Mae West: Skin-tight Shimmy

Reporters who met MAE WEST during the 1920s and early 1930s — — before stardom cloaked her utterly — — have a refreshingly different take than those who met her as a bonafide movie queen.
• • New York Herald Tribune reporter Stanley Walker came up to see Mae West often in New York.
• • A section in Stanley Walker’s 1935 memoir discussed Mae West. This is Part 16 of 19 segments.
• • “Sex Comes to America” • •
• • By 1926 Mae West figured it was time she amounted to something. • •
• • Stanley Walker wrote: By 1926 she figured it was time she amounted to something. She appeared as Margy LaMont in "Sex” of which she was both heroine and author. The high points were a seduction scene and one of Miss West's shimmy dances in a skin tight gold dress.
• • Stanley Walker wrote: One night in 1927, when Mayor Walker was out of town, the Acting Mayor, Joseph V. McKee, caused raids upon "The Captive,” "The Virgin Man,” and "Sex."
• • Stanley Walker wrote: After Miss West's conviction she was sent to Welfare Island and forced to put on the regulation coarse blue cotton dress, heavy shoes, cotton stockings and long underwear. The fuzzy prison underwear was the worst; it almost drove her wild. She wrote a poem about the underwear and dedicated it to Warden Schleth. After her release she did some benevolent work for the prisoners, and Warden Schleth remembers her as "just a wholesome woman trying to serve ten days.”
• • The closing of "Sex" • • … 
• • This long chapter by Stanley Walker will be continued on the next post.
• • Source: Chapter “Sex Comes to America” from "Mrs. Astor's Horse" written by Stanley Walker [NY: Frederick A. Stokes, 28 October 1935, 320 pages].
• • On Saturday, 2 April 1927 in the news • •

• • Mae West's "Sex" trial was good for selling newspapers, therefore, the coverage continued daily. On Saturday, 2 April 1927, The N.Y. Daily News reported on the testimony from the previous day, April 1st. Harold Spielberg, Jim Timony's lawyer, did his best to frame the discussion of "Sex" and its merits by comparing it to the Bible. Spielberg reminded the jurors of The Book of Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve with all its "precedents for frank language."
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Randolph Scott, just signed to a new Paramount Pictures contract, left the coast yesterday on an extended vacation in the east following completion of his assignment in Mae West's "Go West Young Man."
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "You see, most of my characters are, well, very human — — and I feel it helps my writing to have real people before my very eyes (in a rehearsal)."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Boise Weekly mentioned Mae West.
• • “From the Dregs to ‘The Drag’ by Mae West” • •
• • From Boise, Idaho, Minerva Jayne wrote: I’m grateful and over-the-moon thrilled to be able to pay homage to Mae West through my role as the Duchess DuPont. I also hope that 127 years after her birth, a new generation of people will come to see her brilliance as a woman way ahead of her time. This journey has been healing for me and that is why I cordially invite you all to “Come up and see me sometime.” …
• • Source: Boise Weekly; published on Wednesday, 26 February 2020
• • 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 15th anniversary • • 
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past fifteen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,400 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fifteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4,444th 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 • • Mae's arrest in 1927 • •
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