Mae West: Pubescent Adoration

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 28 of 46 parts.
• • "Mirror, Mirror, on the Ceiling: How'm I Doin’?" • •
• • Not bad, Mae, for a woman of seventy-three • •
• • Mae West: Asked about mirrors on her ceiling  • •
• • Helen Lawrenson wrote: On a “Person To Person” television program some years ago, Charles Collingwood asked her about the mirrors on her bedroom ceiling.  
• • Helen Lawrenson wrote: “I like to see how I’m doin’,” Mae West told him.

• • Helen Lawrenson wrote: I leafed through the letters. Some were on lined school-pad paper; all were written by hand; a few praised her movies but most of them were about the record albums.  
• • Helen Lawrenson wrote: The general tone was pubescent adoration.
• • Helen Lawrenson wrote: One letter ended: “You make the heart beat faster, Miss West. I don’t want to allow my love for you to become the smothering kind. I do respect you to such a degree and never want to do anything to cause you unhappiness.”
• • Mae West: “This Mexican boy...” • •
• • Helen Lawrenson's interview will be continued on the next post.
• • Source: Esquire; published on Saturday, 1 July 1967.
• • On Wednesday, 18 November 1936 • •
• • It was a busy time for the screen queen when "Go West Young Man" was released on Wednesday, 18 November 1936 in the USA.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • How many remember character actress Ruth Donnelly as Aunt Lou in "My Little Chickadee" [1940], starring Mae West and W.C. Fields and directed by Edward F. Cline?
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: “I was in a class by myself. I had no competition.”
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The Chicago Tribune wrote about Mae West.
• • Glen Elsasser wrote: "Part of Mae's appeal is that she's funny," said Emily Wortis Leider, her latest biographer. Leider's new book, "Becoming Mae West" (Farrar Straus Giroux), chronicles the formative and little-known years of the actress' early life.  ...
• • Source: "Mae West's Powerful Image Lives On" by Glen Elsasser for Chicago Tribune; published on Saturday, 21 November 1997
• • 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 4,606th 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 • • mail from a 9-year-old NJ fan, in 1969 • •
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