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Let's reflect on an American songwriter whose amusing way with a song intrigued a very perky Brooklynite long before she became MAE WEST. 
• • Born in July, Harry Von Tilzer [8 July 1872 — 10 January 1946] was known for his popular slightly naughty novelty songs such as "Mariutch Make-a the Hootch a-ma-Cooch in Coney Island" [published in 1907 but probably written earlier] — — about the savvy Italian girl who became a side-show sensation when she realized you didn't need feet in order to dance.
• • "Mariutch" was performed by an aspiring vaudevillian "Baby May, Song and Dance" when her parents would enter their daughter in amateur contests in Brooklyn. Her rendition of this Italian dialect number often won a prize and no doubt the seductive wiggling helped generate applause.
• • "Even as a child," Beverly told a reporter, "my sister's songs were risque."
• • What we are not told is who taught a little girl how to shimmy and be sultry onstage. Nor is there a West family recollection in print about which parent chose the sheet music, helped "Baby May" rehearse it, or coached her on the Italian dialect pronunciation. Could it have been Matilda, raised in Bavaria, with her heavy German accent? Or was it John West, raised near the docks on Avenue D in Manhattan, who sparred and boxed with Italian immigrants and other ethnics and, therefore, could imitate them?
• • Focused also on the bright lights and the marquee was Harry Von Tilzer, who was born in Detroit under the name Harry Gummbinsky (which he shortened to Harry Gumm before later taking the "Von Tilzer" monicker under which he became famous). At age 14 he had joined a traveling circus, where he took his new name. He began playing piano and calliope while creating new tunes and incidental music for shows. After writing many songs (often in partnership with Andrew B. Sterling), hits that were performed by well-known vocalists, Harry Von Tilzer achieved his share of good fortune.
• • Harry's niece Frances Gumm went on to fame as the renamed Judy Garland.
• • Mae, eternally inspired by her childhood visits to Coney Island, began her famous motion picture "I'm No Angel" [1933] with a kootch dancer in a side-show. She named the character Tira but it's clear how this got started years before.• • If you like frisky songs, come up and see Mae on her annual birthday celebration in New York City on 14 August 2010. Tickets are now on sale — — www.TheGaudyGirls.com — — and you'll enjoy their bawdy, gaudy, naughty way with a song.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/________
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1907 song sheet • •
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Mae West.
Several Mexican actors and actresses worked with MAE WEST.
• • In the motion picture "Goin' to Town" [1935], Mona Rico was cast in a bit part as Dolores Lopez. The comely five-foot-two brunette was born and died during the month of July.
• • Starting out in life in Mexico City as Enriqueta Valenzuela on 15 July 1907, she arrived in Hollywood during 1928 as an eager, ambitious 19-year-old and quickly secured a five-year acting contract. By the next year she was co-starring opposite the great John Barrymore in "Eternal Love" [United Artists, 1929].
• • Though she did score some big screen success, Mona Rico remained poised and preoccupied on the edge of marquee recognition like a lovely, dainty moth — — attracted to the bright lights but not securely netted by Lady Luck.
• • Mona Rico died at age 87 in Los Angeles on 15 July 1994. • • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West's cast-mate • • Mona Rico, 1934 • •
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Mae West.
Another person who worked with MAE WEST was a colorful attorney who was born and died during the month of July.
• • Born in Sonora, California, Melvin Belli [29 July 1907 — 9 July 1996] represented Mae before the bench along with clients such as Jack Ruby, mobster Mickey Cohen, Errol Flynn, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Muhammad Ali, and a long list of the notable, the naughty, the nefarious, and the notorious.
• • Dramatically attired in scarlet-lined Saville Row suits and $750 cowboy boots, Mel the Bellicose whizzed around the hilly Bay Area in his customized marigold-yellow Rolls-Royce.
• • If the screen queen came up to see him in person, then she would have put in an appearance at Frisco's historic structures situated at 722 and 728 Montgomery Street. Known as the Belli buildings, these charming earthquake survivors had been the San Francisco offices of the renowned lawyer who had been known as "The King of Torts." Constructed in 1851 and 1853, these had originally housed the Langerman's tobacco warehouse and the original meeting house of the Masonic Lodge
• • The much-married expert on personal-injury law was in the news today because his former estate in San Francisco has gone on the market for $39.5 million. That’s about six times its sale price in 1992.
• • Melvin Belli's courtroom successes afforded him an opulent lifestyle. From 1978 — 1992, he resided in a 1922 brick Tudor Revival of about 11,000 square feet with six bedrooms, five baths, and two powder rooms. Set on an unusually wide 80-foot lot in the Pacific Heights neighborhood, the four-story home includes a heated outdoor pool, spa and four-car garage and bay views, on 0.3 acres.
• • Not shy with a comeback, Belli once told a reporter: There is never a deed so foul that something couldn't be said for the guy; that's why there are lawyers.
• • In 1996, fourteen weeks after his sixth wedding, Belli died at age 88.• • 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.
During her live stage show (featuring a dozen bodybuilders), MAE WEST would sing "Criswell Predicts [and It's Gonna Come True]." Well, who goes to Las Vegas seeking the truth?
• • Now and then a prediction by Charles Jared Criswell (a.k.a. Jeron Criswell King) — — known by the single name Criswell — — would be accurate. For instance, he stated in 1963 that something would happen to President John F. Kennedy in November of that year that would prevent him from running for re-election.
• • More often his forecasts sounded outrageous such as his announcement that his friend Mae West would win a presidential election in the United States and land on the moon with Criswell and George Liberace (the pianist's brother).
• • A syndicated columnist, radio, and TV personality, Criswell was born in August — — 18 August 1907 in Princeton, Indiana and became intrigued by the media while working for a local newspaper as a teen.
• • By 1965, Criswell was a regular guest on The Tonight Show (with both Jack Paar and Johnny Carson) making his silly predictions.
• • He died at age 75 on 4 October 1982.
• • 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 looked at Lorenzo Tucker and saw a leading man. 
• • Born in Philadelphia on 27 June 1907, the light-skinned black actor was known in the 1920s as "the colored Valentino." Tucker claimed that the olive-skinned Italian hearthrob was, in reality, darker complected than he was.
• • Tall, broad-shouldered, and dashing, Lorenzo was tapped by Mae to play the role of the pimp Money Johnson in her controversial Broadway play "The Constant Sinner." The Shuberts refused to permit this, therefore, the Greek-American thespian George Givot played the role in blackface.
• • But Mae West wasn't through. She then cast Lorenzo Tucker in a few minor parts in the production. For example, he played a non-speaking Spaniard and walked across the stage in one scene. When a woman asks the Babe Gordon [Mae West] character who is that hunk, Babe responds, "Oh, he's Spanish — — he's my Spanish fly!"
• • This photo was taken when Lorenzo Tucker was 20 years old.
• • The actor died in August — — on 19 August 1986.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Lorenzo Tucker • •
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Mae West.
Most people have not seen MAE WEST featured in a Frida Kahlo painting. 
• • Reportedly Diego Rivera’s favorite American actress, the Brooklyn bombshell appears in a cameo on the left side of the work titled "My Dress Hangs There." Created with oil and collage on masonite [460 x 500 mm], it is owned by a private collector and, therefore, it rarely tours.
• • Frida Kahlo — — who was born and died during the month of July — — [6 July 1907 — 13 July 1954] was a Mexican painter, who has achieved great international popularity.
• • The painter Diego Rivera [8 December 1886 — 24 November 1957] was her husband.
• • Critic Janice Helland wrote an essay about Frida Kahlo's paintings that were inspired by her American sojourn. According to Janice Helland, in "My Dress Hangs There" [1933], Kahlo scourges the United States with representations of the accoutrements of a bourgeois life-style (a toilet, a telephone, and a sports trophy) and indicts its hypocrisy by wrapping a dollar sign around the cross of a church. Her appropriated photographs of Depression-era unemployment, which constitute the lower part of the picture, juxtapose "reality" with the "made-up" painting and thereby highlight the vulgar display of American wealth and well-being as opposed to the poverty and suffering of the lower classes. In the midst of this Kahlo places a pristine image: the Tehuana dress. . . .
• • Let's accept the fact that Helland is well informed about art interpretation and Kahlo iconography. However, she and the others who insist on dating this artwork to 1933 are quite obviously not Mae-mavens.
• • One look at the millinery indicates that Mae West wore that costume in "Klondike Annie," a motion picture not released in the United States until 21 February 1936.
• • So tell us again: in what year did Frida Kahlo channel "Klondike Annie" for her collage filled with her sarcastic humor? It was NOT in 1933.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Frida Kahlo painting • •
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Mae West.
It was on 30 April 1956 that Robert W. Dana's felicitous coverage of "The MAE WEST Review" appeared. 
• • Dana's popular daily dish "Tips on Tables" was printed in the now defunct New York World-Telegram & Sun.
• • His column "Mae West's Show Grows" [dated April 30th] indicated Dana had seen the routine previously.
• • Robert W. Dana wrote: The old belief that everything should be bigger and better — — a thought most forcefully pronounced by Hollywood trailers — — can be applied with forthright honesty to Mae West, who has returned to the Latin Quarter [in New York City on West 48th Street], where she scored heavily in the fall [sic] of 1954. . . .
• • A native New Yorker, Robert Dana was born in 1907. His lengthy writing career began on the Drama Desk of the New York Herald Tribune. Years later, after penning a column on restaurants and night spots for this daily paper, Dana gathered those reviews into a book published in 1948. So well-known was he among New York's nightlife czars, that he did a stint for awhile as a night club and restaurant press agent. Subsequently, Robert Dana commandeered a regular byline at the New York World-Telegram column. This energetic reporter also hosted a radio show and short-lived TV program offering his opinions on the stars and entertainers during the 1940s—1950s.
• • Staying active and alert to the end, Robert W. Dana lived to be 89 and died in 1996.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1955 • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST pops up in all sorts of places where muscular mates congregate — — including IDW’s new series of reprints of "Terry and the Pirates."
• • One of the giants of the American newspaper comic strip was an Ohio native Milton Caniff [28 February 1907 — 3 May 1988]. In 1934, Caniff came up with a feisty adventure strip "Terry and the Pirates," writing and illustrating it through 1946. He also created "Steve Canyon."
• • Commemorating the centennial of Caniff’s 1907 birth, Fantagraphics Books has just published a bio bigger than a tombstone. Weighing in at 952 pages, "Meanwhile...: A Biography of Milton Caniff" was written with Caniff's cooperation by Robert C. Harvey, a comic strip scholar.
• • A gifted storyteller, Caniff suggested the title "Meanwhile" [a standard caption in continuity comic strips]. It is undeniable that his muscular chiaroscuro style of inking brought an intensely masculine vibe and a dramatic atmosphere to his illustrated pulp fiction. Aware that a few good men deserve a few femme fatales to stir the plot, Caniff injected a refreshing new sensuality to the funny papers during the Depression with temptresses such as the Dragon Lady and Burma, a cigarette-smoking vixen modeled on MAE WEST and introduced in early 1936.
• • Burma, the Dragon Lady, and Terry's gang live on through IDW’s new series of reprints of "Terry and the Pirates" reprints. The 1936 issues are where you'll find the illustrated adventures of Mae's a-MAE-zing cartoon clone — — the beautiful babe-licious Burma.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West's clone Burma • • 1936 • •
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Mae West.
During the 1950s, MAE WEST developed a professional relationship with two men who were born (like Mae) in the month of August — — but who didn't take tea together.
• • In 1955, while working on her new album The Fabulous Mae West, Mae West recorded a rather lame song — — "Criswell Predicts" — — about a rather lame psychic.
• • Who's this Criswell character?
• • All but forgotten, Jeron Criswell King [18 August 1907 — 4 October 1982], who was born Jeron Criswell Konig, was known by his stage-name The Amazing Criswell. Criswell was Mae's personal psychic for awhile. Curiously, Criswell was most famous for his inaccurate, bizarre, and hilariously improbable predictions. One prediction was that Mae West would be president — — another forecast was that Mae West would fly to the moon with Liberace.• • "Criswell Predicts" was written — — at Mae's request — — by Bob Thompson [a native Californian who was born on 22 August 1924 in San Jose].
• • In the mid 1950s, Bob Thompson toured with Mae West and her entourage of musclemen. Impressed by Bob, Mae West demanded that he be her piano teacher.
• • After building a musical reputation playing with a big name like Mae West, Bob Thompson got his big break in 1958 with a record deal from RCA. Thompson was signed alongside Esquivel, Billy May, Nelson Riddle, and a crop of other musicians destined to be Hollywood stars.
• • 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.
Subscribers to a local New York City newspaper, The Canarsie Courier, have long enjoyed Brooklyn historian John Denton's columns — especially the one that focused on MAE WEST.
• • John Denton described that memorable day in 1911 when a young Mae West and dancer Frank Wallace were booked in Canarsie to entertain at the Husman Music Hall, just outside the gates of Golden City Park.
• • The New Yok Times recently celebrated the Canarsie columnist because the long gone amusement center known as Golden City Park was built 100 years ago in 1907.
• • If you have a vintage photo of the old Husman Music Hall [in Canarsie], please get in touch!• • 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.
It's easy to see why sparks would fly when MAE WEST looked at Lorenzo Tucker.
• • Born in Philadelphia in June [27 June 1907], the light-skinned black actor was known in the 1920s as "the colored Valentino." Tucker claimed that the olive-skinned Italian hearthrob was, in reality, darker complected than he was.
• • Tall, broad-shouldered, and dashing, Lorenzo was tapped by Mae to play the role of the pimp Money Johnson in her controversial Broadway play "The Constant Sinner." The Shuberts refused to permit this, therefore, the Greek-American thespian George Givot played the role in blackface.
• • But Mae West wasn't through. She then cast Lorenzo Tucker in a few minor parts in the production. For example, he played a non-speaking Spaniard and walked across the stage in one scene. When a woman asks the Babe Gordon [Mae West] character who is that hunk, Babe responds, "Oh, he's Spanish — — he's my Spanish fly!"
• • This photo was taken when Lorenzo Tucker was 20 years old.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West's co-star Lorenzo Tucker • • c. 1927 • •
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Mae West.
