ninth Street will soon have a new restaurant. Larry Poston, of the Waverly Inn and Pastis, has teamed up with Johnny Swet, of Balthazar and Freeman's, to take over the space that was once Marylou's, and the Penguin before that. They plan to go back to the building's original 1870 name, Hotel Griffou, an inn run by French-born Marie Griffou who served Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe [!!!], and the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. When Mae West was forced to appear at the nearby Jefferson Market Courthouse to answer obscenity charges, her first stop after the trial was the bar at the Hotel Griffou. The reincarnation will open in late June [New York Post — — 8 May 2009]."
• • If there was a bar at the Hotel Griffou in 1927, when Mae West was first arrested, it certainly was kept hush-hush — — during the Prohibition Era. Certainly by 1909, the "Griffou" was gone; the name had been changed to Hotel Europa by the new owner.
• • Madame Marie Griffou • •
• • The late Madame Griffou was a powerhouse who first established her special brand of Spanish and French hospitality on the corner of West Eighth Street and MacDougal Street, when this short comely stretch was still known as St. Clement's Place. Since the space was too small for Marie Griffou, she soon sublet it to an Italian widow, Madama Gonfarone, whose establishment took off once she teamed up with Ancleto Sermolino.
• • In the 1860s, Marie Griffou sailed to the USA with a Cuban Negro named Xavier Hernandez (and other people born into slavery whom she had purchased). These slaves became the backbone of Hotel Griffou, when Madame opened for business in 1874. Hotel Griffou stretched out between 19 — 23 West Ninth Street. At the basement level, its old-fashioned Rathskeller attracted men of letters and Oscar Wilde was a patron there in 1882 during his American tour. William Dean Howells dined there and it was respectable enough for the daughters of U.S. Presidents as well.
• • How many believe that Marie Griffou served Edgar Allan Poe [19 January 1809 — 7 October 1849] — — when the poet died several years before the Frenchwoman sailed to America?
• • How many believe that Marie Griffou served Mark Twain [1835 — 1910]? Naaaah!
• • The author of the book "Forgotten New York" apologized for his own error on page 157. In reference to Hotel Griffou, he noted, "It is doubtful Mark Twain could have been a regular at the hotel; in the 1880s he was living in Hartford, traveling in Europe, and spending his summers at Nook Farm in Elmira."
• • West 9th resident Thomas A. Janvier, fascinated by the odd Latin Americans who stayed there, featured the stopping place a few times. In one of his works, the restaurant was called "The White Pup." More notably, it was renamed "Casa Napoleon." Recrossing Washington Square and moving up Fifth Avenue, we find at 19 and 21 West Ninth Street the little Franco-Spanish South-American Hotel, which was the original of the Casa Napoleon, the modest and inviting hostelry where lived so many of Mr. Thomas Janvier's men and women . . . .
• • Thomas Janvier, who frequently bent an elbow here, dwelt at length (in his fiction) on the establishment's "attractive look," and the balcony that ran along the line of the second-story windows, in which flowers were growing in great green wooden tubs. The Louis Napoleon of Mr. Janvier's stories is Louis Napoleon Griffou. The Dunbars, Breams, Witherbys, and the rest have taken their departure, but in their place there has sprung up another coterie of newspaper men, flippantly and facetiously known as "the Griffou push."
• • Especially amused by the "Griffou Push" was William Dean Howells. The Casa Napoleon appeared briefly in his "The World of Chance." During the early 1900s, fans of his recognized Hotel Griffou thinly disguised as a little restaurant Howells sent his character Ray to during the young writer's first weeks in New York. And it was here also that the Marches of "A Hazard of New Fortunes" came to dine during the long weeks spent in futile flat-hunting. (The Howells very briefly lived at The Portsmouth on West 9th Street.)
• • There are many more fascinating stories linked to 21 West 9th that can be documented. Maybe some real-life narratives will be served up shortly as the restaurateurs try to unveil the newcomer.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Mickey Carroll

A very special actor who worked with MAE WEST has met his final curtain.
• • Word comes that Mickey Carroll, one of the last surviving Munchkins from the iconic 1939 screen classic "The Wizard of Oz" died recently at age 89. It was his only motion picture but his brief cameos were most memorable. .
• • Born in St. Louis on 8 July 1919, Mickey Carroll's birthname was Michael Finocchiaro. The son of Italian immigrants who carved marble cemetery monuments, he grew up with a twin sister and four older siblings, all of whom are deceased.
• • It was a pituitary condition that caused Carroll's height to stop at 4-foot-3.
• • What he lacked in stature he made up for with an abundance of appeal, personality, and comedic timing. When presidential hopeful Franklin D. Roosevelt was campaigning in New York City, Mickey Carroll helped warm up the voters. He was also hired as a crowd-getter during Harry Truman's whistlestop campaign.
• • In St. Louis, Carroll tripped the light fantastic at the Muny Theater when he was still an elementary school pupil. Afterwards, he appeared in Chicago clubs and on the Orpheum Theater vaudeville circuit.
• • Expanding his specialties, Mickey Carroll also did Phillip Morris live radio ads — — "Call for Philip Morris!" — — and appeared in shows with Mae West. He followed up those successes with radio shows with George Burns, Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, and Al Jolson.
• • In November 2007, Mickey Carroll received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame along with six other surviving Munchkins: Ruth Duccini, Jerry Maren, Margaret Pellegrini, Meinhardt Raabe, Karl Slover, and Clarence Swensen.
• • Until January of this year, the pint-size performer enjoyed living in his own home in Bel-Nor. After he got a pacemaker, however, he began boarding with a caretaker, who told the press that he died in his sleep, very peacefully, and perhaps dreaming of following the yellow brick road in the wonderful land of Oz.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Finalized

There was a great deal of mayhem in the life of MAE WEST when her marriage to Frank Wallace was first exposed — — and divorce proceedings began.
• • As all Mae-Mavens know, on the morning of 11 April 1911, a teenager wed her 21-year-old co-star Frank Wallace [birthname: Frank Szatkus] in Milwaukee. He and Mae West had been performing at the Big Gaiety Theatre there, part of the Columbia Amusement Company, an Eastern burlesque wheel run by Henry Jacobs and John Jermon.
• • Mae, who was still 17 when they eloped, had met the entertainer the previous year. Matchmaker Matilda West had gone backstage to tell this soft-shoe artist that she had a youngster who was a “comer” — — a good partner to pair up with.
• • A dark-haired, wiry acrobatic dancer, Frank was determined not to follow the example of his sedentary father, a Lithuanian tailor from Queens, New York. Threading his way through the vaudeville and burlesque circuit, he shared the bill with Mae West and Willie Hogan at Canarsie’s Waldo Casino in Brooklyn. In those days, they often rehearsed in the basement of the house that belonged to Mae’s parents. Following rehearsals, Matilda would serve a Bavarian supper of pig’s knuckles and sauerkraut.
• • When singing ragtime favorites — — like “Ragtime Rosie Ragged the Rosary” and “Everybody’s Doin’ It” — — West and Wallace consciously imitated black performers, sliding, shuffling, and stepping in a sultry, passionate, smooth style that brought them bookings in Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Philadelphia.
• • According to Frank Wallace, after a few weeks of rehearsal, “we went on the Fox circuit. Later we signed with Jacobs and Jermon, the burlesque producers.”
• • Mae claimed she only wanted to sleep with Frank, not tie the knot. However, Etta Woods, an older singer on the bill with them, persuaded Mae that it was better to be married in case she got pregnant accidentally. After they said their vows, Mae insisted that the marriage be kept a secret from her family and their booking agents.
• • The length of their tour in “A Florida Enchantment” lasted a few months, after which Mae returned to her parents in Brooklyn and encouraged Wallace to join a different road company, which he did.
• • West and Wallace never lived together as man and wife. Their secret elopement only came to light when Mae became a Hollywood headliner in the 1930s and Frank, run down at the heels and looking for a meal ticket, decided to sue his successful wife.
• • The final divorce decree was granted in the month of May — — on 7 May 1943.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Dom Gone

We bid a fond adieu to a comedian who worked with MAE WEST.
• • Brooklyn native Dominick "Dom" DeLuise was born on 1 August 1933 to Italian American parents Vicenza and John DeLuise.
• • Like Mae, Dom DeLuise hailed from Brooklyn, New York. During the 1960s, the moon-faced entertainer was often seen on TV variety shows and also boosted the comic quotient in motion pictures featuring Mel Brooks and Burt Reynolds.
• • The 75-year-old funnyman passed away on Monday evening — — 4 May 2009 — — at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, according to his agent Robert Malcolm. DeLuise's wife Carol and three sons were at his bedside when he took his final breaths.
• • "Dom DeLuise was a naturally funny man," averred film critic Leonard Maltin. "He didn't need a script to be funny, but smart people like Mel Brooks knew how to give him just the right setting and showcase."
• • Dom DeLuise, who has many movie credits to his name, was also seen in Sextette [1978]. Released by Crown International, this musical comedy starred Mae West. Others in the cast included Timothy Dalton, Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, George Hamilton, Alice Cooper, and Walter Pidgeon.
• • Dom DeLuise also played host in the documentary film "Mae West . . . and the Men Who Knew Her."
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Code Uncloaked

Meditating on MAE WEST jumpstarted the juice for one discerning essayist published by Bright Lights Film Journal.
• • There is much to consider and mull over in Erich Kuersten's delightful piece "Help us, Mae!" — — and we know you'll savor his hazy thoughts on the transition from real sex to digital hallucinations [below].
• • According to Erich Kuersten, the pre-code is alive and well today, just not onscreen. The stars have split their private life off, so the tabloids tell the sordid stories, while the screen shows teenagers trying on clothes to montage pop. But since 1934 America has always liked its love and desperation to be separate. In real life, the love of the desperate is as intense as the love of the genuinely enchanted; in fact in our age of digital hermits and alienation, there is no difference.
• • Take for example, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, Babs Streisand and Madonna. These are camp icons for a reason, women whose ferocious drive was such that they changed the face of beauty in order to make themselves pass for beautiful. The hallowed hierarchy of class, genes, and style that make us "attractive" is relative, of course; it's in the eye of the beholder: a very lonely sailor might, for example, fall in love with a dust mop, or mistake a seal for a beautiful mermaid. On the other hand, a jaded rock star might see Sienna Miller as an ocelot or common sea snail.
• • Take Mae West for another example.
• • Take Mae West for another example. Kind of heavy and yet small breasted, short and coarse, but it didn't matter. She could have been a dust mop crossed with a sea snail and men would still be falling for her. No one could tell Mae she wasn't a knockout glamour girl, so whether she was or not becomes — with the passing of each new generation — more and more immaterial. She defines beauty because we have seen her on the silver screen being adored. It must be true; we saw it on television.
• • Remember Cary Grant and Mae West in "She Done Him Wrong"?
• • She's so startlingly progressive, we presume all of ancient history defined her as the ultimate; it all has the iconic haze of myth, folklore. Mae is like (and would probably sleep with) Paul Bunyan, or John Henry, the steel-drivin' man. Like them she's embodying an archetype, she is the elevation of the cathouse harlot to the status of a benevolent, wisecracking Aphrodite. If she was genuinely beautiful, the ridiculous fawning of the men around her would be irritating and immodest. But because it's Mae, it's joyous, because we realize that beauty — if it wasn't already in the eye of the beholder before her — is now. She made it flex and bend until even the shy and ugly kids got some, too. She brought cake out to the guards. She shared her humongous appetites with her next-door neighbor in the Paramount dressing rooms, Marlene Dietrich; they passed guys like Gary Cooper and Cary Grant around like playing cards. West actually launched Grant's career for him. She had an eye for real moxie — a talent scout like her is sorely missed in Hollywood these days. But at any rate, the disciples of her brilliance live on; there are shades of her in everyone from Roseanne Barr to Diane Keaton, Paula Prentiss and up to Nicole Kidman and Anna Faris. Age, height, weight have nothing to do with it per se, it's all in the hips and their willingness to subvert the status quo from within, and the genius to know how to make it work and the nerve to pull it off at just the right time. When a girl at the end of her rope admires Mae's diamonds in "She Done Him Wrong," for example, Mae remarks, "Men, it's their game. I just happen to be smart enough to play it their way."
• • What does that mean exactly? It means she doesn't fight the current, and so has the energy to swim to the front and direct the whole wave. This means Mae is genuinely subversive, which is why the Catholic Legion of Decency was so quick to have her censored (she made only one radio appearance in her entire life, an "Adam and Eve" sketch, which got her banned forever). It's nothing in her double entendres so much as her complete lack of inhibition and — even more important — the copious admiration and financial gain she shows herself getting, onscreen, for her unmarried sexual congress. If Mae's characters had died alone and unloved, having sacrificed all for her child to marry a prince, etc., she would have been fine with the censors. But daring to indulge in the forbidden fruits and end the film all the richer and with Cary Grant on your arm and no harm done? It was just too dangerous to a rigid class and sex system like the Catholic delusory 1930s.
• • Those moralists wanted sex to be served in little teacups to a temperate nation. Mae served it by spreading tea leaves on the floor and flooding the building with hot water. It was like showing the corruptible females of the world a magic faucet by which they could drown their men's precious capitalist system with a few flicks of their diamond-bespangled wrists. And that doing it was not only easy but rewarding as hell; Mae was a lost generation Tyler Durden!
• • What was more than a mere threat to the Christian status quo, though, was Mae's willingness to peek behind the magic curtain where the big deals are made, and to point out that regardless of how much they bellow and bluster, they're all just men underneath the suits and uniforms. They can be had. If the Christians were reading this right, Mae was training women all over the country to step into men's affairs and topple them, just to see if they can. The whole social ladder seemed to shake and buckle from the force of Mae's tsunami hips.
• • We don't really have a similar figure to Mae West today, right now, do we? Kate Winslet, Vera Farmiga, Naomi Watts, Nicole, they're all genetic miracles who represent the next step in our evolution, knock on wood, and the sexually active party girls, like Paris Hilton, aren't really movie stars (the Paris equivalent of the time would have been Peggy Hopkins Joyce).
• • No, the merely semi-attractive women — the ones for whom finding dates is actual work — have no one to champion them, no one like Mae West or Bette Davis to star in movies where they're adored as beautiful and desirable beyond words while all the straight men in the room go "What? I don't get it." Instead, the non-goddesses have to make do with martyrdom, the dregs of the coffee cup. I guess the closest we have at the moment are those British soul singer tarts across the sea, but I'm too old to know anything about that.
• • All I know is, I watch Bette in some of these DVDs, like Now Voyager, and I long for the blurriness of VHS. As our world moves more and more to high definition and blu-ray, that eye of the beholder is going to see some things better left obscured by Blanche's paper lantern, that's all I'm saying, with all the format changes. Even the most airbrushed and metallic of goddesses won't catch any fanboys if they can see "that" much. You know what I mean, bro? Do I got to underline it in highlighter marker? Darkness makes everyone equally attractive. It's key! The high-def future will mean the end of sex for all but the supermodels. The rest of us will punch our way through days so gray and isolated they make Gilliam's Brazil look like Christmas with Bing Crosby. No matter how lovely you think you are, we'll be able to see into your pores from the back row.
• • Spend some time in France or England and you'll see a whole different approach to casual hooking up for sex. It's not that big a deal. People feel better, eat better, look better, when they're having steady sexual relations, say twice a week minimum. In America, somewhere along the line we got the idea that it's better not to have sex unless the partner is gorgeous, rich, famous, or you're very drunk; otherwise, we're "saving" ourselves. If we take home someone unattractive, we slump home the next day, guilty, as if we were so hungry and poor we ended up eating at McDonald's and now feel sick. But we don't really feel sick, my friends, that's social conditioning! That's why we need a Mae West or a Bette Davis to come along and sashay their weight around, or smile their crooked teeth and still have Tyrone Power or Cary Grant grow mad with desire for them. Maybe we don't want it, but we need it. We're a nation that's grown sexually anorexic.
• • Help us, Mae! Show us how to enjoy our food again.
— — Source: — —
• • Desperation and Divinity — — "Help us, Mae!"
• • • • Hazy thoughts on the transition from real sex to digital hallucinations
• • Byline: Erich Kuersten | Columnist
• • Published in: Bright Lights Film Journal — — www.brightlightsfilm.com
• • Published on: May 2009 | Issue 64
• • Copyright © 2009 by Erich Kuersten
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Walkin' the Dog

MAE WEST adored ragtime. She once told an interviewer about grooving very early to "the black man's sound." Whether she was imitating the sultry Shimmy she watched in a Chicago club or swinging to the latest jam she heard in Harlem, Mae's musical taste was in formation: "we copied it because it was the greatest. [Black people] had been developing it for years."
• • In 1928, she performed a rag that she especially loved onstage in "Diamond Lil" and its Hollywood counterpart "She Done Him Wrong" [1933]. The lyricist and composer of this song — — "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone" — — was Shelton Brooks [4 May 1886 — 6 September 1975], who published it around 1913. He was good friends with Mae's maid Bea Jackson; his nickname for her was "Hot Story Telling."
• • Born in Canada in the month of May, Shelton Brooks moved to Detroit in 1901 with his family; his parents were Native American and Black. His father was a preacher and Shelton and his brother would play the organ during services.
• • Surrounded by music, Shelton wrote his first big hit in 1910 — — "Some of These Days" — — using his own lyrics. He had already introduced the song in his own vaudeville act when Sophie Tucker's maid introduced both him and the tune to Sophie. The vaudevillian, who would eventually style herself as "the Last of the Red Hot Mamas," made this number her very own theme song.
• • "Walkin' the Dog" • •
• • His 1916 instrumental tune "Walkin' the Dog" inspired a dance that first swept dancehall-crazed New York City, and then the rest of the country. That year, the variety act "Mae West and Sister" performed "Walkin' the Dog" as their grand finale.
• • Shelton Brooks died in Los Angeles in 1975 when he was 89 years old. He is buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Zabo Koszewski

Irvin 'Zabo' Koszewski toured with MAE WEST during the 1950s. Like the Brooklyn bombshell, the East Coast native was a stage-worthy Leo born in August.
• • Jon Thurber writes in the Los Angeles Times: 'The longtime Santa Monica resident was a constant presence at Muscle Beach, where in his prime he'd pump out 500 Roman Chair sit-ups in about 15 minutes."
• • Zabo's midsection wowed even veteran muscle-movers. "He had a 10-pack of abs when everyone else had a six-pack," recalled John Balik, publisher of Iron Man Magazine. In his prime, Zabo was a natural fit for the Mae West Revue. In 1953, he won the Amateur Athletic Union's Mr. Pacific Coast title. In 1954, he snagged the AAU Mr. California title, following those honors with numerous "best abdominal" titles in three decades of bodybuilding competitions.
• • According to a recent issue of the Los Angeles Times, Irvin 'Zabo' Koszewski died on 29 March 2009 of pneumonia at a hospital in Doylestown, Pennyslyvania. The longtime resident of Santa Monica and a Muscle Beach mainstay was 84, writes Jon Thurber in his detailed obit.
• • "The history of Muscle Beach was about its people as much as the sun and the sand," Balik wrote in his magazine, noting that Koszewski "was the embodiment of the spirit of Muscle Beach."
• • He was born in Camden, N.J., on August 20, 1924, and was a gifted athlete as a young man. At Collingwood High School, near his home in Woodland, N.J., he was an all-state guard in football, he wrestled, and he swam competitively. He began lifting weights as a teenager in the late 1930s and didn't stop.
• • He enlisted in the Army after Pearl Harbor and served in the South Pacific. After his discharge he wrestled professionally for a time and started competing in bodybuilding competitions. He was the AAU's Mr. New Jersey in 1948, and the AAU's Mr. Middle Atlantic in 1950.
• • But California beckoned, so he and three buddies piled into a car in the early 1950s and headed for Santa Monica.
• • Friends also recalled him as extremely well-read, funny and philosophical.
• • He trained consistently and constantly, friends said. And he was still working out just months before he died
• • Along Muscle Beach, Koszewski's abdominal workouts became legendary. In his prime, he would do 500 Roman Chair sit-ups, usually in about 15 minutes.
• • "He was a simple guy in what he needed," Balik said. "He pared things down to his friends, the beach and the workout. Those things were the center of his life. The standing joke about Zabo is that he wouldn't go further inland than Lincoln Boulevard."
• • And like many of the other stars of Muscle Beach, Koszewski appeared in entertainer Mae West's nightclub act as one of her Muscle Beach Boys. He also appeared in some films including bit parts in "Spartacus" and "Planet of the Apes," as well as the Cheech and Chong vehicles "Nice Dreams" and "Things Are Tough All Over," where he was the stunt double for Tommy Chong.
• • He was competing in bodybuilding competitions well into his 40s.
• • Koszewski was the manager of Joe Gold's gym and the World Gym in Santa Monica and was working until a few months before he died.
• • He came down with pneumonia early this year and moved to Pennsylvania to be near his daughter, Nancy Pyle.
• • She survives him, as does another daughter, Candice Wallace of Sacramento, and three grandchildren.
— — Source: — —
• • "Irvin 'Zabo' Koszewski dies at 84; bodybuilder renowned for his abs"
• • Byline: Jon Thurber | Obituary
• • Published in: The Los Angeles Times — — www.latimes.com
• • Published on: 1 May 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Ira Hards

In 1928, MAE WEST approached Ira Hands to stage her latest play "Diamond Lil" at the Royale Theatre on Broadway.
• • Born on 24 June 1872 in Geneva, Illinois, Ira A. Hards aspired to be an actor. After a round of performances, touring in regional theatres, the personable 29-year-old made his Broadway debut in "Don Caesar's Return" [1901]. He began keeping company with Ina Hammer, who was also getting cast in mainstage productions in Times Square, and the theatre couple married. In between starring in an acclaimed silent film version of "King Lear" and on Broadway, busy Ina Hammer branched out as a stage director and soon took on another role: as a real-life mother with a sweet newborn daughter.
• • In September 1928, as things were winding down in Manhattan for the beauteous Bowery queen Diamond Lil, Ira Hands escorted his daughter Ina Isola Hards down the aisle when she wed Lieutenant Gordon Philip Saville of the Army Air Corps. Things were going well for the versatile theatre pro, who had developed new skills: directing, dialogue coaching, and producing.
• • Booth Tarkington [1869 — 1946] was especially indebted to Ira Hands for directing his Broadway plays "Magnolia" [1923] and "The Intimate Strangers" [1921]. After Mae's arrest in 1927, Booth Tarkington was commisioned to write an article — — and "When Is It Dirt?" [published in Collier's, The National Weekly, on 14 May 1927] discussed the issue of censorship and government intervention.
• • Ira Hards did well enough to maintain a residence in Manhattan and a country house in Connecticut. He found time to establish his own stock company at the Westchester Playhouse in Mount Kisco, New York, and devoted himself to a group called Young Actors' Development.
• • Among the many highlights of his busy three decades long career in the theatre world, Ira Hards directed and staged the original 1927 production of "Dracula" (starring Bela Lugosi) that ran for 261 performances at the Fulton Theatre on West 46th Street. Coincidentally, Hards's Stage Manager for "Dracula" was Carl Reed, who became Mae West's producer for the ill-fated Broadway run of "Pleasure Man" (1928) at the Biltmore Theatre.
• • When Ira Hards died in Norwalk, Connecticut in the month of May — — on 2 May 1938 — — The New York Times referred to the 65-year-old as a retired producer who presented many Broadway plays. His wife Ina passed away 15 years later in 1953.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Don Ruffin

Arizona artist Don Ruffin did a portrait of MAE WEST. Some of his artwork will be displayed on Saturday 2 May 2009.
• • Born in 1928 (according to AskArt.com), Don Ruffin became a nationally recognized painter during the 1970s. Among the portraits he did was that of Senator Barry Goldwater. The artist died at age 49 in 1977.
• • Don Ruffin was introduced to Mae West by a mutual acquaintance — —.psychic Richard Ireland. According to Mark Ireland, some of Don's canvases were "inspired by psychic experiences."

• • Anthony DeFrange also painted Mae West (1971) • •
• • The painter, who enjoyed giving psychic readings at parties, told his neighbor Tony DePrima that he would soon be a pallbearer for a close friend, remembered Mark Ireland. Curiously, a week later, Don Ruffin passed away and Tony DePrima carried his casket during the funeral.
• • The organizer of the Cinco de Mayo celebration coming up at West Valley Art Museum, Ms. Sheny Ruiz Milligan will bring along her private collection of paintings by the Phoenix artist. Sheny fondly recalled Don Ruffin's extraordinary portraits of actress Mae West, Barry Goldwater, and other notables. He also specialized in Southwestern scenes with a spiritual element.
• • Here's where the fun takes place this weekend: West Valley Art Museum, 17420 North Avenue of the Arts, Surprise, Arizona 85374.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/ ________ Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml Mae West
• • Photo:  Mae West, oil painting in 1971 • •
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Mae West: Satin & Latin

It was on 30 April 1956 that Robert W. Dana's felicitous coverage of "The MAE WEST Review" appeared.
• • Dana's popular daily dish "Tips on Tables" was printed in the now defunct New York World-Telegram & Sun.
• • His column "Mae West's Show Grows" [dated April 30th] indicated Dana had seen the routine previously.
• • Robert W. Dana wrote: The old belief that everything should be bigger and better — — a thought most forcefully pronounced by Hollywood trailers — — can be applied with forthright honesty to Mae West, who has returned to the Latin Quarter [in New York City on West 48th Street], where she scored heavily in the fall [sic] of 1954. . . .
• • A native New Yorker, Robert Dana was born in 1907. His lengthy writing career began on the Drama Desk of the New York Herald Tribune. Years later, after penning a column on restaurants and night spots for this daily paper, Dana gathered those reviews into a book published in 1948. So well-known was he among New York's nightlife czars, that he did a stint for awhile as a night club and restaurant press agent. Subsequently, Robert Dana commandeered a regular byline at the New York World-Telegram column. This energetic reporter also hosted a radio show and short-lived TV program offering his opinions on the stars and entertainers during the 1940s—1950s.
• • Staying active and alert to the end, Robert W. Dana lived to be 89 and died in 1996.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Ray Johnson

During the 1950s, Ray Johnson began using images of MAE WEST in his artwork in a way that anticipated the 1960s works of Pop artists (such as Warhol).
• • Born in Detroit, Michigan, Ray Edward Johnson (1927 — 1995) was a seminal figure of the Pop Art movement. Primarily a collagist, Johnson was also an early performance and conceptual artist. Once called “New York’s most famous unknown artist," he is considered the “Founding Father of Mail Art" and pioneered the incorporation and use of language in the visual arts.
• • Until his death in 1995, Johnson continued his work in collage, sent out volumes of mail art, and staged numerous performances. He became increasingly reclusive, however. As his contemporaries became famous, Johnson cultivated his role as an outsider, parodying celebrity through performances, fake openings, and photocopy-machine art. From 1982 on, he repeatedly refused offers from numerous galleries to exhibit his art, and for the last five years of his life, he refused all public exhibitions of his works. On 13 January 1995, Ray Johnson’s body was found floating in a small cove in Sag Harbor, NY. He was 67 years old.
• • An ambitious posthumous show at the Richard L. Feigen Gallery — — which opens today on Wednesday, 29 April 2009 (and runs through the end of July 2009) — — will reveal the shared interests and iconography of Ray Johnson, Salvador Dali, and Andy Warhol. This exhibition will feature an exciting selection of previously unexhibited collages by Ray Johnson that will show his distinct and incessant layering of re-appropriated imagery from Surrealism, high culture, and Pop Art. The three artists all exploited celebrity — — both their own and others’ — — and constructed powerful personae that were an integral part of their work. While Dali and Warhol sought the limelight in order to promote their art, Johnson was more interested in dodging in and out of it and became famous for being ‘unknown.’
• • Curiously, the lives and the art of Ray Johnson, Dali, and Warhol were intertwined, from the Factory to Studio 54, from the late 1950s through the 1980s. The exhibition will illustrate Johnson’s exploration of themes common to Dali and Warhol — — celebrity, gender ambiguity, and religion. Collages and mail art by Johnson and works by Dali and Warhol share references to Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, the Mona Lisa, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, and Jesus Christ. As curator Frédérique Joseph-Lowery discusses in the accompanying catalogue, “For all three artists, the female body became a sort of rendez-vous of experimentation for formal strategies regarding the interaction and ‘relationship’ of painting, collage, photography, stamping, photocopying….”
• • The exhibition is being held at this Manhattan dealer's gallery: Richard L. Feigen — — 34 East 69th Street, New York, NY 10021.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Ken and Then

Ken Hughes once worked with MAE WEST.
• • Then 56 years old when he was at the helm of "Sextette" in 1978, based on Mae West's play ["Sextet"], the British director died in the month of April and is being remembered. Not unlike reading the work of a very clever Marxist, the script's logic is impeccable, even when the premise — — that an actress in her 80s can portray a 26-year-old sexpot — — is wrong.
• • "Sextette" was the middle-aged director's first American film — — as well as Mae West's final screen appearance.
• • Vincent Canby, then the film critic of The New York Times, pursed his lips and gave the project a sound spanking. Canby wrote: The story, based on a play written some years ago by Miss West, is about a world-famous movie star and her attempts to consummate her sixth marriage to Sir Michael Barrington (Timothy Dalton) despite repeated interruptions by former husbands, lovers, dress designers, secret agents, publicity people and delegates attending an international peace conference just upstairs. It's a plot that Miss West has often favored, and it freely reprises a lot of lines from earlier pictures. The movie was directed by Ken Hughes ("The Small World of Sammy Lee," "Cromwell," and so on), a fellow you might think had better things to do than to prop up the Tower of Pisa. In addition to Mr. Dalton, "Sextette" features a number of other people who, in happier circumstances, are decent actors. These include Tony Curtis, George Hamilton, Ringo Starr, and the incomparable Dom DeLuise. There are some original songs and some old ones, a couple of which sound as if they'd been lip-synched by Miss West to old recordings . . . [N.Y. Times 8 June 1979].
• • On 19 January 1922, Kenneth Graham Hughes was born in Liverpool, England.
• • The Hollywood director developed Alzheimer's disease and died on 28 April 2001 in Los Angeles. Several of his obituaries reminded the public that "Sextette" was a camp disaster and, furthermore, that the writer/ director had had a prolific but "remarkably inconsistent career" with only one hands-down triumph: "The Trials of Oscar Wilde." Hard to believe the same person directed the family musical and moneymaker "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," the James Bond loser "Casino Royale," and "Sextette."
• • 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: Tammany Young

In 1932, Tammany Young was in one motion picture with MAE WEST.
• • Born in New York City, Tammany Young [9 September 1886 — 26 April 1936] appeared on Broadway in "The Front Page" [1928] by Ben Hecht and "The New Yorkers" [1930] by Herbert Fields and Cole Porter. He acquired the rep of being a “good luck actor” by Broadway producers. Consequently, he was often cast in bit parts by the likes of the Shubert brothers, Jed Harris, and David Belasco as a way of attracting good luck to their productions. This high regard paid off and Alex Gard drew his likeness for Sardi's restaurant.
• • In Hollywood, Young started out in silent films and then was cast in talkies. Although frequently uncredited, he eventually appeared in over 100 movies with such stars as Mae West, Myrna Loy, Bing Crosby, Shirley Temple, and Judy Garland.
• • In "She Done Him Wrong," Tammany Young portrayed the colorful Chuck Connors, who had been a well-known figure on the Bowery. On Broadway, Mae West had cast Chuck Connors, Jr. in the role of Chuck Connors in "Diamond Lil" for an air of authenticity.
• • But he was known most notably for his role as the stooge (straight man) to W.C. Fields with whom he appeared in seven films: Sally of the Sawdust (1925), Six of a Kind (1934), You're Telling Me! (1934), The Old Fashioned Way (1934), It's a Gift (1934), Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935), and Poppy (1936).
• • Tammany Young also was an infamous gate crasher. By claiming to be an ice man, he worked his way into the 1921 Dempsey — Carpentier prize fight in New Jersey, for instance; in 1932 he found his way into the Los Angeles Olympics. These exploits often popped up in the columns of sportswriters who knew him.
• • During the month of April — — on 26 April 1936 — — Tammany Young died in his sleep in Hollywood at the age of 49. At the news of Young's untimely demise in California, W.C. Fields became severely depressed and stopped eating and sleeping. One wonders: did he also stop drinking while in mourning?
• • Speaking of April 26th, on that sunny date in 1926, "Sex" debuted on Broadway starring Mae West as Margy LaMont at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: My Pharaoh Lady

It sounds a bit like an April Fool's joke but it's a fact that this Sunday a Florida church service will feature MAE WEST.
• • The production is "Tut-Tut or My Pharaoh Lady." Possibly the most unusual, or at least the most entertaining, Sunday church service ever will be tomorrow.
• • St. Pete’s Unitarian Universalist Church presents an original, intergenerational musical comedy in which a pharaoh’s quest for enlightenment brings him into contact with, among others, the “half-back of Notre Dame,” a French pastry chef, the Keystone Cops, and Mae West. On Sunday — — 26 April 2009 — — at 11 a.m., Unitarian Universalist Church of Saint Petersburg, 719 Arlington Avenue N. (on Mirror Lake), St. Petersburg, FL 33701. The public is invited and admission is free. Tel: 797-898-3294.
• • If you attend this comical Christian cavalcade of soulful seekers, drop us a line and tell us more. (We think this could catch on.)
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Sexperiments

Reverend Jen, who has a new book out, explained that MAE WEST has been one of her heroes and role models.
• • In order of priority, Reverend Jen named the people she admires and listed her major influences: Mae West, Alfred Jarry, Picasso, Keith Moon, Mel Brooks, Gandalf, Spongebob, the Fonz, Pippi Longstocking, Anais Nin, Wonder Woman, Coco Chanel, Cleopatra, and Brad Prowley — — the karaoke guy who busks in this neighborhood.
• • Since the 1990s, Reverend Jen has called the Lower East Side home. She resides south of Houston Street with her chihuahua, Reverend Jen Junior — — a dog-clothes model. Her newest release is Live Nude Elf: The Sexperiments of Reverend Jen [NY: Soft Skull, 2009]. Her publisher described this paperback as “a witty, irreverent, brave, and sometimes portrait of the Reverend Jen Miller, the Patron Saint of the Uncool, examining the challenges of devoting one's personal and professional life of art.”
• • A writer, painter, and performance artist, Jen attended NYC's School of Visual Arts in 1990 “and has since experienced no financial success whatsoever,” she's quick to say. Awwww!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Boca Raton

Would MAE WEST have been able to teach Hugh Hefner about sex — — or vice versa?
• • On Friday April 24th, Hefner's new documentary will be screened — — "Why Be Good? Sexuality and Censorship in Early Cinema" — — in the rat's mouth of Florida.
• • Robert Sims of The Palm Beach Post aired his opinion of it. He writes: Produced by Hefner, written by The Palm Beach Post's Scott Eyman, and narrated in mischievous fashion by Diane Lane, this bubbly documentary confirms what we already knew: Sex sold in 1909 as just as it sells today. While the audiences then didn't expect to walk into a comedy and see male nudity — — thank you, Observe and Report — — they were still treated to some racy stuff. Mae West, Louise Brooks, Marlene Dietrich, Jean Harlow and other sexpots knew how to flaunt their built-for-sin bodies, while Errol Flynn and Rudolph Valentino had women swooning. Then came a smattering of high-profile sex scandals — — the most infamous involving Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle — — that left the public shocked.
• • "Why Be Good?" offers its most intriguing analysis when addressing the friction-filled relationship between Hollywood and a government unsure how to rein in an industry that refused to keep sex behind closed doors. The government's concern eventually resulted in the establishment of the Production Code, or the Hays Code after its chief enforcer Will H. Hays, which effectively clamped down on what Hollywood could show or depict. Given Hef's fingerprints are all over this documentary, Why Be Good? obviously cast a disapproving eye on government determining what was morally acceptable for audiences from 1930 to 1968. Why Be Good? doesn't go as far as declaring the sexual revolution of the 1960s would have happened decades earlier were it not for the Hays Code. But it makes a case that the government should let the public decide what to see, not some close-minded pencil pusher.
• • Why Be Good? screens at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, Florida; and also on 5 p.m. Monday at the Lake Worth Playhouse, 709 Lake Ave., Lake Worth in Las Vegas.
— — Source: — —
• • Film Reviews
• • By ROBERT SIMS, Palm Beach Daily News
• • Published in: The Palm Beach Post — — www.palmbeachpost.com
• • Published on: 22 April 2009
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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