Mae West: diva del teatro

- an article on Mae West published in Italy -
NIP > Italici nel Mondo
Notiziario NIP - News ITALIA PRESS agenzia stampa - N° 26 - Anno XII, 8 febbraio 2005
Censura e cultura, riflessioni italiche
.
In occasione della 'prima di "Courting Mae West. A staged reading", scritta dalla sceneggiatrice italo-americana LindaAnn Loschiavo, artisti italo-americani si interrogano sul sostegno alla cultura 'etnica' da parte di enti ed istituzioni di origine italiana in America
.
New York - La commedia "Courting Mae West. A staged reading", scritta dalla sceneggiatrice italo-americana LindaAnn Loschiavo, andrà in scena domani, 9 febbraio al C.U.N.Y Graduate Center di New York, diretta da Thomas Morrissey. La storia racconta la vicenda di Mae West, diva del teatro di Broadway nel 1927, arrestata per atti osceni, trasferita alla West Side Court e lì rinchiusa fino al trasferimento, per dieci anni, alla Women's Workhouse di Welfare Island.
.
La messa in scena della Loschiavo racconta l'arresto, la detenzione e le conseguenze spiacevoli intorno a questo caso di oscenità. Nel caso della rappresentazione a New York di domani, la sceneggiatrice di origine italiana ha messo in conto di discutere del rapporto tra cultura e censura nella Broadway del 1926-1929 .
.
La 'prima', ha scatenato, sulla stampa americana locale, una serie di reazioni da parte della Loschiavo e di altri attori e produttori di origine italiana. Una protesta mediatica che vuole attirare l'attenzione sulla grande produzione culturale di stampo italiano in America, assolutamente sottostimata rispetto a quella prodotta da altri gruppi etnici, in prima linea ebrei ed irlandesi.
.
"Per anni le associazioni italo-americane no-profit, hanno accusato gli attori di accettare solo ruoli da villani e mafiosi – dice ad esempio l'attore italo-americani Joe Piscopo -. La realtà è che diversamente da altri gruppi che sostengono attori, sceneggiatori, le associazioni italo-americane hanno cambiato poco del loro atteggiamento nell'ultima metà del secolo. Questo è il motivo per cui non ci sono molte storie reali di vita italo-americana sui palcoscenici d'America ".
.
La Loschiavo ha dichiarato, dal canto suo, che parte del problema è che gli italo-americani non producono molte commedie che abbiano come fine migliorare la propria immagine. "Mentre in America ci sono circa 90 gruppi di teatro ispanici, non c'è un teatro o un gruppo teatrale italo-americano – ha dichiarato -. Ebrei e irlandesi hanno prodotto molti premi Pulitzer a Tony Award, riconoscimenti che di rado hanno visto primeggiare scritti italo-americani."
.
"Abbiamo bisogno di avere film e commedie che infondano un'immagine positiva e, di più, abbiamo bisogno che siano finanziati da italo-americani", ha aggiunto la produttrice Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno.
"Se le associazioni italo-americane volesse costruire teatri e promuover l'arte, avrei molto più rispetto di loro – ha dichiarato l'attore J. W. Perra -. Spero che 'Courting Mae West' vada a Broadway" .
.
Per esprimere solidarietà al progetto e contro ogni forma di censura, l'attore italico Mark Ruffalo ha sottoscritto una lettera di sostegno alla sceneggiatrice Loschiavo. Inoltre si deve all'artista Michael Di Motta l'esposizione di colorati pannelli visibili in occasione della serata della 'prima', dipinti sulla scia di un archivio fotografico dell'epoca (1927-'28). "E' un onore aiutare alla riscoperta di un capitolo perduto della storia newyorchese degli anni '30 ", ha dichiarato Di Motta
.
News ITALIA PRESS * N° 26 - Anno XII, 8 febbraio 2005
© Copyright News ITALIA PRESS di MediaPress S.r.l. 2002-2004 - Tutti i diritti riservati News ITALIA PRESS – Testata registrata al Tribunale di Ivrea (Torino, Italy) N° 166 del 01.03.1994
Le notizie del Notiziario NIPsono offerte in lettura gratuitamente.
- - from News ITALIA PRESS - -
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae Amid the Halls of Ivy

Here's an excerpt from Heather O'Donnell's academic article: "Signifying Sex"
American Quarterly - Volume 54, No. 3, September 2002, pp. 499-505 [Johns Hopkins Press]

Excerpt: . . . THE FEW BOOKS ABOUT MAE WEST THAT APPEARED AFTER HER DEATH IN 1980 were heavily illustrated, mass-market biographies of a fondly (if dimly) remembered star. The past five years, however, have seen an explosion of critical interest in West, not simply in her status as a camp-and-vamp Hollywood icon, but in her controversial work as a playwright and novelist, her experimentation with sexually and racially coded performance styles, and in the way that West — "the greatest female impersonator of all time," rumored to be a gay man or a black woman in disguise—continues to challenge popular assumptionsabout identity.1
.
The 1990s saw four full-length critical studies devoted to West: Marybeth Hamilton's "When I'm Bad, I'm Better": Mae West, Sex, and American Entertainment (HarperCollins, 1995); Pamela Robertson's Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna (Duke, 1996); Ramona Curry's Too Much of a Good Thing: Mae West as Cultural Icon (Minnesota, 1996); and Emily Wortis Leider's Becoming Mae West (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997). Claudia Roth Pierpont celebrated West in the pages of The New Yorker, in an essay later collected in Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World (Vintage, 2000), and in 2000, Mae West returned to Broadway in Claudia Shear's Dirty Blonde, a tribute to her life and legacy.
.
Now historian Jill Watts has published a new biography, Mae West: An Icon in Black and White, which argues for West's significance as "a cultural agent that celebrates and perpetuates the African presence within American society"(318). Speculating that West's paternal grandfather was black, Watts reconsiders West's career in the context of the African American practice of signifying, embodied in the figure of the trickster, and of an African American womanist consciousness, represented in the female... .
- - excerpt from Heather O'Donnell's academic article: "Signifying Sex" - -
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Daily Quota of Mae West Quotes

One more Mae West quote:
"I have found men who didn't know how to kiss.
I've always found time to teach them."
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West: "Leo" Lady

Mae West: Born Under the Sign of Leo
Great comediennes, presidents, first ladies, entertainers as well as great dictators have been born under the zodiac sign LEO: [July 24 - - August 22]. Born in 1893 on August 17th, Mae West is a Leo.

LEO: Element: Fire
Parts of the body associated with Leo: the heart & the back
Keywords: "I will!" Courageous, lion-hearted, protective
The Leo is a gregarious, social, proud and powerful personality.

Famous Leos
Mae West
Don Henley * Napoleon * Herbert Hoover * Mussolini
Fidel Castro * Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
comedienne Lucille Ball * Count Basie * comedienne Gracie Allen
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West's Birthday Gala on August 17th

-- as featured on WBBR Bloomberg Radio [broadcast 3 July 2005]
- - Who, What, When, Where - - - - - -
MEDIA coverage invited – SPONSORSHIP welcome
WHAT: Mae’s Birthday Gala & Seance: Fundraiser for Courting Mae West
WHAT’S SPECIAL: A&E will film this evening as part of a reality TV Program
WHEN: Wednesday evening August 17th, 2005 on Mae’s birthday
WHERE: on East 54th Street in a 19th century mansion in Manhattan
WHO: Dr. Lauren Thibodeau, Medium and Psychic, and celebrity guests
EXTRA: Joe Franklin will speak about his friend Mae West
HOW MANY: 200 - 285 adults expected to attend Mae West’s Birthday Gala
TICKETS: 3 Tiers of Admission [Séance tickets are limited to 40 attendees]
Info: 212-614-9683
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West Put the "oooh" in Brooklyn

- - Who Made Greenpoint's Accent Glamourous? Who Gave WOW Power to Williamsburg? Who Put the "ooh" in Brooklyn? The Come-Up-Sometime Cutie Is Being Commemorated in New York City - -
.
New York, NY -- Mae West is still the Queen of Kings County. About.com's Brooklyn Guide Wendy Zarganis has been thinking about Bushwick Avenue's vaudevillian Mae West on the 25th anniversary of her passing. In her latest column, Zarganis noted that dramatist LindaAnn Loschiavo will offer excerpts from her play "Courting Mae West" (based on true events in Manhattan during the 1920s) at the Mae West Birthday Gala taking place on Wednesday, August 17th at Bill's Gay Nineties on East 54th Street.
.
According to Zarganis, Loschiavo's play reveals the rarely-seen, emotional side of the Brooklyn-born Mae West. Buy tickets before July 23rd to receive an advance ticket discount. See the link for details or email ComeUpSeeMae@aol.com. Wendy Zarganis wrote: "Loschiavo's blog is a must-read for lovers of Mae West and of New York in the Roaring '20s."
posted online on the Guide to Brooklyn page: Tuesday July 05, 2005 #
- - Mae West Birthday Gala * featured on About.com - -
.
BY: Wendy Zarganis, Brooklyn, New York's Online Guide
Visit Wendy + Kings County: http://www.brooklyn.about.com/
- - - - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West & Diane Arbus

Facing Scrutiny--Facing West

The more you get to know Diane Arbus' photographs, the more she intrigues, writes Philippa Hawker on the eve of a Jewish Museum exhibition.

Diane Arbus' images test our understanding of the limits of photography. . . .
~ ~ Mae West ~ ~
Some of the images in the Jewish Museum exhibition were commissioned by magazines: they could be celebrity portraits, images to accompany stories on American life, or the photographer's own projects. In 1965, Arbus spent two days with the septuagenarian star Mae West, and wrote a piece for Show Magazine to accompany the images: she described Mae as "imperious, adorable, magnanimous, genteel and girlish, almost simultaneously. There is even, forgive me, a kind of innocence about her."
.
But the photographs are more pitiless than the prose: they shed a harsh, revealing light on their subject. West hated them, and threatened to sue.
.
Her portraits often seem to be collaborations, images created with the participation and consent of those she photographed. Yet they contain something that is both more and less than their subjects might think they are revealing: they seem to show the gap between how a person sees themselves and how they might appear to others. There is empathy and there is distance, intimacy and a kind of pitiless scrutiny.
.
Arbus, who had a sharp, pithy prose style, often supplied lines that could be used by critics either to justify or condemn her. A monograph with the twins on its cover, published after her suicide in 1971, included pages of Arbus utterances and observations about photography that have an offhand yet aphoristic force. They suggest, sometimes misleadingly, things about her work and her approach.
.
Diane Arbus owned up to manipulation in taking her pictures: she acknowledged the access that a camera gave her, the power it conferred on her, the mystery and intractability of some aspects of her art. She said things that have continued to haunt the way her work is reviewed and understood. Things such as:
.
"A photograph is a secret about a secret."
"You see people on the street and what you notice about them is the flaw."
"We've all got an identity. You can't avoid it. It's what is left when youtake everything else away."
"I work from awkwardness. By that Imean I don't like to arrange things. If I stand in front of something, instead of arranging it, I arrange myself." . . .
. . .
The Photographs of Diane Arbus is at the Jewish Museum, 26 Alma Road, St Kilda from July 12 to August 28. On July 17 at 7.30pm, there will be special program that includes a guided tour and a discussion by a psychiatrist about responses to difference. Bookings: 9534 0083
- - excerpt from an article printed in Australia - -
By Philippa Hawker
July 6, 2005
http://www.theage.com.au/
- - - - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Speakeasy Secrets Mae West & George Raft Knew

Discover Secrets Unspoken in a Speakeasy on West 56th Street that Mae West & George Raft Once Knew
.
.
Through July 21, when Film Forum (209 West Houston St.) is showcasing witty films that slipped the censors in its "Paramount Before the Code" series—including Mae West's screen debut [in "Night After Night"]—will any Big Apple history buffs be in the audience? Whose memory is sharp enough to detect New York nuggets built into this comedy set in a certain palatial rowhouse? Or has that once comforting tonic of shared narrative vanished like bathtub gin?
.
Club Napoleon: 33 West 56th Street
.
Before she read the script, Mae West knew about these premises on West 56th Street. So did George Raft, who had tangoed in speakeasies run by Texas Guinan and her brother, and patronized by Dorothy Parker along with literary "round table" types. It was Tommy Guinan and Sherman Billingsley who were the Pied Pipers of Club Napoleon, mixmasters who made the right ingredients pour in: bluebloods, showgirls, prizefighters, and pinky-ring types.
.
Club Napoleon’s escapades inspired a sly short story, "Single Night" by Louis Bromfield, which Mae West, Kathryn Scola, and Vincent Lawrence would fine-tune and finesse into a screenplay about a speak with the working title of Number 55. An address change couldn’t fool New Yorkers. Those in the know realized this was about "that house on Fifty-Sixth Street," which had been owned by Charles Donahue, whose ambitious brother had wooed and wed heiress Jessie Woolworth, worth $70,000,000 thanks to her grandfather, founder of the five-and-dime chain.
.
When this elegant five-story limestone mansion became the lavishly appointed speakeasy Club Napoleon, a repeat attender was Pulitzer winner Louis Bromfield [1896-1956]. Whiling away an afternoon with a news man, Bromfield noticed a stranger who ordered a drink, then threw it on the floor. Headwaiter Albert Berryman protested, whereupon the gent raved about being born in this very house and resenting its downturn into an illegal gin mill. He left without revealing his name. Not long after, on April 24, 1931, the cousin and legal guardian of the 18-year-old heiress Barbara Hutton made a splash on the front page of The New York Times; deep in debt, millionaire broker James Paul Donahue, 44, had doffed a chemical cocktail and committed suicide.
.
Louis Bromfield stirred these bitters into a creamier concoction, which he resold to Hollywood. Night After Night was intended as a vehicle for George Raft, featuring Constance Cummings and Texas Guinan, whose baubles were so substantial that she could signal ships with her jewelry. Though that part went to Mae West, the role of "Maudie Triplett" retained its Cartier cachet.

"Goodness!" cried the girl. "Are them diamonds real?"
"Yes, dearie," Mae West replied, "but goodness had nothing to do with 'em."
.
Another film with a similar slant was "The House on 56th Street," starring Kay Francis. Legends rapidly took shape about that location — especially after bootlegger Larry Fay renamed the club Casa Blanca, and met a spectacularly crimson-soaked death there on January 1, 1933.
.
But three months earlier, Mae had passed by en route to the Paramount Theatre. "Night After Night" premiered on October 29, 1932 to good reviews and she and Raft had a lot to celebrate.
.

This 500-word article was written by LindaAnn Loschiavo ©2005 All rights reserved.
.
Dramatist LindaAnn Loschiavo will offer excerpts from her play “Courting Mae West” [based on true events in Manhattan during the 1920s] at the Mae West Birthday Gala taking place on Wednesday evening August 17, 2005 at Bill’s Gay Nineties on East 54th Street.
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

JOE FRANKLIN Talks about MAE WEST on WBBR Radio

JOE FRANKLIN Talks about MAE WEST on WBBR Radio with the Author of "Courting Mae West"
.
TV and radio legend JOE FRANKLIN interviewed New York writer LindaAnn Loschiavo about her play "Courting Mae West." Set during the 1920s and based on true events, this play, which has had 2 public readings in Manhattan, has already been seen by approximately 600 adults.
.
On Saturday July 2nd, 2005, this intriguing 8-minute interview will be broadcast eight different times on Bloomberg Radio's affiliated stations beginning at 1:37 AM.
Bloomberg Radio has 35 million listeners coast to coast.
The play will have a mini-performance on August 17, 2005 - - at the Mae West Birthday Gala, which is a fundraiser for this play. Joe Franklin will speak about his friend Mae West during this Benefit.
.
Admission on August 17th is free for anyone who comes dressed as Mae West.
[Pre-registration for free admission is required before August 1, 2005.]
.
August 17th Gala tickets are also available online.
For details, please visit www.MaeWest.blogspot.com
.
Bloomberg Radio is the creation of Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York and a former journalist who generously supports theatre and culture.
.
Hear Bloomberg Radio nationwide on satellite radio:
XM channel 129 or Sirius stream 102.
In New York City, tune to WBBR 1130 on the AM dial.
In the Hamptons, 96.7 FM.
Find your local channel here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/radio/
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West in "Hollywood & the Supernatural"

Mae West's interest in the occult is discussed in a book by Brad Steiger and Sherry Hanson Steiger, authors of "Hollywood and the Supernatural" (St. Martin's, 1990).
.
A colleague of Mae's, Stanley Musgrove had helped organize some of her spiritual evenings that sometimes took place at his home [near Universal Studios]. Musgrove invited the Canadian psychic-astrologer Clarisa Bernhardt to conduct a seance on the occasion of a book launch. Musgrove had written a Mae West biography with George Eels.
.
Musgrove and Eels arranged for numerous press people to attend, including Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The National Enquirer, as well as other reporters from the L. A. area.
.
Also attending the seance: several of Mae's closest friends including Sibyl Brand and her close friend and bodyguard who had been with her for years.
.
According to Brad Steiger's book, Mae does not like the term seance -- and she prefers to refer to that experience as an "interdimensional communication" instead.
.
One reporter from a newspaper published in Oklahoma [on the edge of the Bible Belt] wrote an article about that event. Instead of using the phrase "Inter-dimensional Communication," the news man wrote, "Mae did not like the term 'seance" and she preferred to refer to it as an Inter-denominational Communication."
.
Of interest to Mae West fans: "Hollywood and The Supernatural" (St. Martin's, 1990).
.
Stanley Musgrove was an old friend of Mae West. Musgrove was quick to say he was not her agent, but he was [or became] her publicist. He often "ran interference" for the star, screening her visitors, as well as autograph-hunters or admirers who were after her picture. He signed some of her correspondence and was privy to her thoughts on everything from her attendance at functions, to what were the appropriate fees she received for appearances, interviews, and the like. Musgrove came to know many Hollywood personalities, from actors to directors. In 1982 he collaborated with George Eells on Mae West: A Biography [NY: William Morrow].
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West: Hand Trouble?

Why Mae West Never Shook Hands
. . . During the next few years, Bob Thompson toured with Mae West and her entourage of musclemen. Impressed by Bob, Mae West demanded that he be her piano teacher, although they never even shook hands.

"Mae West believed when you shook hands with someone, their spiritual forces could take over your being," says Paula, who went on tours across the globe with Bob. "She did everything else with everyone. But she didn't shake hands."

After building a musical reputation playing with a big name like Mae West, Thompson got his big break in 1958 with a record deal from RCA. Signed alongside Esquivel, Billy May, Nelson Riddle and a crop of other musicians destined to be Hollywood stars, Thompson was asked to be the answer to Ray Conniff, on rival label Columbia. There was just one problem.

"Bob hated Ray Conniff," says Spenser Thompson. "My father thought Ray Conniff was a total square. You see, Bob was hip. Bob had soul." . . .
- - an excerpt from this article by Delfin Vigil - -
HEY, MR. SPACE MAN
San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, June 26, 2005
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Eternally Rested Mae West

Eternally Arresting: Mae West
.
An article recently featured on "Coast to Coast AM" discusses Mae West's personal experiences with ESP, Mae's favorite psychic Rev. Jack Kelly, and séances.
Please see:
Midtown Mansion to Host a Séance and Birthday Party for Mae West
www.the-book-of-thoth.com/modules. php?name=News&file=article&sid=464 -
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

The antics of the sultry Mae West

Those Days When SIN Was Not "In"

. . . public disapproval of celebrity immorality extended to the content of films themselves. The Hays Code was voluntarily implemented in 1934 by the movie industry in response to public outcry over the antics of the sultry Mae West. The Code stated, "No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin." The Code remained in force until the early 1960s. The Hays Code has been derided since its demise as quaint and oppressive, but it is no coincidence that the greatest movies ever made were filmed during this period.
.
For a long while after the demise of the Hays Code, Americans accepted celebrity scandal and movie immorality. The erosion of traditional moral standards in the 1960s made Americans more tolerant of immoral behavior on screen and off.
.
But perhaps Americans are beginning to wake up to the degradation of our culture by celebrity worship and Hollywood . . .
- - an excerpt from this article - -
"Fighting the Michael Jackson culture"
Ben Shapiro on http://www.townhall.com/
June 22, 2005
- -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Come Up & See Mae - - Come Up & BE Mae

— Mae West Birthday Team Offers FREE Admission to Any Guest Dressed as Mae West —

New York, NY — Two Paramount classics starring MAE WEST will be at Film Forum on Thursday July 21, 2005. Fans of the buxom blonde from Brooklyn can come up and see Mae in "She Done Him Wrong" [with Cary Grant] and in "Night after Night" [with George Raft].
.
Seeing these films on the big screen may encourage viewers to channel their inner Mae West.
.
Now your inner Mae West has a place to go. The organizers of a birthday party for MAE WEST, a fundraiser taking place on Wednesday evening August 17, 2005 in midtown Manhattan, are extending an offer of FREE admission to this Benefit to anyone who arrives attired and made up to look like Mae West. [Advance registration required by August 1st.]
.
Details by email: MaeWestOnstageNY@aol.com.
Shy or budget-conscious Mae West fans can also purchase discounted tickets before July 23rd at www.TheField.org [$250 admission before July 23rd; $300 after July 23rd; and $100 admission before July 23rd; $130 after July 23rd]. Roaring 20s attire is suggested.
.
- - - Who, What, Where, When - - -
An Exciting Nightlife Event to Celebrate the Birthday of Mae West

What: Birthday Party & Seance for Mae West: Fundraiser for "Courting Mae West"
What’s Special: A&E is filming this evening as part of a reality TV Program
When: evening of August 17th, 2005 - Mae’s birthday
Where: Bill’s Gay 90s on East 54th Street, NYC
Who: psychic and medium Dr. Lauren; also celebrity guests
Extra: Joe Franklin speaks about his friend Mae West
How Many: 200 - 285 adults expected
Fiscal Sponsorship: The Field, a 501 (c)(3), a non-profit serving the performing arts community
Credit Card Payments: buy tickets online at www.PayPal.com
E: ComeUpSeeMae@aol.com
- - Info Online: - -
The Field is a not-for-profit, tax exempt, 501(c)(3) organization serving the New York City performing arts community. Contributions made to The Field and earmarked for COURTING MAE WEST are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. A copy of The Field’s latest annual report may be obtained, upon request, from The Field or from the Office of the Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
August 17th Gala telephone: 212-614-9683.
- -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Come Up & See Mae on Thursday July 21

Film Forum: 2 Mae West classics for the price of one admission

"SHE DONE HIM WRONG"
DIRECTOR: Lowell Sherman
WRITER: Mae West, based on her play "Diamond Lil"
STARS: Mae West, Cary Grant
SUPPORTING PLAYERS: Louise Beavers
1933, 66m
Academy Award Nomination: Best Picture

"Though directed by Lowell Sherman with a fine eye for plush Bowery saloons, what matters is Mae, the honey pot around which the bees cluster. It remains refreshing to experience her unbridled and luxurious enjoyment of men, sin and diamonds -- not necessarily in that order." -- David Shipman.

"Mae West, the great shady lady of the screen, wriggles and sings "Easy Rider" and seduces ... a classic comedy and a classic seduction." -- Pauline Kael

“Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?” One of the lines that got Mae West in hot water and a Depression-stricken Paramount into the black, in Mae’s blockbuster adaptation of her stage hit “Diamond Lil,” with Salvation Army captain Cary Grant as the hunk she asks to “come up sometime and see me.”

SHOWTIMES: 2:00, 4:50, 7:40
CO-FEATURE: "NIGHT AFTER NIGHT"
Box Office: 212-727-8110.
Film Forum at 209 Weat Houston Street [betw 6th & 7th Avenue] in New York City
only on JULY 21, 2005 THURSDAY
- - - http://www.filmforum.org - - - - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

CBS Shows the Best of Mae West

Mae West's Film Quotes: Unforgettable after all these years
.
Here is an introduction to AFI's 100 Years . . . 100 Quotes: America's Greatest Quips, Comebacks and Catchphrases, a frothy, three-hour CBS Tuesday special - the eighth in an ongoing series dealing with film history. . . .
.
In case you're not up to speed on famous film quotes, "You can't handle the truth!" was Jack Nicholson's explosive courtroom line in A Few Good Men. "Snap out of it!" was Cher's signature phrase from Moonstruck, the ethnic comedy about Italian life in New York, while "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," resonates as the famous quote uttered by Clark Gable, the dashing Rhett Butler, to Vivien Leigh (Scarlett O'Hara) in Gone With the Wind.
.
Other famous quotes that probably will be among the top 10:
.
• "Why don't you come up and see me some time?" - Mae West in She Done Him Wrong.
• "Here's looking at you, kid." - Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.
• "Show me the money!" - Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry McGuire.
• "I'll have what she's having!" - the response of the elderly female diner following Meg Ryan's fake orgasm in When Harry Met Sally.
• "May the force be with you." - Harrison Ford in the original Star Wars.
• "Houston, we have a problem." - Tom Hanks in Apollo 13.
.
You'll probably find your favorite movie quotes, with some coming from TV Westerns, beyond such intense dialogue as "Yup" (Gary Cooper) and "Saddle up!" (John Wayne).
.
Hosted by Pierce Brosnan, the program follows the format of the seven previous summer specials. A bevy of stars, writers and directors - including Billy Crystal, Nora Ephron, William Goldman, Roy Scheider, Buck Henry, George Lucas, Joe Montegna, Burt Reynolds and Ray Romano - will offer commentary as famous scenes are shown during a countdown.
.
AFI (the American Film Institute) distributed a ballot with the names of 400 nominated movie quotes to a jury of 1,500 leaders in the creative community. The list was then trimmed to 100.
.
Jurors based their votes on cultural impact and legacy. . . .
- - an excerpt from an article printed in The Rocky Mountain News - -
Dusty Saunders: Film quotes we can't forget
Dusty Saunders is the broadcasting critic of Rocky Mt News [303-892-5137]
June 20, 2005
- -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Marty Markowitz + Mae West: Brooklynites

Is There a Marty Markowitz in The House?

Mae West Birthday Team Calls on the Borough President for Lessons on "How to Talk Brooklyn"
.
New York, NY: Movie Queen MAE WEST made the Brooklyn accent trendy. Due to the influx of immigrants to this borough, however, the local accent is an endangered hallmark, according to broadcast legend JOE FRANKLIN, who claims he hears the native New York speech pattern far less frequently. "It is imperiled," adds FRANKLIN, with a nostalgic glance. "It's disappearing like all the other great things that New York was once known for -- like vaudeville and home delivery of seltzer."
.
Organizers of a birthday party for MAE WEST, a fundraiser taking place on Wednesday evening August 17, 2005 in midtown Manhattan, are pleading with the borough president MARTY MARKOWITZ to send an ambassador to the event to give a lesson in "how to talk Brooklyn" to the attendees.
.
Actress LOUISE LASSER, born and bred in The Big Apple, admits that The Actors Studio bleached the local accent out of her vocalizations. On August 17th, LASSER [who once starred in the cult TV hit "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman"] looks forward to a refresher course in how to say "tigah" instead of "tiger" and "thurd" instead of "third." LASSER also misses seltzer trucks, outdoor peddlers on Bleecker Street, and [most importantly] the Third Avenue El.
.
Car 54 and Marty Markowitz: where are you?
.
PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES: Joe Franklin, Mae West, actress Louise Lasser, and others.
Editorial coverage is invited.
.
- - Who, What, Where, When - -
An Exciting Nightlife Event to Celebrate the Birthday of Mae West
.
What: Birthday Party & Seance for Mae West: Fundraiser for "Courting Mae West"
What's Special: A&E is filming this evening as part of a reality TV Program
When: evening of August 17th, 2005 - Mae's birthday
Where: Bill's Gay 90s on East 54th Street, NYC
Who: Dr. Lauren, medium & psychic, along with celebrity guests
EXTRA: JOE FRANKLIN discusses his friend MAE WEST
How Many: 200 - 285 adults expected
.
Fiscal Sponsorship: The Field, a 501 (c)(3), a non-profit serving the performing arts community
Credit Card Payments: buy tickets online at www.PayPal.com
E: ComeUpSeeMae@aol.com

- - Info Online: - -
The Field is a not-for-profit, tax exempt, 501(c)(3) organization serving the New York City performing arts community. Contributions made to The Field and earmarked for COURTING MAE WEST are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. A copy of The Field’s latest annual report may be obtained, upon request, from The Field or from the Office of the Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271. Tel.: 212-614-9683.
- -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Broadcast Legend Joe Franklin Salutes Mae West

-- Former TV Host Exposes the "Real" Mae at a Birthday Party for the Movie Queen --
.
On Wednesday evening August 17, 2005, broadcast legend JOE FRANKLIN will speak about his television and radio interviews as well as his intimate conversations with the actress MAE WEST during her rousing birthday party in midtown Manhattan.
.
FRANKLIN will also discuss his enthusiasm for the play "Courting Mae West," which is based on true events during the 1920s when the buxom blonde was arrested and jailed for trying to stage two different plays on Broadway about homosexuals and drag queens. Attendees will be treated to a variety of entertainment including a mini-performance of "Courting Mae West," written by dramatist LindaAnn Loschiavo.
.
PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES: Joe Franklin, Mae West, actress Louise Lasser, and others.
Editorial coverage is invited.
.
- - - Who, What, Where, When - - -
An Exciting Nightlife Event to Celebrate the Birthday of Mae West

What: Birthday Party & Seance for Mae West: Fundraiser for "Courting Mae West"
What's Special: A&E is filming this evening as part of a reality TV Program
When: evening of August 17th, 2005 - Mae's birthday
Where: Bill's Gay 90s on East 54th Street [near Madison Avenue], NYC
Who: psychic and medium Dr. Lauren, and also celebrity guests
EXTRA: Joe Franklin speaks about Mae West
How Many: 200 - 285 adults expected
Fiscal Sponsorship: The Field, a 501 (c)(3), a non-profit serving the performing arts community
Credit Card Payments: buy tickets online at www.PayPal.com
E: ComeUpSeeMae@aol.com
- - Info Online: - -
The Field is a not-for-profit, tax exempt, 501(c)(3) organization serving the New York City performing arts community. Contributions made to The Field and earmarked for COURTING MAE WEST are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. A copy of The Field’s latest annual report may be obtained, upon request, from The Field or from the Office of the Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271. Tel.: 212-614-9683.
- -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

The Mayor who Quotes Mae West

Rotarians root for Beverly O'Neill, Who Quotes Mae West:
Long Beach's Mayor talks about her new role to group's members.

.
LONG BEACH — She's "the best damned mayor in the whole country," or at least that's what Long Beach Rotarians think of Beverly O'Neill, who spoke to the group aboard the Queen Mary on Wednesday about her new role as head of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The Long Beach mayor was installed at a national meeting in Chicago on Tuesday, placing her in charge of a powerful lobbying organization representing more than 1,000 U.S. cities.
.
O'Neill will serve for the next year in a post that has been held by New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and both Richard Dalys, Chicago's father and son mayoral dynasty.
.
O'Neill became one of Long Beach Rotary's first female members in 1988, soon after the organization began allowing women members.
.
She was introduced at the Rotary's weekly luncheon aboard the Queen Mary by Long Beach Rotary Board Vice President Terry Geiling, who called her "the best damned mayor in the whole country."
.
O'Neill talked about her prestigious appointment as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
"It's probably the most important organization, other than Rotary, that I've been part of," O'Neill said. "Now I have a new audience for my Mae West jokes."
.
O'Neill, who is known for peppering her speeches with quotes from the Hollywood bombshell, offered another famous West one-liner at the packed Rotary meeting, at which she received a standing ovation.
.
"I used to be Snow White … but I drifted," O'Neill said, adding, "I was mayor of Long Beach but I have really drifted now."
.
O'Neill's appointment has generated a buzz in the community because of the weight the position carries, and many believe it will help to get . . . .
- - excerpt from an article in the Long Beach Press-Telegram - -
By Don Jergler
Staff writer
Article Published: Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Long Beach Press-Telegram
604 Pine Ave.
Long Beach, CA 90844
Los Angeles Newspaper Group
- http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml -
- - http://MaeWest.blogspot.com - -

Mae West: Run-Away Bride

On the morning of April 11, 1911, actress Mae West [1893-1980] married her 21-year-old co-star Frank Wallace [birthname: Frank Szatkus] in Milwaukee. He and Mae had been playing 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 more 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 Bushwick Avenue house that belonged to Mae’s parents. Following rehearsal, 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 marry him. 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 sued his well-paid wife in order to get money.
.
mae west
.
jennifer wilbanks
- - http://MaeWest.blogspot.com - -

Mae West: Intimate Info

Mae West: Did You Know. . .?

* George Jean Nathan called her “the Statue of Libido”

* John Mason Brown wrote: “Sex is for her a cartoon which she delights in animating”

* Richard Watts, theatre critic, said: “Mae West is one of the legends of our time”

* Truman Capote said: “Mae West is the Big Ben of the hourglass figures”

* In order to honor her prominence and monumental status, Princeton University's scientists designed a magnet in the shape of her torso

* A twin diesel engine was named for her on the Super Chief

* Dakota Indians made her a tribe member as Princess She-Who-Mountains-in-the-Front

* Walt Disney used her image as the source for the character Jenny Wren in his classic “Silly Symphony” [1935] and later as the goldfish Cleo in “Pinocchio”

* Salvador Dali designed a sofa in red silk based on her lips

* During World War II, Royal Air Force fliers called a pneumatic life-jacket “a Mae West”

* On Thursday June 16th, there are only 62 more shopping days until Mae West's birthday on August 17th. You ARE planning to attend her birthday party in midtown Manhattan, aren't you?
.
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

The "Mae West" Factor in Michael Jackson

— Both born in August, two famous "M" entertainers weigh in on the diva scale. —
.
Mae West — Date of Birth: 17 August 1893 in Brooklyn, New York.
Mary Jane West was the second of four children born to John and Matilda West.
Michael Jackson — Date of Birth: 29 August 1958 in Gary, Indiana. He was seventh of nine brothers and sisters born to Joseph and Katherine Jackson.
.
Zodiac sign:
Mae West: Leo
Michael Jackson: Virgo
.
Issues about aging:
Mae West: often lied about the year she was born; dated younger men
Michael Jackson: still refusing to grow up; has dated MUCH younger males
.
Skincare:
Mae West: avoided sun to keep her complexion pale, unwrinkled; no facial surgery
Michael Jackson: avoids reality by keeping his complexion "pale"; plastic surgery poster child; cut off his nose to spite his race
.
Wig Stock:
Mae West: after age 50, wore a long wig to disguise her dowager's hump
Michael Jackson: after age 32, wore a long wig to disguise his gender
.
Dance history:
Mae West: introduced a white audience to "The Shimmy"
Michael Jackson: introduced a white audience to "The Moonwalk"
.
Legal Woes:
Mae West: convicted felon; jailed twice for obscenity; sued several times for plagiarism
Michael Jackson: arrested for pedophile tendencies; escaped a prison term; sued several times for molestation of a minor
.
Image Enhancement:
Mae West: many biographies lit Mae's eternal flame; still quotable after all these years
Michael Jackson: bio-pics doused his fame; still song-worthy after all these years
.
mae west
.
michael jackson
.
Credit: LindaAnn Loschiavo, "Courting Mae West"
Text appeared on the playwright’s blog first: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com

The "Real" Mae West Vest

Overblown claim:
Famed inventor got too much credit for "Mae West" life vest
By Ron Harris Associated Press
.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Inventor Andrew Toti was praised by no less than former President Bush for inventing the "Mae West" inflatable life vest that saved his life when he was shot down over the Pacific during World War II. When Toti died in March at 89, he was credited in obituaries across the nation with the invention -- so-named because when inflated, it reminded servicemen of the buxom actress.
.
As it turns out, government records show that another inventor, Peter Markus, patented such a vest in 1928 and was working with the military to improve it years before Toti began tinkering with life jackets. Peter Markus died in 1973.
.
His son, Alvin Markus of Los Angeles, provided The Associated Press with documents showing that Markus was granted U.S. Patent No. 1,694,714, for an "inflatable life preserver," on Dec. 11, 1928, when Toti would have been about 11 years old.
.
By 1930, the Navy was beginning to make Markus-designed vests, according to military records in the National Archives that were tracked down at the request of The Associated Press.
.
Toti, who said he sold his vest design to the War Department for $1,500 when he was just a teenager, "never claimed to be the inventor. He always claimed to be the co-inventor," Russell "Buck" Hinkley, the executor of Toti's estate, told the AP.
.
"Though Toti played a part in it, Peter Markus is the inventor of the vest," said Hinkley, a machinist who worked for decades with Toti.
.
Toti had hundreds of patents for inventions that included an automatic chicken plucker and a breathing tube used during surgery. Over the years, Toti apparently did not object when others gave him credit for the Mae West. . . .
- - excerpt from an article written by Ron Harris, Associated Press - -
Published in The L.A. Daily News: Saturday, June 11, 2005

Mae West Cured by Deva Ram Sukul

During the 1920s, Mae West, in great turmoil over the lawsuits that dogged her, was getting stomach aches that interfered with her parformances in "Diamond Lil." To remedy the sharp pains in her side, Mae's attorney-manager James A. Timony introduced a Yogi healer to her: Sri Deva Ram Sukul, President + Director of the Yoga Institute of America. Mae West credits "my Yogi friend Sri Deva Sukul" with helping her guide the course of her life in the book Mae West on Sex, Health, and ESP.
.
According to an account written by Jill Watts [Mae West: An Icon in Black and White, page 115] as well as other authors, Timony introduced Deva Ram Sukul to Mae while the show was on tour in Chicago.
.
During the late 1920s, while she was in Chicago, Mae's pain grew worse and more frequent, occasionally forcing showtime delays or longer intermissions. Another physical and some X-rays showed nothing unusual. However, the attacks grew so miserable and frequent that exploratory surgery was looming.
.
Hoping to keep Mae working, Timony arranged for treatments from Sri Deva Ram Sukul, a healer and president of the Yoga Institute for America. The Sri arrived at Mae's hotel room and, after questioning her, held her hands and prayed in Hindi. He then had her stand up and pressed his hands against her stomach for several minutes. He declared her cured and departed. From that moment on, Mae insisted, the pains disappeared.
.
By the late 1940's, Sri Deva Ram Sukul, president and director of the Yoga Institute of America came into the lives of others due to several books he had written and published, which had helped to make him a major influence. He lectured to students on his special topic: the Raja Yoga System of Self Culture. According to a former student, the mantra that people were given by him was the "Gayatri." This is the very sacred Vedic Mantra which is full of the secrets of yoga.
.
Sri Deva Ram Sukul [she recalled] taught that the highest goal of life is spiritual realization and conscious communion with the forces and powers that are Divine. According to this woman who studied with him, "This conscious communion and awareness of Divinity is what yoga is all about. In his teaching he used color meditation on the chakras, and shabda or sound principles. . . ."
.
- - books written and published by Deva Ram Sukul - -
Yoga and self-culture: Higher laws of spiritual dynamics including outline of philosophy of the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and the six systems of Hindu philosophy / by Deva Ram Sukul
Publisher: Yoga Institute of America (1947); 206 pages
ASIN: B0007I93W6
.
India and Tibet: Pilgrimage lessons
by Deva Ram Sukul
Publisher: Yoga Institute of America (1941)
ASIN: B0007FAI2S
.
Yoga navajivan: (path to new life and divine realization) : introduction to raja yoga system of self-culture /cas taught by Deva Ram Sukul
by Deva Ram Sukul
Publisher: Yoga Institute of America; 6th rev. ed edition (1947); 42 pages
ASIN: B0007I0460
.
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

"A Mae West Experience" - in Cleveland

"A Mae West Experience" - a painting [2002] by artist Michael Borremans

We're all trained from childhood to read pictures like stories. But the pictures of Belgian artist Michael Borremans don't work that way. Full as they are with seemingly narrative elements, they're deliberately befuddling. That's part of what makes them so mesmerizing. Borremans' exhibition, "Hallucination and Reality," on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art through Sunday, Sept. 4, is a magnificent example of how an artist can take historical conventions and use them to make works that feel entirely new.
.
Drawing upon influences ranging from Renaissance drawing to Surrealism, Borremans creates hauntingly beautiful drawings and paintings that lure viewers like glass-encased gemstones.
.
Rather than creating stories, he combines disparate images so that they read like dreams or nightmares.
.
A painting from 2002 titled "A Mae West Experience," for instance, shows a bust of the famous screen siren as if it were a public monument. Comparatively tiny figures appear to walk around the statue, though many are depicted as figurines, each mounted to a round base and therefore immobile. Though the implied space in the painting is wide open, the frame of a doorway appears on the periphery, as if leading viewers from one realm into another.
.
The show is Michael Borremans' first solo museum exhibition in the United States, and the Cleveland museum is its only American venue. It opened last fall in Switzerland and traveled to Belgium before opening in Cleveland on May 22. Co-curated by Jeffrey Grove, who left his post as . . . .
- excerpt from Michael Borremans: 'Hallucination and Reality' delightfully puzzling -
ART
Monday, June 06, 2005
Dan Tranberg
Special to The Plain Dealer
- excerpt from Michael Borremans: 'Hallucination & Reality' delightfully puzzling -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Marissa Jaret Winokur: Mae West Fan

Louise Lasser Foresees “Hairspray” Honey Cast as Mae West
- - - Marissa Jaret Winokur Deserves a Solid-Gold Starring Role - - -

i-Newswire, 2005-05-27 - New York, NY: Louise Lasser, best known for the title role in television’s cult hit “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” wonders what Mae West would make of today’s TV. Instead of guarding her waistline, Mae West guided her IMAGE, says Lasser, adding that the buxom blonde courageously refused to play the victim or be the punch line.
.
What a difference between Mae in midlife and ex-“Cheers” leader Kirstie Alley, who has stooped to cherish the short straw. Literally making herself the butt of the joke, the star of “Fat Actress” positions herself for unflattering footage, her massive thighs jiggling as she squats to do gardening.
.
And what about Tony Award winner Marissa Jaret Winokur? After a whirlwind run as "Tracy Turnblad," a plus-sized honey who stole the hero’s heart from a queen bee in the hit Broadway musical "Hairspray," 32-year-old Marissa is now a hapless counter clerk on the boring sitcom “Stacked.” Worse: Winokur’s real job is to make silicone-slave Pamela Anderson look more luscious. Tsk! Even in her dotage, Mae West never took a backseat on camera or onstage. Mae West fans admire an actress who would never stoop to conquer.
.
Since Marissa Jaret Winokur [the niece of S.J. Perelman and Nathanael West] has a trifecta of theatre awards on her mantle, shouldn’t she be seeking “role-model” roles? La Lasser views it this way: Too often sitcoms are a woman’s personal misfortune teller, a reflecting pool that lets a lady see how each extra pound will slide her one inch closer to working-class anonymity. In this way, TV acts as an eternal hall monitor, making sure females WANT to watch their waistlines and buy beauty aids.
.
But there’s a sunbeam on the horizon. Louise Lasser spotted it when Winokur told Newsweek Magazine that Mae West is her idol. Lasser hopes that Winokur will audition for “Courting Mae West,” a well-received play by downtown dramatist LindaAnn Loschiavo, a comedy which is at the center of a star-studded fundraiser that Lasser (and many other celebrities) will attend on Wednesday August 17, 2005 in midtown Manhattan.
.
Not only do they share a monogram – M.J.W. – but also Mary Jane West and Marissa Jaret Winokur share a rare quality: the ability to turn people into ticket-buyers.

###

Courting Mae West Productions
David Copeland, Director
212-614-9683
- - from http://i-newswire.com/pr22534.html - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

A Mae West Chest

The Star says: "Hooray for Mae West"

What started out as an undergarment worn for hygiene purposes has evolved over the past 100 years. From simply loose clothing, to corsets, and finally to garments that enhance a woman’s body, lingerie has come a long way.
It not only reflects the fashion of the times, but also says a lot about how women have come to accept their bodies and their sexuality.
In the 16th to 18th centuries, the corset was all that women knew. A corset kept their waists small and pushed up the breasts. The smaller the waist, the more beautiful the women were considered.
It was a time when the images of a man unlacing a woman’s corset was taken as a metaphor for “deflowering”.
It was only in 1904 that French corset-maker Charles de Bevoise invented a lightweight undergarment in silk and lace called the “brassiere”.
In the Roaring 20s, it was no longer fashionable to show off your curves. It was a time of straight cut dresses, bobbed hair and the Charleston. What did women wear then? Slips, camisoles, suspenders and bras that flattened the breasts!
Ten years later, the breasts were liberated . . . thanks to buxom moviestars who wore dresses and sweaters that clearly accentuated their bodies. Hooray for Mae West and Lana Turner.
In the following 40s and 50s, women were still influenced by what they saw onscreen – and these included voluptuous beauties like Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner and Betty Grable. And then there was Jane Russell in The Outlaw. She wore a half-cup bra which looked like she was bra-less. Armed withthis feat of engineering, she tantalised and teased viewers.
Despite the protests and the bra burners of the 1960s, women never did stop wearing bras altogether . . . .
- - excerpt from an article in The Star - -
Acceptance is liberating
By L. JADE
www.TheStar.com.my/
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West Takes a Bow in a New Book

Actress MAE WEST and the Biltmore Theatre are featured in a new book:
The Shuberts Present 100 Years of American Theater.
.
Entrepreneurs and impresarios, the Shubert Brothers (Sam, Lee, and J.J.) produced some 600 plays, revues, and musicals and also championed stars Sarah Bernhardt, Ethel Barrymore, Al Jolson, Mae West, and many more. But their greatest legacy was the theaters that they owned.
.
Focusing on the 17 Broadway houses owned by The Shubert Organization, this new elegant book presents a unique pageant of the past 100 years on the American stage. Irresistible to any theater lover, this beautiful edition features 430 illustrations, including 200 in full color.
- - http://MaeWest.blogspot.com - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Not One Day without Mae

My my, Mae West. Not one day goes by without Mae West's name appearing in the news somewhere. How many actresses have left such a huge fingerprint on popular culture?
.
Even if you have never seen one of her movies, you can hear Mae's distinctive voice this instant, thanks to the nice folks at The History Channel.
.
Want to hear the "Words that Changed the World"?
The History Channel notes that: "Our vast collection of speeches is drawn from the most famous broadcasts and recordings of the twentieth century."
.
Here is where you will find four pages of links to audio clips of speeches and interviews including: Neil Armstrong as he took his first steps on the Moon; King Edward VIII's abdication speech; Thomas Edison on the development of electricity; and even the inimitable Mae West talking about men, women, and diamonds and speaking her famous line: "Come up and see me sometime. Anytime. The sooner the better" (1949).

Mae West, U.S. actress and writer: On men, women, and diamonds
http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/archive/speech_411.html
- - from The History Channel - -
http://www.historychannel.com/
.
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West perch: Ravenswood [570 North Rossmore]

A longtime Mae West perch was The Ravenswood at 570 North Rossmore [Los Angeles].
.
Well, well - quoth The Ravenswood: "Mae West Evermore!"
.
Ted Soqui, writing in L.A. Weekly, had this to say:
"Not far from the point where Vine Street turns into Rossmore, a tall and elegant row of apartment buildings appears. . . ."
According to an article written by Ted Soqui [published in L.A. Weekly], Mae West owned the Ravenswood and lived in apartment # 611 until her death in 1980.
.
Also according to journalist Ted Soqui, John F. Kennedy had lived in the penthouse of the streamlined classic moderne Mauretania, designed by Milton J. Black for actor Jack Haley (the Tin Man), during the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 1960 and rendez-voused with Marilyn Monroe. And the El Royale in recent years has been called a dormitory for agents and others with entertainment glamour jobs. . . .
- - SOURCE of this information - -
an article in L.A. Weekly
"Rossmore Glamour"
by TED SOQUI
LA Weekly, CA - - Apr 27, 2005

If Your Sun Sign Is Leo, Mae West Wants You

Come Up and See Mae on Her Birthday—Especially If You’re a Leo
.
(source: PRLEAP.COM) New York, NY: “I like two kinds of men,” Mae West used to say, “foreign and domestic.” In order to raise the ROAR of the crowd on August 17, 2005 when Mae West’s birthday will be celebrated in Manhattan in a haunted nineteenth century mansion, the organizers are looking for Leos [domestic or foreign]. Ten adults born between July 23rd - August 23rd, and before 1980, will be admitted free to this star-studded Benefit.
.
To enter, send a copy of your photo I.D. that proves you were born under the sign of Leo, and tell us [in 100 words or less] why you want to come up and see Mae at her totally fabulous birthday party in midtown Manhattan on the evening of August 17th. Enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope for notification. Entries without a reply envelope will be disqualified.
.
Mailing address: MAE WEST c/o 24 Fifth Avenue, Box 6-11, NYC 10011. Entries must be received by July 20, 2005. Travel expenses to and from New York are NOT included. The decision of the judges is final.
.
- - http://MaeWest.blogspot.com - - - - - -
MEDIA coverage invited – SPONSORSHIP opportunities available
WHAT: Mae’s Birthday Gala & Seance: Fundraiser for Courting Mae West
WHAT’S SPECIAL: A&E will film this evening as part of a reality TV Program
WHEN: Wednesday evening August 17th, 2005 on Mae’s birthday
WHERE: on East 54th Street in a haunted 19th century mansion in Manhattan
WHO: Dr. Lauren Thibodeau, Medium and Psychic, with celebrity guests
EXTRA: Joe Franklin speaks about his friend Mae West
HOW MANY: 200 - 285 adults expected to attend Mae West’s Birthday Gala
TICKETS: 3 Tiers of Admission [Séance tickets are limited to 40 attendees]
- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West: Salvatore De Guarda's Phallic Symbol

What Would Mae West Think of Salvatore De Guarda's Phallic Symbol?
.
Actor Salvatore DeGuarda parlayed his swimming skills into a movie career, taking roles as "John Dexter," and he now looks back with great fondness at that remarkable experience of his life. . . .
.
A member of the Stunt Man Hall of Fame for his work in movies, Salvatore DeGuarda had a leading role in "Buffalo Bill Rides Again" and was with Mae West in her film "The Heat's On." You can find his name in countless movies from the 1940s. He also lived with the famous actress, along with some other people, for a year, and has a pile of interesting stories. He doesn't deny taking Mae West up on her offer to "come up and see" her sometime.
.
Nonetheless, if he is able to raise the $4 million it will cost to build a giant replica of a statue that was already awesome in 1939, he will go down in history with a legacy that transcends being a former movie actor who was briefly associated with the original Hollywood sex goddess. . . .
- - this is an excerpt from - -
'Pacifica II Project' plans 80-ft statue on Treasure Island
By Chris Hunter http://www.pacificatribune.com/
.
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West: Dialing 1-800-Not-Dead

Mae West Establishes a Free Rumors Hotline
By I.M. Sirius

HOLLYWOOD - Actress Mae West, whose father was a prizefighter, has come out swinging in an effort to put an end to rumors about her relationship with D.P.s [departed people]. Beginning at 9:00 a.m. (PST) on Monday August 15th, 2005, concerned Mae West fans will be able to dial 1-800-NOT-DEAD to hear the blonde bombshell deny in her own voice various rumors being printed about her in the magazines and tabloids, some founded by her nemesis William Randolph Hearst.
.
"At $1.99 a minute billed automatically to the telephone number from which a call is made, this service represents a great bargain for Mae West followers everywhere," said West's publicists at William Morris. "It's one thing for fans to read about Mae's latest denouncement of vicious lies about her premature death and burial in publications founded by Hearst, the father of 'yellow journalism,' but quite another for devotees of the diva to hear the note of disdain in her Brooklyn-accented voice as she refers to Hearst's editors - - one by one and by name - - as that 'two-bit rumor-mongering whore'."
.
Save-the-date notices are being mailed about Mae West's birthday party in midtown Manhattan on the evening of Wednesday August 17th, 2005. There are only 84 shopping days left until Mae's birthday, so start browsing jewelry sites. Mae didn't christen herself "Diamond Lil" for nothing.
.
Updates on this new hotline will appear on http://MaeWest.blogspot.com shortly.

Mae's Men: Baring Cary

In the film "I'm No Angel" (1933), CARY GRANT was treated to Mae West's rolling innuendo.
• • MAE WEST: "I like a sophisticated man to take me out."
• • CARY GRANT: "I'm not really sophisticated."
• • MAE WEST: "You're not really out yet, either."
• • How many folks in Hollywood realized that the debonair British actor born in Bristol was gay?
• • Gary Cooper, that straight-shooting womaniser, declared Grant ambiguous.
• • Marlene Dietrich marked Grant an F for fag after Blonde Venus (1932).
• • According to book reviewer Chris Petit, Cary Grant was the invention of a sarcastic Englishman with the improbable name of Archibald Leach. Leach was the finest physical specimen ever to come out of Bristol and as Grant he became one of the great inventions of the 20th century, to Hollywood what Ralph Lauren would be to the garment trade, selling a carefully tailored variety of ersatz Englishness. . . .
• • In his biography, Marc Eliot maintains Archie Leach was fundamentally homosexual and resurfaced in times of crisis and disorientation in Cary Grant's life: his master's voice. Grant had a propensity for dragging-up at costume parties and a stated preference for women's underwear, worn for practical reasons (easier to rinse and dry, saving on hotel laundry bills). Eliot claims the actor Randolph Scott was Grant's housemate and lover, but this old chestnut remains unproven despite Eliot's best efforts, and owes a lot to Grant's cultivated ambiguity. . . .
— — excerpt from this book review — —
• • Cary Grant by Marc Eliot (434 pp, Aurum, £18.99)
• • The concept of Cary by Chris Petit
• • Saturday — — 21 May 2005
• • The Observer — — http://books.guardian.co.uk/

- - -
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West: Goin' Digital

Hollywood can't wait to go digital.
.
Studios look forward to the day when they can slash by 75% the $1.2 billion they spend each year to make film prints and ship them in bulky metal cans to and from theaters. With digital, they transmit encrypted signals to theaters via satellite or ship a small, reusable hard drive with the film preloaded.
.
"The studios have already said in principle that they will pay" for the digital equipment, says Bud Mayo, CEO of Access Integrated Technologies, a publicly traded firm that offers software and services to help theaters manage digital films and programming. "But the exhibitors have to have some skin in the game," such as by agreeing to cover maintenance costs for the equipment.
.
Bud Mayo, who expects the digital transition to be virtually complete by the end of 2008, is doing his part to move things along.
.
This month Bud Mayo installed digital projectors for five of the eight screens in a Brooklyn movie house he owns, a former vaudeville palace that headlined stars such as Jimmy Durante, Mae West, and Abbott & Costello.
.
Mayo will use his theater to showcase Access Integrated's software and services. "This is a disruptive technology, and the little guys often win in that market because they're single-minded," he says.
.
Others are less sure about the pace of transition.
"You're talking about a seven- to eight-year rollout or possibly longer," says Levin.
.
Studios may not be able to invest heavily on digital projectors. Their costs will probably rise as they have to simultaneously support digital and analog. . . .
- - excerpt from an article in USA Today - -
Digital film revolution poised to start rolling
By David Lieberman, USA TODAY
May 17, 2005

Mae West & Richard Ireland, Spiritual Adviser

Mae West yearned to stay in touch with her loved ones, especially her deceased mother, father, and kid brother Jack West. Two successive spiritual advisers, Reverend Jack Kelly and later on Dr. Richard Ireland, encouraged Mae to communicate with her dearest departed.
• • Acquaintances would be invited to attend seances or ESP demonstrations at the Santa Monica beach house that the actress purchased in the 1950s. Often these would feature (or be led by) Dr. Ireland.
• • Based in Phoenix, Arizona, Dr. Richard Ireland, a widely known psychic and entertainer, had founded the University of Life Center in 1960. [Ireland's involvement with his church ended with his death in 1992.]
• • Dr. Richard Ireland taught and demonstrated psychic ability all over the world along with counseling celebrities and Hollywood personalities such as Mae West, "Gunsmoke" actress Amanda Blake, David ["The Fugitive"] Janssen, and Darrell Zanuck, founder of 20th Century Fox Studios.
• • His work with Hollywoodites earned Dr. Ireland a nickname: "Psychic to the stars." [For more details, see his autobiography: "The Phoenix Oracle" by Richard Ireland.]
__________________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Mae West
• • Photo:
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: Corset Cutie

Growing old gracefully comes easily to some, but not to others. Vanity pays a heavy price in later years, and the aging actress may be one of the hardest hit in this respect.
.
Before cosmetic surgery to enhance one’s beauty became commonplace, various alternative approaches were used to achieve the same end. Indeed, in the world of the theatre, the heroically corseted diva (to quote Alistair McLean) was the rule rather than the exception. Mae West and Margaret Dumont, amongst many others, both relied heavily on their corsets for most of their careers.
.
I have chosen these two ladies to illustrate a point here, since their approach to corsetry was so dramatically different. To Mae, born in 1893, and Margaret in 1889, corsets were an everyday item. However, Mae, who tended to plumpness, used them to control her waist and present a figure that never changed. As the real and the fantasy Mae West blurred in later life, she was described, in embarrassing detail by a reporter who visited her at home.
Her face was almost immobile from make-up; her wig perched atop her head equally motionless. She could barely totter so tightly was she corseted and clothed. She never sat during the interview, but simply leant against a piano, cunningly placed so that her movements never required more than a few steps. . . . [Mae wore corsets made by Spirella.]
.
Margaret Dumont, on the other hand, wore the corsets appropriate to her age and peer group. She was genuinely 'classy', and suffered the outrageous antics of the Marx Brothers with every emotion from stoicism to hysterics. . . .
- - this is an excerpt from Ivy Leaf's "A Tribute to the Corset" - -
http://www.corsetiere.net/

Is Jane "Fonda" Mae West?

The mothers of all three of Jane Fonda's ex-husbands — filmmaker Roger Vadim, politician-activist Tom Hayden and media mogul Ted Turner — treated her just fine. So who were Fonda's role models for "Monster-in-Law," in which she plays Viola, a prospective mother-in-law from hell?
"To tell you the truth, a little bit Mae West, but also Ted Turner," Fonda told The Associated Press. "I had the privilege and pleasure of spending 10 years with him - - and talk about someone who's bigger than life and over the top."
"So I got to see what that's like up close and personal, and how you can be over the top and still very lovable. . ." .
- - an excerpt from this article by Associated Press - -
Fonda: Turner Inspired 'Monster' Role
By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer Wed May 11, 2005

Diamond Lil's Theatre to Be Renamed

Mae West's Play "Diamond Lil" Was a Huge Hit for the Royale in 1928
Renaming on Broadway - - Plymouth and Royale Re-Dedicated as Schoenfeld and Jacobs Theatres on May 9

Change will come to two of Broadway's blazing marquees at 7:30 PM May 9, when the Plymouth Theatre becomes the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre and the Royale becomes the Bernard B. Jacobs. The new names honor the men who have guided the theatre-owning and producing giant, The Shubert Organization. The public unveiling of the new marquees — with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Dame Edna, movie and stage star Hugh Jackman and the cast of Avenue Q in attendance — is set for 7:30 PM.

The Royale is at 242 W. 45th Street.
Schoenfeld has been the chairman of the Shubert Organization since 1972.
Bernard B. Jacobs was president of the Shubert Organization from 1972 until his death in 1996. Also in the mix at the outdoor ceremony on 45th Street will be New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky and the Board of Directors of the Shubert Organization, Inc. Michael I. Sovern will speak on behalf of the Shubert Board.


The Royale Theatre, to be renamed the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, was built in 1927. Its history includes such plays as Diamond Lil, The Magnificent Yankee, The Corn is Green, The Glass Menagerie, The Front Page, DuBarry Was a Lady, and The Entertainer, featuring such players as Mae West, Bert Lahr, Bette Davis, Ethel Merman, James Dean, Julie Andrews, John Gielgud, and Laurence Olivier.

The Board members of the Shubert Organization are John Kluge, Gerald Schoenfeld, Lee J. Seidler, Philip J. Smith, Michael I. Sovern, Stuart Subotnick, and Irving M. Wall. . . . .
- - this is an excerpt from an article published by Playbill - -
By Kenneth Jones [09 May 2005]
www.Playbill.com/

-
http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Come Up & See Mae on Her Birthday

It's a Séance and you are invited to "Come Up and See Mae"!

A Mae West Séance on August 17, 2005 in a Haunted NYC Mansion Is a Fundraiser for the play "Courting Mae West"

Actress MAE WEST [1893-1980] wrote a book on ESP, consulted psychics, and was writing a book on Reverend Jack Kelly, her favorite Medium from Lily Dale Assembly, when she died in Los Angeles twenty-five years ago. The body of Mae West was returned to New York and placed inside the family crypt.

It is expected that MAE WEST will attend her birthday party in a nineteenth century townhouse on East 54th Street when Dr. Lauren summons the actress on August 17th. Built in 1888, the mansion is unchanged since 1923 and a host of ghosts reside there.

Who is Dr. Lauren?
Lauren Thibodeau, Ph.D., NCC, MBA, author of Natural-Born Intuition: How to Awaken & Develop Your Inner Wisdom, is a psychic medium and intuitive consultant in NYC and Princeton. She is a credentialed counselor, faculty member of Atlantic University of Virginia, and is affiliated with The Arthur Findlay College of Mediumship outside London. A Registered Medium at the renowned Lily Dale Assembly in Chautauqua County, NY, "Dr. Lauren" 'knows' Mae West in a way that few others do.

Lily Dale is the largest center for mediumship in the world today, and was a summer retreat of Mae West, who wrote a book on ESP. Mae is rumored to have romanced-or been romanced by-one of the most popular mediums of the era, the roguish Jack Kelly, whose biography she had planned to write. Mae West participated in many a séance there, including some held at Dr. Lauren's Lily Dale summer home built in 1879, where séances are still held in the time-honored Spiritualist tradition. Dr. Lauren changed her vacation plans to be with us on Mae's birthday because, as she puts it, "Mae West wouldn't let me say 'no!'"

Visit our séance facilitator Dr. Lauren online: www.drlauren.com/
Info on the fundraiser is here: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com

Mae West: Born on August 17

Veteran radio personality and former TV host JOE FRANKLIN vividly recalls a seance he had attended in Manhattan: "The moment wasn't the moment. Something got loose, hunting the vision of itself."
.
An old friend of MAE WEST, JOE FRANKLIN is looking forward to attending the birthday party for the blonde bombshell on August 17, 2005 at a haunted mansion in midtown. FRANKLIN will mingle with the star-studded crowd.
.
August 17th's Roaring 20s-theme festivities are being organized as a fundraiser for the play "Courting Mae West" and other good causes.
.
Up-dates: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com

Mae West on Sex, Health & ESP

It was thirty years ago that Mae West could be found in bookstores between the sheets.

Mae West on Sex, Health, and ESP
by Mae West
Publisher: London - New York: W. H. Allen, 1975. (237 pages)
ISBN: 0491016131

Quote from Mae West about sex: "Such a big issue over such a little tissue!"

Mae West & Psychic Kenny Kingston

Inner View with Kenny Kingston: On Mae West and Being Psychic

Many Hands did this article. Here is an excerpt.
.
Kenny Kingston, America's leading psychic to the stars has been wowing audiences for decades. A spiritualist medium and expert in the field of psychic phenomena, Kingston has given psychic messages and readings to celebrities from all over the world including Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, the Duchess of Windsor and even presidents Eisenhower and Truman. Born to the seven daughter of a seventh daughter, Kingston said that his psychic life began with tea readings.
His clairvoyance has catapulted him into the spotlight with books, infomercials and all the trappings of fame, but behind it all is a sweet spirit.
.
MH: What is a psychic? Do you see names, dates, or do you just get impressions?
KK: All three. But I am a psychic/ medium.
.
MH: What was your first psychic experience?
KK: I think the tea leaves. My mother had a newspaper friend and as I looked at the leaves I said to her 'Crash, crash. crash.' She was about to take a train and she decided not to take that train and it did crash, but I don not remember it.
.
MH: Now what is the legacy of being born to the seven daughter of a seventh daughter?
KK: Well, you know that it is very Irish.
.
MH: Do you ever do phone readings?
KK: Yes. Would you believe it. I have an application right here from someone in India who wants a phone reading. Phone reading employs what is known as 'clairaudience.'
.
MH: Is that what you learned from Mae West?
KK: Well, nobody really teaches you this. When I was three or four my grandmother, Catherine Walsh Clarke, taught me tea leaf reading. Then my mother, Kaye, taught me psychometry. Then when I was 7 or 8 Mae West was a close friend of my mother's and she practiced clairaudience, which is listening to the sound of the voice and picking up the vibrations. Did you know that she wrote all of her plays while in a trance?
.
MH: No kidding?
KK: She was a multi-millionairess with property that she bought when she was in trance. She would just listen to that little tiny voice inside.
.
MH: We just need to be able to hear it, right?
KK: Yes, and you can do this through meditation. What is mediation? Meditation is listening to God, just as praying is talking to Him.
.
MH: How much do you charge for a private reading?
KK: Please call 213-650-7007 to make an appointment.
.
this is an excerpt from - - http://www.manyhands.com/innerview/kingston.html

Mae West: Psychic Jack Kelly

Mae West: Psychic Jack Kelly and Manifestations of the Hereafter

- - - this text is an excerpt from a N.Y. Times article by Tom Burke - - -

Los Angeles. It was pathetic, Hollywood observers scoffed, that a woman over 80 should star in a movie opposite six young and handsome leading men. That was last spring when Mae West declared that she would return to the screen in an updated version of her play "Sextette." They may have chuckled patronizingly when Miss West announced her comeback, but will they still be laughing when they see "Sextette"? Skeptics are in for a surprise, for the lady is in remarkably fine shape. The famous amble is not arthritic, the voice is not depleted, the skin is not archaic. Precisely two minutes after one is received in the white and gold apartment on top of the Ravenswood, in Hollywood's old Wilshire district, by Paul, a pleasant, maybe middle-aged man who is dressed in a blue suit and built like a gangster, and shown into the white and gold living room (the white and gold piano is painted with a vaguely licentious pastoral tableau), she appears, wearing a long white and gold gown, blonde wig, and vaguely come-hither grin. . . .
.
Well, I don't live in the past, Mae West insists -- "though I like t' see people from then.
Cary Grant comes t' see me. Gilbert Roland, Bette Davis, Garbo. Jack LaRue, before he passed on, and George Raft. I almost married George. W. C. Fields? I never spoke to Fields but when there was other people around. Universal teamed us for, uh, commercial exploitation, then built a feud between us for publicity, but we got on okay, 'cause we never talked. I don't like people sayin' we collaborated in the writing of 'My Little Chickadee.' Fields wrote maybe eight pages to my 130."

Deferentially, Paul points out that in 1970 she also had to doctor the "Myra Breckinridge" scenario. "Yeh, our director, what's-his-name, yeh, Michael Sarne, he still working? He thought he was another Fellini, but he messed us up. I had t' write my lines myself. Originally, I started writin' 'cause I had to, nobody else understood how I made fun of sex, so I couldn't find the right vehicles. When I came to movies, I was already a skilled writer, I coulda made it on the writin' alone. I always took it serious: when the papers printed I made more money than anybody but Hearst, he phoned and asked me up to San Simeon. He wanted a romance. I coulda married him, but I was busy. See, I never was one for parties, I always been two people, with two jobs -- writer and star. An' listen, you gotta think to write."

She starts work, she says, by settling the beginning and end of a story, then dictates to a secretary for three to four hours a day. Current and future projects include scenarios of her play "The Constant Sinner" and her play and novel "Pleasure Man," and a prose adaptation of "The Drag."

The Afterlife & Jack Kelly
Agent Irving Lazar is handling the American version of her book "Sex, Health and ESP" ("It's already a big seller in England"), and she's completing "The Amazing Mr. Kelly," a biography of the Reverend Jack Kelly, who "passed on" 10 years ago.

"He was the world's greatest psychic. And he's come back. I always figured when you're dead, you're dead, but I wanted to know the truth. I had this yogi master travelin' with me for five years, I gave him a hotel suite, a car, everything, but he never convinced me. Then one day a few years ago, I come into this room from my boudoir, and there was Mr. Kelly, sittin' right there were you are, on that couch. I screamed for Paul, who was in my chamber answerin' fan mail. Some it's addressed just to 'Mae West, Hollywood,' and they deliver it. Anyway, Paul runs in, and Mr. Kelly vanished. An' I don't kid myself or have mystical illusions. I never drink or take anything."

She has witnessed other manifestations, too. Her deceased brother and pet woolly monkey appeared to her, separately, on the cornice of her bedroom wall. "And several groups of handsome young men have come and stood beside my bed. I extended my hand to them, like this, and they disappeared."

The Cheshire smile, the seductive murmur in the silence following her remarks, again imply the put-on. But evidently she is quite serious this time, at least about Reverend Kelly.

"I was already workin' on his biography, see, an' he came back to show me there is an afterlife, so now I know."

She sounded utterly logical. Under the make-up, what may be dark spots of fatigue have appeared, yet she rises almost athletically. "Paul and I gotta drive down t'the beach now." She still maintains an elaborate Santa Monica house, and her ranch in the San Fernando Valley, but likes town best. "We go to pictures a lot, some 'a these modern styles are terrific. I like movies about strong women. I was the first liberated woman, y' know. No guy was gonna get the best of me, that's what I wrote all my scripts about."

- - - - - - - this text is an excerpt from this article - - - - -
Mae West to Star Opposite Six Leading Men
by Tom Burke
Tom Burke is the author of "Burke's Steerage," a collection of essays and interviews with personalities in the arts.
The New York Times
article published on July 25, 1976
- - - - - - - this text is an excerpt from this article - - - - -

Mae West: Psychic Messages at Lily Dale

Among the notable visitors to Lily Dale Assembly were Mae West, Harry Houdini, Mahatma Gandhi, Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Susan B. Anthony, Russian Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, and many others.
"The Dale" [nestled right next to the lake near Cassadaga located in the heart of Chautauqua County] first opened in 1879 and has become world famous.

The lakeside town was a haunt (so to speak) of the famous Mae West, who was rumored to have had a medium-boyfriend in the lakeside hamlet.

Lily Dale Assembly, Lily Dale, NY 14752
Lily Dale is a community dedicated to the religion of Spiritualism.
Definition of A Spiritualist
One who believes, as the basis of his or her religion, in the continuity of life and in individual responsibility. Some, but not all, Spiritualists are Mediums and/or Healers. Spiritualists endeavor to find the truth in all things and to live their lives in accordance therewith.

- excerpt from the May issue, Budget Travel magazine -
"At a strange little village an hour south of Buffalo, talking to the dead is a way of life. Founded by the Laona Free Thinkers Association in 1879, when spiritualism was an obsession of America’s elite, Lily Dale attracted legends such as Susan B. Anthony, Mae West, and Harry Houdini. Today, “the Dale,” pop. 500, unlocks its picket fences each summer to admit soul-searchers. . . .
(This year: June 25 to September 5;visitors pay $7 for every 24 hours they visit; 716/595-8721, www.lilydaleassembly.com.)

Free Psychic Service: Take the gravel path at the edge of the village into the Leolyn Woods, past the tilted, moss-covered gravestones of the pet cemetery, and into the towering old-growth forest where “message services” have been held since 1898. At 1 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. each day, mediums “serve spirit” to believers sitting expectantly on benches. Also try the free 4 p.m. service at the tiny Forest Temple nearby. The pamphlet at the Healing Temple on East Street admonishes, “Spiritual healing is not a substitute for medical treatment.” But daily at 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m., men and women in white stroke the invisible energy fields of ailing visitors.

.
The Mediums: More than 30 residents of this tree-shaded town are clairvoyants who purport to help people connect with departed family, friends, and spirit guides. On their gingerbread-trimmed homes, look for signs soliciting private sessions ($50 to $75 for 30 to 60 minutes). . . .
- excerpt from the May issue, Budget Travel magazine -

http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
mae west

Mae West: "Sex" Sold Out April 26, 1926

Mae West: "Sex" Sold Out at its Premiere on April 26, 1926

April 26, 1926 "Sex." It's a comedy. Mae West plays a Canadian woman with no time for those mountees; it's the British navy for her. It runs through one season, but the following it is raided as immoral. The cast is arrested and West, who also co-produced, is sentenced to 10 days in jail and is fined $500. When West is released from prison after only eight days, she memorably tells the press, "It's the first time I ever got anything for good behavior." A well-received off-off-Broadway revival in 2000 proved that the show still had laughs and a unique social point of view.

This text originally appeared here:
Theatre History: APRIL 26
By Anne Bradley and Ernio Hernandez
PLAYBILL on 26 Apr 2005

Mae West Slept Here: 4121 Wilshire Boulevard

Mae West Slept Here: Los Altos Apartments at 4121 Wilshire Blvd.

Hollywood stars once lit up the residential roster at the Los Altos Apartments at 4121 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles.

Today the photos of famous residents like Bette Davis, Mae West, Douglas Fairbanks, and Clara Bow still adorn the leasing office.

Built in the Spanish Colonial–esque style, the Los Altos was one of the first co-op apartments, then went bankrupt during the Great Depression and fell into disrepair for decades afterward. The housing group Neighborhood Effort rescued the complex from demolition in 1993 even though it was so unlivable there were gaping holes that continued from the fifth floor down to the lobby. But the restorers obtained National Historic Site status for the building by hunting down original parts and design details, including doorknobs, trim, floor tiles and colors. Today, the Los Altos is considered a magnificent structure boasting very low turnover and a waiting list of 300. . . .

Many of L.A.’s apartment buildings have played a leading role in Hollywood culture. . . .

This brief excerpt was taken from this article:
Hollywood Lived Here
The semi-glorious and sometimes gory history of Hollywood apartment living
by NIKKI FINKE
APR. 29 - MAY 5, 2005
L.A. Weekly

Mae West: A Seance to Arouse Mae

Wake the Dead: A Seance to Arouse Mae West

On Mae's birthday Wednesday August 17th, a seance will be held in New York City to arouse Mae from the dead and bring her back to us. Stay tuned for updates.

Mae West on April 19, 1927

On this day, 19 April in 1927, actress MAE WEST was jailed for her performance in Sex, the Broadway play she wrote, directed, and starred in. She served ten days in prison, and jail time seemed to have done her good—it didn't make her change her act, but it did bring her national notoriety—and helped make her one of Hollywood's most memorable, and quotable, stars. She said: "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."

Though Mae West was sentenced to 10 days, she actually only served 8 days. The actress received "time off for good behavior."

The play "COURTING MAE WEST" refers to that shortened jail sentence:

MAE WEST: First time I was glad that a little thing didn't stretch out longer.
:-D
http://MaeWest.blogspot.com

Mae West on April 9, 1928

Broadway was abuzz on April 9, 1928.

On that date Mae West opened her new play "Diamond Lil" at the Royale Theatre.

Mae West: Exposing Her Ethnic Roots

Native New Yorker Mae West was born in Brooklyn on August 17, 1893 on, declared Mae years later, a cool night during a hot month.

If you've ever researched the New York City census, it's interesting to examine the past of Mae's maternal line and Mae's paternal line. Each family was living in Manhattan for several years before moving to Brooklyn [the borough where "Battling Jack" West settled with his lovely young bride Tillie]. These census entries document an interesting pattern of lies about national origin, levels of education, and even English language proficiency. Small wonder that little Mary Jane West learned -- early on -- to embroider fancy tales about her family and descendents.

"What was the ethnic background of Mae West?" is a question often asked.

You'll find the startling truth in Act I, Scene 2 of "Courting Mae West" [a play based on true events] when Mae argues with her drunken sister Beverly right before they are arrested in Bridgeport, Connecticut in early February 1927.