Mae West: Sleep with Mae

Known locally as the "MAE WEST house" thanks to its protruding porches, this charmer is situated in Cape May, New Jersey where Victorian era residences have been preserved in all their grand-scale glory.

• • Constructed circa 1922, the Kate McCreary House (1005 Beach Avenue) can be viewed in Cape May's extensive historic district.

• • Sleep in the Mae West Suite • • 

• • The Brooklyn bombshell inspired several hotelkeepers to offer a "Mae West Room." You can find one at the Inn at Long Lake in Maine or at the El Rancho Hotel and Motel in New Mexico.  Supposedly the movie queen spent the night at Colorado's Baldpate Inn, where their "Mae West Room" features a red claw-foot tub and awesome valley views.  In Arizona, the Cottonwood Hotel designated # 4 as the "Mae West Suite," furnished with a claw foot tub, separate sitting area, and queen-sized bed; the Hotel San Carlos created a generous, glitzy "Mae West Suite," which duplicates the movie queen's bed, here bedecked with a red brocade crown and overhang.  And in California, Palm Springs Gay Resort Hotel has named each unit for an iconic movie star including Mae West.

• • Salvador Dalí [11 May 1904 — 23 January 1989] • • 

• • Dali's fascination with Mae West was a long one.

• • Salvador Dalí was a Catalan-Spanish artist who became one of the most important painters of the 20th century. A gouache now in Chicago illustrates his original plan executed during the early 1930s for a "paranoiac-critical room" based on the features of Mae's face. When the Dalí Museum in Figueras was being constructed during the early 1970s, his Mae West Room was finally built to his specifications.

• • Genesis of the Mae West Lips Sofa (1937): Dalí had first painted The Face of Mae West (Usable as a Surrealist Apartment) in 1934. Later on, Edward James, a rich British patron of the Surrealists in the 1930s, commissioned this companion piece from Dalí. The Mae West sofa is the same color as the "shocking pink" lipstick shade inspired by the actress, and developed by the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli.

• • On Saturday, 11 May 1935 • •

• • Movie critic Andre Sennwald offered his review of "Goin' to Town," starring Mae West, to the readers of The New York Times on page 21 on Saturday, 11 May 1935.

• • On Friday, 10 May 1935, this new motion picture opened in Mae's hometown at the New York Paramount.

• • On Friday, 11 May 2012 • •

• • Word comes today from Dallas, Texas that Frausun (a funky electronic musician from The Lone Star State) has just released his 11th studio album “FagGuts.” His latest compilation covers themes of war, faith, and sexuality with songs such as “A (Girl) Who Takes Her Time” — — a favorite Mae West cover.

• • In Her Own Words • •

• • Mae West said: "I was told I could pay the fine and get out of going to jail, but I made up my own mind. I decided it would be more interesting to go to prison."

• • Quote, Unquote • •

• • An article on an annual festival in Alabama mentioned Mae West.

• • Dothan, Alabama native Johnny Mack Brown [1904 — 1974] was 23 in 1927 when he was cast in his first motion picture. Seven years later, the handsome six-foot-one actor played the role of Brooks Claybourne in "Belle of the Nineties" [1934].

• • Alabama reporter Peggy Ussery notes: In all, Brown appeared in more than 165 B-Western movie and TV productions and starred with Hollywood legends like Mae West, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Mary Pickford, John Wayne, and Tex Ritter. ...

• • Source: Article: "Annual festival seeks to keep memory of cowboy movie hero alive" written by Peggy Ussery for Dothan Eagle; posted on 11 May 2011

• • Quote, Unquote • •

• • An article on a museum exhibit mentioned Mae West and introduced the piece with a large Mae West photo under the title.

• • Lori Ettlinger Gross writes: The new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute, “American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity,” examines the evolution of style in this country and the appreciation of the breeze-easy female. Replacing the cosseted woman with a spirited American paradigm trumpeted more than the exchange of a corset for a shift dress, however. It sparked an upheaval in social etiquette: Women of independent means began buying their own jewelry. Fashion may have rattled the cage for change, yet it was gems and precious metals that broke the chains of Europe.

• • Lori Ettlinger Gross continues: The years covered by the exhibition, 1890 to 1940, were arguably the most innovative in jewelry design. Venerable houses and ambitious designers vied for the necks of socialites and celebrities. Success and the wealth that follows create their own self-determination. Take Mae West, for example, who bought a casket’s worth of Beaux-Art jewels and transformed herself into Diamond Lil. ...

• • Source: Article: "The Bling Factor | ‘American Woman’ at the Met" written by Lori Ettlinger Gross for The N.Y. Times; posted on 11 May 2010

• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2297th 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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