Mae West: RKO Boston

In 1927, New York University co-eds invited MAE WEST to the prom. In 1938, Harvard’s Ivy League magazine editors asked her to come up sometime to Cambridge, Massachusetts. We were not there but now we can enjoy her remarks together.
• • Mae West Tells a Few Things to Reporters in Boston • •
• • Radiant in all her buxom splendor, brimming over with her famous "sex personality," platinum-haired Mae West surged into Boston yesterday and at the CRIMSON'S invitation expressed her desire to see Harvard as it really was.
• • Amidst flashing emeralds and pink chiffon in her dressing room at the RKO Theatre, Mae admitted she didn't go in much for purity, but what other people made out of her use of the English Language was more or less up to them.
• • Lacking her usual "umphy" drawl, she floundered when asked if college men make good lovers. "I guess I haven't been around enough."
• • Censors College Girls • •

• • If a college girl, on the other hand, is too concerned about her figure she might as well throw her books away, Mae believed. "When a girl is at school her mind should be on her studies. It's physical culture that takes care of the beauty angle.”
• • Should "Birth of a Baby" be censored? She'd rather not say. "I don't care to look at them. After a mind has developed to a certain extent, it should know about these things."
• • No, it's not always the handsomest male who is the sexiest. Among Hollywood actors she picked George Raft as scoring high in sex personality, "But if I just look at a man, they think it's something else."
• • Boosts Her Cuteness • •
• • Charlie Chaplin had it, too. A form of sympathy, a certain cuteness was in his twiddling of a woman's skirt. Mae thinks she has this kind of cuteness and gets a big kick when everyone laughs.
• • "Robert Taylor has charm, but he is not sexy," explained Mae. “Taylor appeals to the flappers, but not to the women who are a little smart — you know what I mean."
• • Mae had an explanation for Clark Gable's appeal, too. According to Mae, Gable puts himself over by force, "by wrestling with the women."

• • The curvy star just can't figure out why she's criticized. She empties churches, thousands flock to see her. "But many people think that because there is such a big box office there must be something wrong."
• • Diminutive little Assemblyman Francis X. Coyne of Dorchester, Mass., sponsor of a bill to tax the real estate of Universities which hire communists or fascists, was at the train station to greet the actress as she deboarded in orchids and gray foxes.
• • Note: The RKO Boston Theatre was a movie theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, located at 616 Washington Street, near Essex Street in the Boston Theater District. It opened as the Keith-Albee Boston Theatre on Monday, 5 October 1925.
• • Source: The Harvard Crimson; published on Wednesday, 20 April 1938.
• • Photo: Mae West relaxes backstage after arriving in "bean town" by train (April 1938).
• • Photo: Boston chef James Braddock feeds Mae West backstage on Thursday, 21 April 1938.
• • On Sunday, 13 May 1956 • •
• • Blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield encountered the very handsome Mr. Universe 1956 Miklos (Mickey) Hargitay on Sunday, 13 May 1956, while attending a performance of the "Mae West Revue" at the Latin Quarter night club in Manhattan.
• • Twenty months later, Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay wed on 13 January 1958. They had three children and, alas, would divorce in 1964.
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • Despite numerous protests against the "Advertising Bally-hoo of Movie Trailers," I say a big bouquet to them! I should never have gone to see Mae West, Otto Kruger, Katharine Hepburn, George Arliss, and — believe it or not — Greta Garbo, were it not for one of these "coming events."
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "People with careers are too busy to spend enough time on their marriage. I have seen several marriages which should have been happy fail — chiefly because of that lack of time."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • The Boston Herald mentioned Mae West.
• • Jed Gottlieb wrote: Yes, decades-old movies can be burdened by expected flaws, (Where are the people of color? Where is anyone from the LGBTQ community? Why is that 27-year-old woman head over heels for that over-the-hill 57-year-old man?)
• • Jed Gottlieb wrote: But contrasting expectations, writer/actor Mae West and director Howard Hawks (who both worked with Cary Grant [1904 - 1986] extensively) offer a decidedly progressive outlook.
• • Jed Gottlieb wrote: With Grant, who was more than a decade younger than West, as her love interest, Mae West made two pictures in 1933, “She Done Him Wrong” and “I’m No Angel,” that championed the working class while attacking traditional power structures. …
• • Note: Born in 1904, Cary Grant was eleven years younger than Mae West, born in 1893.
• • Source: Boston Herald; published on Sunday, 7 February 2021
• • 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 17th anniversary • • 
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past seventeen years. Not long ago, we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 4,900 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seventeen years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 4,993rd 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 • • in Boston, April 1938 • •
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