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MAE WEST said: "You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."
• • This statement could easily describe her handsome co-star Cary Grant, who died in the month of November.• • It’s a kick to see Cary [18 January 1904 — 29 November 1986] opposite Mae West before his own movie star image had solidified. The promise may be there, but Grant is stiff in the role of Captain Cummings. He would not yet become the polished and adroit comic leading man that he turned himself into by the end of the nineteen-thirties. As the uniformed do-gooder, he is baby-faced and no real match for West’s dominating presence.
• • Cary Grant was not yet thirty the first time he starred opposite West, and his age adds another provocative element to West’s gleefully taboo-busting, sexually frank presence. “To be sexual with younger men has been, according to Hollywood, a female sin punishable by death or dishonor,” feminist film critic Kathi Maio writes in her book Popcorn and Sexual Politics. “There have only been rare exceptions. When Mae West encouraged Cary Grant, a much younger man, to come up and see her sometime, she wasn’t interested in baking him a batch of brownies. Mae was sexy, but her blatant bawdiness was never threatening because her come hither looks were played for comedy. And besides, Mae West got to break the rules governing female comportment because Mae West was a law unto herself.”
• • Kathi Maio is mostly right here — — West really does seem to be a law unto herself as she shimmies across the screen and swaps lascivious double entendres, but what Maio neglects to acknowledge is that there were a great number of people who did find West extremely threatening, and that her persona only emerged as the result of cleverness and persistence in the face of censorship.
• • As for Cary Grant's emerging persona, he confessed, "I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally became that person. Or he became me. Or we met at some point.” In other words, Cary came up sometime — — to see his better self.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/________
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST posed for George Hurrell. "She'd drop her clothes at the drop of a hat," the Tinseltown photographer once told John Kobal.
• • A master lensman, Hurrell [1 June 1904 — 17 May 1992] was the darkroom genie responsible for many memorable photographs of Mae along with top-flight Hollywoodites during the 1930s.
• • Disliking the trend towards soft focus, George Hurrell preferred to sculpt an actor or actress's face with light and shade, using a movable boom light to illuminate cheekbones or create moody depths under a nose or the eyes — — as if he made new contracts with artificial lighting. “The most essential thing about my style was working with shadows — — to design the face instead of flooding it with light,” he said. Ah, the mastery of hinting at mystique. Ooooh, that such carefully orchestrated chiaro-scuro could bring heightened attention to a movie star, an individual who might have no more mental acuity than a vintage snow globe.
• • An article printed days ago in The Kentucky Enquirer got thoughts flowing along the black-paved Hurrell highway.
• • George Hurrell, an art student who would set the standard for the glamorized publicity stills in Hollywood, was born in Covington in 1904, according to John Schlipp, Enquirer contributor. While some sources list Cincinnati as George Hurrell's birthplace, Hurrell himself clearly states in correspondence that he was born in Covington, Kentucky. He was raised in Cincinnati until age 5, when the family moved to Chicago, writes John Schlipp.
• • Browse his August 30th article — — "Covington native was 'photographer to the stars'" — — inside The Kentucky Enquirer — — http://nky.cincinnati.com/• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
An intimate showing of a MAE WEST classic is always a welcome event. 
• • And this brings to mind the oddity that not much has been written about the women Mae West admired, for instance, trailblazers such as Amelia Earhart, Texas Guinan, Marie-Louise Morelli, and Mabel Stark.
• • Mabel Stark was the beautiful blonde wild animal tamer who doubled for Mae during some of the big top scenes in "I'm No Angel" [1933].
• • As a child visiting Dreamland with her Dad in 1904, Mae West was dazzled by the fearlessness of Madame Marie-Louise Morelli, who trained leopards, jaguars, and tigers. In advertisements that billed the petite Frenchwoman as "Queen of the Jaguars," the jungle prowlers were referred to as Morelli's "treacherous pets." Awed by Madame Morelli's smooth command in the cage, the curly-haired little Brooklynite (born in August under the sign of Leo) decided one day she, too, would come face to face with the King of Beasts.
• • Born in Kentucky, Mabel Stark [9 December 1889 — 20 April 1968] was America's premier tiger trainer during the 1920s.
• • During a photo shoot with Mabel Stark, Mae West was asked if she could see herself trading places with anyone and she said: "Yes, it would be this Mabel Stark, the Tiger Girl!"
• • See if your eyes are sharp enough to spot Mabel Stark next week in the vintage footage when the Canadian cinema historian Reg Hartt will be screening Mae West's circus film "I'm No Angel" (written by Mae and based on her fond memories of Bostock's lions in Coney Island). Film archivist and celluloid connoisseur Reg Hartt, who will be introducing this screen classic, had also offered Mae West's first starring film "She Done Him Wrong" (based on her stage play "Diamond Lil" with its Bowery setting) until 2 July 2009.
• • About "I'm No Angel," Reg Hartt had this to say: Mae West was a star of such enormous clout that she was able to dictate her desires. She changed forever not only the role of women in the movies but also the way women in real life saw themselves. “When I am caught between two evils,” she said, “I generally take the one I have not yet tried.” This feature film was made in 1933. It was written by her.
• • The Cineforum is the unique movie emporium that Mr. Hartt operates out of his Bathurst Street living room in Canada.
• • Though the Cineforum has existed for the past four decades, it was not until 1992 that it was moved to his parlor. British painter Peter Moore described the intimate, old-fashioned Cineforum as “the most perfect place in the world to watch a motion picture.”
• • WHERE: Cineforum — — 463 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario.
• • WHEN: 7:00 PM on 20 July 2009 [Note: Monday evening only]. Program personally introduced by Reg Hartt.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • with Mabel Stark in 1933 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
An article that admires actor Cary Grant naturally must mention MAE WEST.
• • The heartthrob was born in the month of January — — on 18 January 1904. Cary Grant died on 29 November 1986.
• • Peter Bogdanovich writes: If there had never been a Cary Grant, someone would have had to invent him, and, in fact, someone did, a fellow named Archie Leach from Bristol, England. Acrobat, tumbler, stilt-walker, tall, dark, and handsome, Archie came over to New York City with a well-known vaudeville kind of stunt show, decided to stay on and try his hand at acting and singing in the theater, got work on Broadway, changed his name, taking “Cary” from his first large role, and “Grant” from the phone book. Did a number of musicals, sang, danced, acted, played in a half-dozen shorts, got picked up by Paramount for a seven-year contract, did leads in over two dozen films before he found his picture persona. But along the way, in a couple of the good movies he did at Paramount, he learned a thing or two.
• • On one of his first, Blonde Venus (1932), the legendary Josef von Sternberg, discoverer-molder-Svengali of Marlene Dietrich, took one look at Grant on his first day of shooting and quietly said, deadpan, “Your hair is parted on the wrong side.” Grant himself told me this story — — we were friends for 25 years — — and I asked him how he had responded. “I parted it on the other side,” Cary said brightly, and somewhat conspiratorially, “and kept it that way for the rest of my career!”
• • Another big thing was gleaned from his successful experience on two pictures playing the love interest to Mae West. In both She Done Him Wrong (1932) and I’m No Angel (1933), Cary is the object of Mae’s affections and desires. She pursues him, rather than the other way around. Indeed, she makes one of the screen’s most famous (and most misquoted) invitations to Grant in their first scene together: “Why don’t cha come up sometime, an’ see me?” Cary’s a minister [sic], says he hasn’t the time. She responds, “Say, what’re you tryin’ to do, insult me?!” What Cary took home was that it’s better to be wanted than to want, and once he established himself as a star in 1937, it never was otherwise. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article (with errors): "My Favorite Star"
• • By: Peter Bogdanovich
• • Published in The New York Observer — — www.observer.com
• • Published on: 25 November 2008
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1932 • •
NYC
Mae West.
In May, Dothan will honor one of Alabama's biggest football heroes and film stars — — who was in a black and white classic with MAE WEST. 
• • Anyone who knows westerns knows Johnny Mack Brown, who first made his name on the field in Tuscaloosa. A few years later, movie goers would know him as a character actor featured in more than 160 films with Mae West, John Wayne, and Greta Garbo.
• • Born on 1 September 1904 in Alabama, Johnny Mack Brown died at age 70 in Los Angeles (on 14 November 1974) of a cardiac condition.
• • Mae-mavens became acquainted with the six-foot-one actor when he played the role of Brooks Claybourne, a good time Charlie, in "Belle of the Nineties" [1934].
• • An All-American halfback while attending the University of Alabama, Johnny Mack Brown would choose the silver screen over the green grass of the football field when he graduated. Signed to a contract with MGM in 1926, Brown debuted in Slide, Kelly, Slide (1927) with William Haines in a film about an all-American sport — — baseball.
• • The city of Dothan is holding its annual film festival May 9th — 10th, 2008, featuring many of his best movies.
• • To attend, call the organizers at 334-794-3452.
• • Here's hoping the film organizers show "Belle of the 90s" — — a Paramount Pictures production. Stars Mae West. Directed by Leo McCarey from story and scenario by Miss West. Songs, Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow; Photography Karl Struss. At Paramount, New York, week Sept. 21, 1934. Running time, 73 minutes.
• • Ruby Carter . . . Mae West
• • Tiger Kid . . . Roger Pryor
• • Brooks Claybourne . . . John Mack Brown
— — Source for a portion of this information: — —
• • Publisher: WSFA 12 News — — www.wsfa.com
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
NYC
Mae West.
Miguel Covarrubias drew MAE WEST so memorably — — and so many times. And he died on 4 February 1957.
• • Born in Mexico City to a prominent and wealthy Mexican family, Miguel Covarrubias was a popular artist in the early 20th century. He drew the era's most notable figures like MAE WEST — — whom he sketched for The New Yorker [dated 5 May 1928] — — along with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Josef Stalin, Charlie Chaplin, and other VIPs all hilariously re-imagined via his exaggerated sketches.
• • José Miguel Covarrubias [22 November 1904 — 4 February 1957] was a painter and caricaturist, ethnologist, and art historian. Dissatisfied with his career in his hometown, the painter moved to New York City in 1924, illustrating actors and prominent figures for several top magazines.
• • Actor John Huston, mesmerized by Mae West's song "Frankie and Johnny" in her Broadway hit Diamond Lil, spent a year traveling the USA, collecting versions of the song. Huston partnered with Covarrubias on his 1930 book "Frankie and Johnny"; Covarrubias drew the mulatto prostitute Frankie Baker as a Caucasian woman who looked like Mae West.• • Miguel Covarrubias married the dancer Rosa Rolando and the couple resided in Manhattan until 1932, when they took a trip to Southeast Asia (Java, Bali, India, Vietnam), Africa, and Europe on his Guggenheim Fellowship.
• • Covarrubias returned to Mexico City where he taught ethnology at the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia.
• • He contributed to the fields of caricature, book illustration, painting, museography, collecting, set design, and writing.
• • Covarrubias died in a Mexico City hospital from complications due to diabetes. [Mae West was a diabetic, too.]
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West drawn by Covarrubias for Paramount • • 1932 • •
NYC
Mae West.
Come up sometime. . . I'll tell your fortune! Ah, you can be had. 
• • It’s a kick to see January birthday boy Cary Grant [18 January 1904 — 29 November 1986] opposite MAE WEST before his own movie star image had solidified. The promise may be there, but Grant is stiff in the role of Captain Cummings. He would not yet become the polished and adroit comic leading man that he turned himself into by the end of the nineteen-thirties. As the uniformed do-gooder, he is baby-faced and no real match for West’s dominating presence.
• • Cary Grant was not yet thirty the first time he starred opposite West, and his age adds another provocative element to West’s gleefully taboo-busting, sexually frank presence. “To be sexual with younger men has been, according to Hollywood, a female sin punishable by death or dishonor,” feminist film critic Kathi Maio writes in her book Popcorn and Sexual Politics. “There have only been rare exceptions. When Mae West encouraged Cary Grant, a much younger man, to come up and see her sometime, she wasn’t interested in baking him a batch of brownies. Mae was sexy, but her blatant bawdiness was never threatening because her come hither looks were played for comedy. And besides, Mae West got to break the rules governing female comportment because Mae West was a law unto herself.”
• • Kathi Maio is mostly right here — — West really does seem to be a law unto herself as she shimmies across the screen and swaps lascivious double entendres, but what Maio neglects to acknowledge is that there were a great number of people who did find West extremely threatening, and that her persona only emerged as the result of cleverness and persistence in the face of censorship.
• • As for Cary Grant's emerging persona, he confessed, "I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally became that person. Or he became me. Or we met at some point.” In other words, Cary came up sometime — — to see his better self.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Cary Grant • • 1932 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST slipped the censor's noose in 1932 when she selected a number about an "easy rider" for her first major motion picture "She Done Him Wrong" — — because the "song police" did not understand Harlem slang. If they had, they might have realized Mae was singing about a pimp.
• • Today, on September 6th, it's a good time to toast the lyricist and composer of this song — — "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone" — — Shelton Brooks [4 May 1886 — 6 September 1975], who published it around 1913.
• • While we're on the subject, let's pass the baton to Victoria Large, who writes for Brattle Theatre Film Notes, and who discussed the strong-willed star in this article (printed awhile back): • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • Tough As Diamonds: Taboos, Censorship, and Mae West • • • • By Victoria Large
• • • • Even today Mae West would be breaking all the rules. There she is in all her glory in 1933’s She Done Him Wrong: defiant, smart, curvy, and past forty, declaring herself “the finest woman ever to walk the streets” and suggestively yowling her appreciation for “A Guy What Takes His Time” (“I’m a fast moving girl that likes ‘em slow,” she sings with cheerful vulgarity).
• • I came to Mae West already knowing the persona — — having already gleaned the distinctive voice and the mannerisms, the outrageous diamond jewelry, and the immortal “Come up and see me sometime” from clips and impersonations — — but I still found her brassy presence galvanizing the first time I saw one of her films.
• • In her own time West made a splash with her risqué humor, but even now her brazen onscreen persona and off-screen chutzpah carry more weight than simply that. She’s the anti-ingénue, tough and worldly and unapologetic. She made a career of playing women who took care of themselves, and was one of very few classic era actresses to wield a great deal of control over her own image.
• • West had a part in writing the majority of films she appeared in and based the screenplay for She Done Him Wrong on her own stage play, Diamond Lil. She also selected She Done Him Wrong’s leading man herself — — a young and fairly inexperienced fellow named Cary Grant.
• • It’s a kick to see Cary Grant [18 January 1904 — 29 November 1986] opposite West before his own movie star image had solidified. The promise may be there, but Grant is not yet the polished and adroit comic leading man that he would be at the end of the thirties: here he’s baby-faced and no real match for West’s dominating presence.
• • Cary Grant wasn’t yet thirty the first time he starred opposite West, and his age adds another provocative element to West’s gleefully taboo-busting, sexually frank presence. “To be sexual with younger men has been, according to Hollywood, a female sin punishable by death or dishonor,” feminist film critic Kathi Maio writes in her book Popcorn and Sexual Politics. “There have only been rare exceptions. When Mae West encouraged Cary Grant, a much younger man, to come up and see her sometime, she wasn’t interested in baking him a batch of brownies. Mae was sexy, but her blatant bawdiness was never threatening because her come hither looks were played for comedy. And besides, Mae West got to break the rules governing female comportment because Mae West was a law unto herself.”
• • Maio is mostly right here — — West really does seem to be a law unto herself as she shimmies across the screen and swaps lascivious double entendres, but what Maio neglects to acknowledge is that there were a great number of people who did find West extremely threatening, and that her persona only emerged as the result of cleverness and persistence in the face of censorship.
• • Even before she hit the big screen Mae West was ruffling feathers. She and the rest of the cast of her play Sex were arrested in 1927 for corrupting the morals of youth, and, later that year, her play The Drag, “a homosexual comedy in three acts,” created such a public outcry that no theater in New York would book it [sic].
• • West made her Hollywood debut with a supporting role in the film Night After Night and put her own distinctive stamp on the role, responding to a hatcheck girl’s cry of “Goodness, what beautiful diamonds,” with a saucy, “Goodness has nothing to do with it.”
• • She made waves again with her first starring role in She Done Him Wrong. The Hays Office, responsible for the industry’s newly-instituted Production Code, used to regulate objectionable content in motion pictures in order to avoid government censorship, had already determined that Diamond Lil was unsuitable for filming when Paramount Studios and their new leading lady Mae West began conspiring to bring the ribald play to the screen. They made their way around the censors by cleaning up much of the script, still implying much but avoiding actually saying or showing it forthright. They also set about altering the names of several characters — — Lil became Lou — — and coming up with something new for the title.
• • Even with the changes, the film was severely edited in a number of states when the film was released (West’s performance of “A Guy What Takes His Time” received the brunt of the censorship, but many of her sexually charged jokes were also jettisoned in various parts of the country).
• • Similarly, West’s next film I’m No Angel sent the Hays Office to work nipping and tucking scenes, lyrics, and dialogue. Nevertheless, there was really no diluting West. She had to do little more than swagger across the screen for one to get a sense of who she was. She became a subversive success and eventually, an icon.
• • Humor isn’t a means of diffusing the potency of West’s persona so much as one of the sharpest weapons in her arsenal. She remains an intrinsically subversive figure for many of the reasons already mentioned — — her sexuality, to be sure, but more importantly her unmistakable independence, and the satiric edge of her indelicate wit. She isn’t only playing herself and her “blatant bawdiness” for laughs, but also highlighting the ridiculousness of lustful male admirers, most notably in I’m No Angel, where she plays a lion tamer who is equally adept at wrangling men. It’s telling that when searching for a title for her thinly-veiled adaptation of Diamond Lil, West rejected the suggestion He Done Her Wrong and chose to reverse the gender of the wronged party. She wanted the woman of the title to be the one performing the action, and that, ultimately, was only fitting. West was a woman who acted — — not one who was acted upon.
• • Hollywood films displayed a marked tendency to punish and vilify independent, sexualized women for years before West’s emergence and in years hence — — from the gold diggers of the 1920s to countless noir femme fatales — — but West’s Lady Lou not only escapes any form of punishment, she gets a diamond ring, and Cary Grant. More importantly, we know that she may want Grant and his diamond, but she doesn’t need either of them. She’s older, wiser, and stronger too — — Lady Lou can make it all on her own, and so could Mae West.
• • She Done Him Wrong USA, 1933. 66 minutes. Paramount
• • Source: Brattle Theatre Film Notes — — http://brattleblog.brattlefilm.org/
• • Byline: Victoria Large
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West with co-stars • • 1933 • •
NYC
Mae West.
George Hurrell made many memorable portraits of MAE WEST.
• • A master lensman, Hurrell is the darkroom genie responsible for many terrific photographs of Mae West (and other Hollywoodites) during the 1930s.
• • In 1933, Hurrell shot numerous publicity stills of Mae West alone – – as well as with her Paramount Pictures co-stars. Here's Mae on the set of "She Done Him Wrong" with character actor Noah Beery, who played the shady saloon-keeper Gus Jordan.• • George Hurrell was born in the month of June in Cincinnati, Ohio: 1 June 1904. After a long and successful career, he died in 1992.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • by George Hurrell • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST could never forget the summer of 1904. 
• • In May 1904, Dreamland opened in Coney Island. To the right of the Surf Avenue entrance stood a building that Mae West entered, holding the hand of her father "Battling Jack" West. Almost 11 years old, but looking younger because of her petite frame, little Mae was nearly as transformed by the experience as Alice was when plunging into Wonderland.
• • For years, Mae talked about, and thought about, the impression Bostock's lions left on her. The lead lion tamer was Captain Jack Bonavita. Born in Philadelphia in 1866, his muscular frame and courage - - not to mention his sleek military garb, knee-high boots, and sinister moustache - - made him popular with the ladies. Actress Marie Dressler, then working a concession at Coney Island, caught Bonavita's act as often as she could. And it was an unparalleled performance that the 38-year-old trainer gave with his 26 trained lions.
• • Mae's fixation on Jack Bonavita and Bostock's lions inspired her to do "I'm No Angel," in which she fulfilled a lifelong dream of being inside the cage with the king of beasts. Born under the sun sign Leo, Mae felt destined for this - - and she insisted on performing her own stunts. The film begins with Mae riding an elephant. How many other 41-year-old actresses are eager to take risks like that?
• • Dreamland burned to the ground on May 1911.
• • Frank Bostock died, after a bout with influenza, in October 1912.
• • From 1913 -1917 Jack Bonavita focused on filmmaking, working as a stunt man, a director, and an actor. His silent films always co-starred wild animals and some of the lion or jaguar tamers he had worked with at Bostock's Circus. A few flickers he starred in were: "Avenged by Lions" [1916] and "The Woman, the Lion, and the Man" [1915].
• • Mae's hero Jack Bonavita died in the month of March from a polar bear attack at age 51 on 19 March 1917 in Los Angeles, California.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xmlMae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • lion lady • • 1934
NYC
Mae West.
