Mae West: Salacious Plays

Many great minds have contemplated MAE WEST — — but great minds don’t think alike. Academic and author Chase Dimock has written an interesting article on Mae as a playwright. This is Part 1.
• • Why Don’t You Come Up Sometime and Queer Me? • •
• • Reclaiming Mae West as Author and Sexual Philosopher • •
• • by Chase Dimock (from 14 November 2012)
• • Chase Dimock wrote: We know Mae West as an actress, a sex symbol, a cultural icon, a comedienne, a master of the one liner and the double entendre. What we don’t think of Mae West as is an author. It has been largely forgotten that Mae West got her start on stage, in a series of salacious plays she wrote for herself in the late 20s. West was by then a veteran of the Vaudeville circuit appearing mostly chorus line gigs and bit parts. But when she grew tired of waiting for the right part and her big break to come around, she decided to write her own roles. With early plays such as “Sex” and “Diamond Lil,” West invented the vamp persona that defined her career over the next five decades. If we think of Mae West as playwright and an author that wrote the character that she ultimately became, then we can view her iconography as its own meticulously plotted text and her careful crafting of figure and image as a finely formulated semiotics of the body.
• • Mae West as author • •   . . .
• • His article will be continued on the next post.
• • Source: As It Ought to Be
• • Chase Dimock, who teaches Literature and Composition at College of the Canyons, is Managing Editor of As It Ought to Be.
• • On Wednesday, 3 September 1930 • •
• • According to Variety, the Wall Street crash clobbered the box office. When "Sex" starring Mae West enjoyed a ten-week engagement at the Garrick Theatre in Chicago, Variety noted that The Windy City had only three other plays in production during that interval.  Variety's issue dated for Wednesday, 3 September 1930 noted that a dozen legitimate Chicago playhouses had gone dark.  It was a lucky break for Mae, all the same.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Mae West was an ancient 38 years old when she was signed by Paramount Studios in 1932, she wrote her own lines, picked her own co-stars and was happy to be perceived as a risqué dame.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "Sex is an emotion in motion."
• • Quote, Unquote • •

• • An article on Gold’s Gym and Joe Gold mentioned Mae West.
• • Bill Grant (IFBB Mr. World, 1974): Remember the Mr. America parade that Ken Sprague organized in Santa Monica, California [in 1977]? It started on Wilshire and came down as far as Main Street. We had a big float, we had elephants, and we had Mae West. I walked her out on-stage and she said, “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me, big boy?” The audience went crazy, including me. They sold so many T-shirts at that parade, they were putting money in the drawers. They were stuffing bills into bags. It was a boon, man.  . . .
• • Source:  Article in Deadspin; published on Thursday, 23 August 2018
• • The evolution of 2 Mae West plays that keep her memory alive • • 
• • A discussion with Mae West playwright LindaAnn LoSchiavo — — 
• • http://lideamagazine.com/renaissance-woman-new-york-city-interview-lindaann-loschiavo/

• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 14th anniversary • •  

• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past fourteen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,000 blog posts. Wow!  

• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fourteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4036th 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 • • at the Mr. America contest in 1977 • •
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