Mae West: Moved Her Navel

When Helen Lawrenson came up to see MAE WEST, Esquire's first female journalist was closing in on her sixtieth birthday and the Brooklyn bombshell was 73. A color photo by Diane Arbus flashed across the double-page-spread, hunched under half the title as if warding off a punch in the nose.
• • Enjoy her seldom seen interview. This is Part 35 of 46 parts.
• • "Mirror, Mirror, on the Ceiling: How'm I Doin’?" • •
• • Not bad, Mae, for a woman of seventy-three • •
• • Mae West: Society for the Suppression of Vice • •
• • Helen Lawrenson wrote: "Sex" opened in April, 1926, at Daly’s Theatre on Sixty-third Street near Broadway and played for forty-one weeks before the police moved in, at the demand of John S. Sumner, head of the Society for the Suppression of Vice.  
• • Helen Lawrenson wrote: One of the complaints was that Mae did a belly dance to the tune of St. Louis Blues. The arresting officer testified that “Miss West moved her navel up and down and from right to left.”
• • Helen Lawrenson wrote: In defense, Mae explained to the court that this was “an exercise involving control of my abdominal muscles, which I learned from my father when I was a child.”
• • Mae West: Once out of stir and still full of beans • • . . .
• • Helen Lawrenson's interview will be continued on the next post.
• • Source: Esquire; published on Saturday, 1 July 1967.
• • On Sunday, 27 November 1932 in Hollywood • •
• • Jon Tuska, writing about "She Done Him Wrong," notes that production commenced on Sunday, 27 November 1932, and concluded in December of that year. Fast work!
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •

• • Mae West once told a reporter that she almost married George Raft.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "This was live theatre show business as I liked it. And it liked me."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article was dedicated to Mae West.
• • “Hollywood Sex Symbol Mae West Dies” • •
• • For years there was no indication that she had ever been married. In the 1930s, however, reports surfaced of a 1911 wedding, in which Miss West, then a teenager, was married to a song-and-dance man named Frank Wallace. They were finally divorced in 1942.
• • But Mae West was said not to have lived with Frank Wallace and they had no children.  . . .
• • Source:  Washington Post; published on Sunday, 23 November 1980
• • 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 16th 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 4,600 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started fifteen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4,614th 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 • • with George Raft in 1932 • •
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