Sunday, August 21, 2011

Mae West: A Bust from Bayside

Many men came up to see MAE WEST — — but how many sculpted a statuette featuring a pouf that would out-do Snooki's? A Bayside, Queens native who grew up near Bell Boulevard did that, and his clever figurine rang the bell with the star of "Belle of the Nineties." Pull up a chair.
• • NYC native, historian, journalist, and Mae-memorabilia collector Carl Anthony writes: Something of an amateur kid sculptor who made clay figures of people I liked and then sent them as gifts, I made one of Mae West, posing her as an advertising logo character stuck in my mind after passing my mother’s food cupboard. It sure looked to me that Chicken of the Sea tuna fish had modeled its blond mermaid on their label after her. So, I sculpted a statue of her as the original Chicken of the Sea mermaid, and sent along a copy of the label. Having read that she was litigious in protecting her Persona, I hoped it wouldn’t tick her off.
• • Carl Anthony continues: To my knowledge, she never sent her lawyer or “friends in Chicago” to scare Chicken of the Sea, but I did receive a thank-you note from her secretary [Paul Novak] as well as a short, brief note of the sort that can make a kid’s head pop from Stanley Musgrove, her agent. He said if I was ever in Los Angeles, Miss West wanted me to “come up and see her sometime,” so she could show me that she’d put the statue on her piano besides a nude marble statue of her by a distinguished sculptress. ...
• • Read more about his fascinating encounter and the rare Westiana lamps and estate items he acquired at CarlAnthonyOnline.com — — excerpted from Mr. Anthony's enchanting first-person article "How I Came Up to See Mae West One Time, Got her Floor Lamps and Something Else" posted on 17 August 2011
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • During a 1970 interview to promote that "Myra" movie, Mae West said: "The decor is white and gold. I love anything gold. I'd like to have an apartment in Fort Knox! The furniture's French. It's Louis XIV. Even Louis would've liked it here. Especially in the boudoir!"
• • Mae West said: "To err is human — — but it feels divine."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • One of Mae West's costume designers at Paramount Pictures was Edith Head.
• • Arizona Broadway World writes: Say the name Edith Head and, if you know anything about movies, you're mentioning the name of an icon. You may not know her face, but her impact on the screen is as momentous as that of the stars for whom she created costumes: Mae West, Audrey Hepburn, Bette Davis, and even Robert Redford and Paul Newman, among them. ...
• • Source: Article: "Actors Theater Opens Season with a 'Conversation with Edith Head' written by staff for arizona.broadwayworld.com; posted on 10 August 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2029th blog post. Unlike many blogs, which draw upon reprinted content from a newspaper or a magazine and/ or summaries, links, or photos, the mainstay of this blog is its fresh material focused on the life and career of Mae West, herself an American original.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1933 • •
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