skip to main |
skip to sidebar
MAE WEST had a special fondness for native New Yorkers, vaudevillians, and African-Americans and Nick Stewart was all of those.
• • Born In Manhattan [birthname Horace Winfred Stewart] during the month of March — — on 15 March 1910 — — Nick Stewart took the role of Nicodemus Stewart in "Go West Young Man" [1936].
• • He wed in 1941. Nine years later, the energetic character actor, with his wife Edna, founded the Ebony Showcase Theatre on LaBrea Avenue in Los Angeles.
• • If you saw "Song of the South" [1946], that was his voice bringing Bre'r Bear alive.
• • On the early 1950s TV series "The Amos 'n Andy Show," Nick Stewart (billed as Nick O'Demus) portrayed Lightnin', the slow-moving broom pusher who worked for The Kingfish.
• • The versatile showman from vaudeville and radio was one of the first inductees in the Academy of Television Arts and Science's new Archive of American Television.
• • The last surviving cast member from "Amos 'n Andy," Nick Stewart lived to be 90 years old and died on 18 December 2000 in Los Angeles of natural causes.
• • Mae West Earning Greenbacks for GreenLight • •
• • Robert Klara writes: But most attractive of all: A dead celeb won’t pull a Tiger Woods on you. “You know what you’re getting,” says David Reeder, whose L.A. firm GreenLight Rights handles the licensing for departed stars like Mae West and Johnny Cash. “Any negativity [about their lives] has long been digested by the popular culture—and they’ve withstood the test of time.” ...
• • Source: Article "I See Dead People" written by Robert Klara for Brandweek; posted on 14 March 2011
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Billionaire investor Warren Buffet suggested: “Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful” . ...
• • Source: Article "Warren Buffett: his best quotes" — www.telegraph.co.uk; posted on Tuesday, 15 March 2011
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1936 by H. Sabin • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST had a special fondness for native New Yorkers, vaudevillians, and African-Americans and Nick Stewart was all of those.
• • Born In Manhattan [birthname Horace Winfred Stewart] during the month of March — — on 15 March 1910 — — Nick Stewart took the role of Nicodemus Stewart in "Go West Young Man" [1936].
• • He wed in 1941. Nine years later, the energetic character actor, with his wife Edna, founded the Ebony Showcase Theatre on LaBrea Avenue in Los Angeles.
• • If you saw "Song of the South" [1946], that was his voice bringing Bre'r Bear alive.
• • On the early 1950s TV series "The Amos 'n Andy Show," Nick Stewart (billed as Nick O'Demus) portrayed Lightnin', the slow-moving broom pusher.
• • The versatile showman from vaudeville and radio was one of the first inductees in the Academy of Television Arts and Science's new Archive of American Television.
• • The last surviving cast member from "Amos 'n Andy," Nick Stewart lived to be 90 years old and died on 18 December 2000 in Los Angeles of natural causes.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST toured for years on the vaudeville circuit, honing her skills. Archivist Bill Kemp recalls the heyday of the Majestic Theatre in Bloomington, Illinois where the Brooklyn bombshell's name on a stage bill could draw crowds. Here is his intriguing article.
• • During the height of the vaudeville era, troupes of comedians, musicians, acrobats, and actors arrived in Bloomington, Illinois by train twice weekly, bringing with them carloads of sketch props, scenery, absurdly garish costumes, and trained animals. Vaudeville, it was said, was “big businesses with a bounce.”
• • The Majestic Theatre, located at the southwest corner of East and Washington streets, was Bloomington’s largest and most successful vaudeville house. Notable entertainers who performed on its stage included MAE WEST, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Roy Rogers, and others.
• • The theater opened on 18 April 1910, and its inaugural bill — — though it included no household names — — had plenty of vaudeville punch. Opening night performers included Carl Emmy’s “$5,000 animal act” and the Holmen Brothers and their “European sensational comedy act on the horizontal bars.”
• • Built of red vitrified brick, the Majestic could hold 1,400 on the main floor and two balconies. Its opening represented nothing less than “a great epoch in the histrionic phase of the city’s life,” declared owner Maj. Max Goldberg. The interior frescoing featured “delicate pea greens, gold and old rose tints.” The “ladies’ retiring room” (with “maids in attendance”) and “gentlemen’s smoking room” were on the mezzanine.
• • The extravagance, though, could not hide one ugly aspect of life in Bloomington, Illinois: Blacks were seated separately from whites in specially designated, segregated rows.
• • In an age of horrific theater fires (in 1903, the Iroquois Theater tragedy in Chicago claimed more than 600 lives), Maj. Goldberg stressed the Majestic’s “modern and up-to-date” design that offered “utter freedom from fire, danger and panic.” There were six ground floor exits, and the balconies emptied by separate stairs and exits, with a fire escape on the exposed wall along East Street.
• • By 1910, vaudeville cards often included short films, and the Majestic included a “moving picture machine” (dubbed the Majesticscope) to show “animated photography.”
• • During its early years, Majestic tickets ranged from a high of 25 cents for reserved boxes to a low of 10 cents for the cheap seats in the balcony (or about $5.50 and $2.20 today, adjusted for inflation). In 1911, acts included King & Brown, described as “two men and a pair of legs,” or “comedy monopede acrobats.” There also was Harry Thriller, “the lad on the tables and the chairs,” and Hector, the mind-reading dog.
• • The history of the Majestic includes sublime observations of life on the vaudeville stage. To save money, the Marx Brothers ate in their dressing room, preparing a dinner of goulash cooked over a Sterno-type stove. And there was the time when an overzealous stagehand turned a too-bright spotlight on fan dancer Sally Rand, leaving little to the imagination. The next day (or so the story goes), the line for tickets stretched from the box office all the way to Front and Main streets.
• • Even in its earliest days, the Majestic faced an uphill battle against the increasing popularity of movies. By 1915, there were several small nickelodeon-type theaters in downtown Bloomington, such as the Princess at 412 N. Main St. and the Scenic at 304 N. Madison St. That year also marked the opening of the Irvin Theater in the 200 block of East Jefferson Street. This “modern photo play house,” with its impressive screen and 1,000 seats, was the largest movie theater in town. By the mid-1920s, the Majestic was the only place in town to see regularly scheduled live entertainment.
• • In November 1937, the Majestic played host to Blackstone, billed as “the world’s most mystifying magician.” His roll call of tricks included “The Spanish Fantasy” and “Girl in the Auto Tires.” Interviewed by a local news reporter, the magician also recalled an appearance 15 years earlier when Jim Tucker, a veteran Majestic stagehand, misread a lighting cue and illuminated the “vanishing horse” before it had rightly “vanished.”
• • What had vanished by the late 1930s, though, was vaudeville, which was unable to compete against movies and radio. By the late 1940s to early 1950s, the Majestic stood empty and forlorn. “Darkened with the passing of vaudeville and grown ugly out of disuse,” observed The Pantagraph in 1955.
• • The theater finally fell to the wrecking ball in April 1956. Crowds gathered to watch the old vaudeville house come down in a shower of bricks.
• • “The pigeons have lost a good home,” cracked one sidewalk wit.
• • “The old vaudevillians lost theirs a long time ago,” was the comeback from Pantagraph reporter Bill Harris.
— — Source: — —
• • Article: "End of vaudeville spelled doom for Majestic Theatre"
• • Written by: By Bill Kemp — — Archivist/Librarian, McLean County Museum of History [Illinois]
• • Published in: The Pantagraph — — www.pantagraph.com
• • Published on: 7 June 2008
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • none • •
NYC
Mae West.
How cold could it be when MAE WEST is singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" a pop standard with words and music by Frank Loesser? 
• • In 1944, Loesser wrote the contrapuntal duet and premiered the song with his wife at their Navarro Hotel house-warming party. The female voice in the song is called "The Mouse" and the male "The Wolf." The lyrics consist of The Wolf's attempts to convince her to stay with him at the end of a date; her indecisive protests reveal that although she feels obligated to go home, she is tempted to stay, partially because, as the title suggests, "it's cold outside."
• • In 1958, the most memorable rendition of Loesser's duet was performed (and televised) at the annual Oscar ceremony when MAE WEST and Rock Hudson teamed up.
• • In 1948 — — after years of informally performing the song at various events — — Loesser finally had sold the rights to MGM, which inserted the song into its motion picture, "Neptune's Daughter" [1949]. The film featured two performances of the song: one by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams, and the other by Red Skelton and Betty Garrett. These performances earned Loesser an Academy Award for Best Song.
• • Many vocalists have paired up to record this light-hearted duet including Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan, Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer, and Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton.
• • A native New Yorker like Mae West, Frank Henry Loesser [29 June 1910 — 26 July 1969] was a versatile composer and lyricist.
• • Frank never studied music formally, though he couldn't help coming under its influence in his childhood. His father was a distinguished German-born teacher of classical piano and his older brother, Arthur, was a renowned concert pianist, musicologist, and music critic. Frank wrote his first song at the age of six.
• • During World War II, he wrote 1942's "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." Formerly a successful lyricist in collaboration with other composers, this was the first song for which Loesser composed the melody in addition to the lyric.
• • Frank Loesser was awarded a Grammy Award in 1961 for Best Original Cast Show Album for "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying."
• • However, he wrote well-known number for several Broadway musicals including hits for "Guys and Dolls" (1950).
• • A lifelong smoker, Frank Loesser died of lung cancer at age 59.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1958 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST co-starred in the 1932 "speakeasy" film "Night After Night" with two actresses who are linked to the month of May. 
• • Constance Cummings, who was 22 when she played a socialite Jerry Healy in the movie, was born in Seattle, Washington on 15 May 1910. At age 95, the actress died in Oxfordshire, England on 23 November 2005.
• • Constance's blueblood persona was based on the heiress Barbara Hutton (who inherited the Woolworth fortune), who had once lived in a rowhouse on West 56th Street – – before it was turned into a ginmill operated by gangster Larry Fay.• • Wynne Gibson, who played the "tough" cookie Iris Dawn [the dame George Raft's character Joe Anton is getting tired of], died on 15 May 1987 of cerebral thrombosis.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xmlMae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West's co-star • • 1932 • •NYC
Mae West.
When MAE WEST watched Rafaela Ottiano portray the sinister Mrs. Lovett in "Sweeney Todd" during its 1924 Broadway run at the Frazee Theatre, she knew where to find an actress who could ably play a villainess.
• • Born in Venice on 4 March 1888 of Italian parents, Rafaela Ottiano distinguished herself in Europe before relocating to New York City in 1910 when she was 22 years old. By 1912 she was winning critical praise for her performances onstage in Proctor's Fifth Avenue Theatre [31 West 28th Street].
• • By 1920, she was living in a boarding house in the theatre district - - 49 West 37th Street - - where many actresses and artists were in residence. In between bookings, the five-foot-five brunette worked as a sales lady in a department store.
• • For the acclaimed Broadway production of "Diamond Lil" [1928-29] Ottiano created the role of Spanish Rita. She was the only member of the Royale Theatre's cast who was retained for the filmed version, where she reprised her role, renamed Russian Rita by cautious executives at Paramount Pictures who feared that they might alienate Hispanic ticket-buyers.
• • Never married, and guiding her career herself, plucky Ottiano managed to stay employed in Hollywood from 1924-1942 in between theatre work.
• • She died at age 54 of intestinal cancer in mid-August 1942 at the East Boston home of her late parents.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xmlMae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West's co-stars • • "She Done Him Wrong" • • 1933NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST had a special fondness for native New Yorkers, vaudevillians, and African-Americans and Nick Stewart was all of those.
