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MAE WEST was so well known during the 1930s that even an unfortunate experience would lead to mega-watt attention. The media capitalized on this, naturally. Her terrifying jewel robbery became a popular episode on the radio show "Calling All Cars" — — The Mae West Jewel Robbery.
• • And the heist even made the cover of True Detective Mysteries [issue for November 1934 — — "The Mae West Extortion Plot"]. When you're a movie queen, it seems that nothing is too gruesome to be commercialized. You can believe that this robbery was the real thing, too, not some flimsy hoax dreamed up by a press agent for the news men's attention. Phew!
• • In November, Let's Remember Rock Hudson [1925 — 1985] • •
• • Under the golden gaze of Oscar, Mae West made an appearance with this discretely gay actor who was born during the eleventh month — — on 17 November 1925. In 1958, the tall, dark, and handsome heart-throb sang a memorable duet with Mae — — "Baby, It's Cold Outside" — — during an Academy Awards Show.
• • Hailing from Winnetka, Illinois, handsome Rock Hudson [17 November 1925 — 2 October 1985] was a film and television actor who was a popular leading man during the 1960s and 1970s, most notably in several romantic screen romps with his most famous co-star Doris Day.
• • Rock Hudson was voted "Star of the Year," "Favorite Leading Man," and similar titles by numerous movie magazines, and was one of the most popular and well-known movie stars of the time. He completed nearly 70 motion pictures and starred in several television productions during a career that spanned over four decades. Hudson was also one of the first major Hollywood celebrities to die from an AIDS related illness.
• • On 17 November 1933 • •
• • It was in November — — on 17 November 1933 — — when Penrhyn Stanlaws [1877 — 1957] was interviewed about painting the face of Mae West, noted the Jackson Hole Star Tribune.
• • This portrait artist, who became famous for his paintings of beautiful women commissioned for the covers of magazines like The Saturday Evening Post, complained that Hollywood starlets were far from perfect beauties. The reporter for the Casper Tribune-Herald listed Penrhyn Stanlaws's critiques of stars such as Mae West, Katherine Hepburn, Constance Bennett, and Greta Garbo. His only criticism of Kay Francis, however, was that she had overdeveloped triceps but otherwise had "nicely balanced features."
• • On 17 November 2005 • •
• • One man looks at a pink corset and thinks of lacy lingerie covering a beauteous bustline. Another man might discover his ideal lass in glass.• • The exhibition "Decades in Glass: The 1960s" had a gala opening at the West Bridge of Museum [Corning, NY] on 17 November 2005; the show remained in place and could be viewed until 2 April 2006. 
The talented American artist Richard Marquis (born in 1945) created the Mae West Cup and it was on display. The catalogue credit for the piece read: Richard Marquis and Italy, Murano, Venini Glassworks, 1969-1970; Blown a canne glass; zippered cloth container; H: 8 cm, W: 12 cm, D: 10.5 cm. The Corning Museum of Glass.
• • Image: The delightful Mae West Cup by Richard Marquis• • Mae West Radio Trivia • •
• • The following is an account by radio script writer Arch Obler, who put together the Garden of Eden skit for "The Chase and Sanborn Hour" on short notice in 1937. He discusses Mae's nearsightedness and how she would never wear her eyeglasses in public.
• • "Now one thing the powers-that-be forgot," recalled Arch Oboler, "that in those days, unlike today, there were three things that an actress could not do. One was to have a child out of wedlock. Two, she could not swear. And three, she could not wear glasses. It was thought terrible for an actress to be seen in spectacles. Well, Miss Mae West, having all the usual good sense of all of us, did not wear her glasses during the rehearsals so she, being very nearsighted never saw my script. She bluffed her way through. It wasn’t until air time that she walked on stage waving these glasses, put them on . . . and for the first time saw the script. The result was a disaster. What she did to ‘Adam and Eve’ the Arabs had never done so miserably."
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West wrote this line for the character Cleo Borden in 1935: "I'm a good woman for a bad man." [Movie dialogue from "Goin' to Town"]
• • Mae West said: "Cigarette me, Cossack!" [Movie dialogue from "Goin' to Town"]
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Several teenagers, ages 15 — 19, were competing for the Miss Tehachapi title recently and one costumed herself as Mae West.
• • Tehachapi, California Community Reporter Shirley Given writes that "the young ladies brought a sense of confidence and maturity to the stage. The girls’ first appearance on stage was that of a star or character they admired. Among those portrayed were Dorothy, from Wizard of Oz, Alice, from Alice in Wonderland, Mae West, Lucille Ball, Audrey Hepburn, Olivia Newton-John, Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, and Bette Davis." ...
• • Source: Article: "Tehachapi has new ‘royalty’" written by Shirley Given, Community Reporter for Tehachapi News; posted on Tuesday, 15 November 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2118th 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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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
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Mae West.
Bob Hope appeared with MAE WEST on TV on 4 May 1959 and, occasionally, their careers intersected. For instance, in March 1958 they were both in Hollywood rehearsing for the same Academy Awards presentation. Hope performed with dancer-actress Shirley MacLaine and Mae West sang with Rock Hudson. Life Magazine ran this candid photo. 
• • The ski-slope-nosed comedian was born as Leslie Townes Hope in London, England on 29 May 1903. Both stars, of course, had toured in vaudeville, were heard on radio, starred on Broadway, and also worked at Paramount Pictures (though not on the same motion pictures). Paramount excelled in comedy — — having Mae West, W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, and Bing Crosby all under contract.
• • The versatile British-born American comedian and actor was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel.
• • Bob Hope was 100 years old when he died at his home in Toluca Lake, California of pneumonia in the month of July — — at 9:28 pm on 27 July 2003. He was interred in the Bob Hope Memorial Garden at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, where his mother is also buried.
• • Photo Credit: Leonard McCombe/Time & Life Pictures/ Getty Images 01 March 1958
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "A dame that knows the ropes isn't likely to get tied up."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Lori Bryant Woolridge, Sensuality Coach, defends "scandalous" women such as Mae West. She writes: When I think about the famous women, like Jennifer Lopez, who many of us look up to as sensual and sexual icons, most are considered scandalous in some form or fashion. Think about it: Cleopatra, Mae West, Coco Chanel, Josephine Baker, Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Cher, Madonna, Angelina Jolie. All are women who by living and loving (and dressing) on their own terms, often created controversy and concern among the keepers of society's moral compass. But they weren't afraid of being judged. They were afraid of not living fully expressed. A healthy fear, I think.
• • These women lived by their own values and rules, and while some choices led them down rather destructive paths, others led to great success and happiness, and both paths led them towards an authentic life... one that for good or bad, right or wrong, was dictated by their own sense of individual truth. The more I think about it, the more I become a quiet advocate for delightfully scandalous living. Scandalous women are sexy. ...
• • Source: Article: "Living Delightfully Scandalous" written by Lori Bryant Woolridge for HuffPost Women; posted on 26 July 2011
• • 17 July 2004 — 17 July 2011 • •
• • In mid-July the Mae West Blog celebrates its seventh anniversary. Thank you to all those Mae-mavens who come up and see Mae every day.
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2004th 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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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • March 1958 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
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Mae West.
As soon as she was cast in "Sometime" in 1918, MAE WEST sought out Joe Frisco to coach her.
• • With her tough gal posture and a hand on her hip, Mae forged her own portrayal of the vampy man-eater Mayme Dean (who was originally written as a pathetic little sparrow). Mae West even spiced up "All I Want Is a Little Lovin'" with her own lyrics. According to Jill Watts: Rather than working with the busy choreographer of "Sometime," Mae West got some guidance from her Chicago pal Joe Frisco, a popular white jazz dancer who was an expert in black technique.
• • Born in Milan, Illinois on 4 November 1889, Joe Frisco was a vaudevillian whose first bookings featured him as a proficient jazz dancer. Frisco performed with some of the first jazz bands in Chicago and New York City, including Tom Brown's Band from Dixieland, the Original Dixieland Jass Band, and the Louisiana Five. In 1918, he took his first Broadway bows in the Ziegfeld Follies, but also toured in variety throughout the 1920s. His popular jazz dance act (occasionally called the “Jewish Charleston”) was a choreographed series of shuffles, camel walks, and turns. He usually performed to Darktown Strutters’ Ball. So well known for his jazz dance was he that writer F. Scott Fitzgerald made reference to him in "The Great Gatsby" when he compared a showgirl's dancing moves to Frisco's.
• • Later on, Joe Frisco incorporated his stutter into his act and became a popular comedian. one of his witty off-stage remarks, made in a stammering voice, was: “After they made that guy, th-th-they threw away the sh-sh-shovel!”
• • Mae admired his off-the-cuff humor and reworked this line, which became "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
• • Addicted to gambling, Joe Frisco's career declined and he was penniless when he died of cancer in Woodland Hills, California in the month of February — — on 12 February 1958.
• • Mae West, Literary Muse • •
• • Graham Greene's novel Brighton Rock, published in 1938 and made into a film nine years later, has now been remade under the direction of Rowan Joffe.
• • Writing in The Australian on 12 February 2011, film critic Ben Macintyre offered this background: In 1920s Brighton, gang violence was on the rise, as was the popularity of Britain's southern coastal resorts. Brighton Rock brilliantly captured the seediness of British seaside life between the wars, the teashops, the spiv culture and a peculiarly English sort of melancholy. The character of the crook Colleoni in the novel is probably based on Darby Sabini, the "king of the racecourse gangs" who ran Clerkenwell's Italian mob and retired to Brighton. The prototype for the barmaid Rose in Brighton Rock is thought to be Mae West. . . .
• • Mae West's Bio (Lost in Translation) • •
• • Michael, a blogger from Illinois, posted this about the Brooklyn bombshell: Mae West is the single of the heading poke today. Brooklyn innate beauty, Mae West, was initial innate as Mary Jane West upon Aug 17, 1893. She had regularly desired behaving flourishing up though flourishing up in the twenties was really confining. Not for Mae West. Mae West took value of the resounding twenties as well as the regressive position upon what women should do as well as be as well as how they should action — — she declared her initial fool around “Sex.” . . .
• • Initial innate, huh???
• • 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.
Under the golden gaze of Oscar, MAE WEST made beautiful music with this actor who was born in mid-November. 
• • Hailing from Winnetka, Illinois, handsome Rock Hudson [17 November 1925 — 2 October 1985] was a film and television actor who was a popular leading man during the 1960s and 1970s, most notably in several romantic screen romps with his most famous co-star Doris Day.
• • Rock Hudson was voted "Star of the Year," "Favorite Leading Man," and similar titles by numerous movie magazines, and was one of the most popular and well-known movie stars of the time. He completed nearly 70 motion pictures and starred in several television productions during a career that spanned over four decades. Hudson was also one of the first major Hollywood celebrities to die from an AIDS related illness.
• • In 1958, the tall, dark, and handsome heart-throb sang a memorable duet with Mae West — — "Baby, It's Cold Outside" — — during an Academy Awards Show. This was a rare invitation extended to Mae to perform during the annual Hollywood awards ceremony. As they concluded the number, Rock offered Mae a cigarette, noting that it was "king-sized" — — and Mae replied, "Mmmm, it's not the men in your life, it's the life in your men!" They ended with a long, slow, passionate kiss.
• • It would never be cold inside — — if Mae West was there.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • March 1958 • •
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Mae West.
Under the golden gaze of Oscar, MAE WEST made beautiful music with this actor who was born in mid-November. 
• • Hailing from Winnetka, Illinois, handsome Rock Hudson [17 November 1925 — 2 October 1985] was a film and television actor who was a popular leading man during the 1960s and 1970s, most notably in several romantic screen romps with his most famous co-star Doris Day.
• • Rock Hudson was voted "Star of the Year," "Favorite Leading Man," and similar titles by numerous movie magazines, and was one of the most popular and well-known movie stars of the time. He completed nearly 70 motion pictures and starred in several television productions during a career that spanned over four decades. Hudson was also one of the first major Hollywood celebrities to die from an AIDS related illness.
• • In 1958, the tall, dark, and handsome heart-throb sang a memorable duet with Mae West — — "Baby, It's Cold Outside" — — during an Academy Awards Show. This was a rare invitation extended to Mae to perform during the annual Hollywood awards ceremony. As they concluded the number, Rock offered Mae a cigarette, noting that it was "king-sized" — — and Mae replied, "Mmmm, it's not the men in your life, it's the life in your men!" They ended with a long, slow, passionate kiss.
• • It would never be cold inside — — if Mae West was there.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/________
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1958 • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST, Colette noted in a 1938 publication, had the confidence to create an unapologetic majority-of-one presence on the silver screen — — as self-sufficient and durable as a diamond solitaire. "She alone, out of an enormous and dull catalogue of heroines, does not get married at the end of the film, does not die, does not take the road to exile, does not gaze sadly at her declining youth in a silver-framed mirror …. She alone has no parents, no children, no husband," wrote Colette. "This impudent woman is, in her style, as solitary as Chaplin used to be."
• • Can you imagine the buxom Brooklynite translated into the character of one of the 1890s Parisian prostitutes who people "Gigi," an arch novella written in 1944 by Colette [28 January 1873 — 3 August 1954]? Ooooh-la-la!
• • Defanged by the American musical comedy team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, who laundered and starched all the sex and naughtiness out of the original, "Gigi" became a romantic tale of mismatched parts and was chastely adapted for the screen in 1958, starring a very ladylike French native Leslie Caron [born 1 July 1931] as the ingenue tutored by the scarlet women in her family. The motion picture version premiered at the Royale Theatre — — the Broadway house where "Diamond Lil" debuted in 1928 — — in Manhattan on 15 May 1958.
• • Still active and sought after, the 78-year-old Academy-Award-nominee will soon portray Madame Armfeldt in a Paris revival of Stephen Sondheim’s "A Little Night Music," a musical about shady ladies that leaves the sex and sass intact. Moreover, Leslie Caron's memoir "Thank Heaven" will be published by Viking around Christmas.
• • Mae West and Leslie Caron • •
• • In The Examiner, Alan Petrucelli has put together a most intriguing profile that includes this morsel about Leslie Caron and Mae West.
• • Pittsburgh Stage and Screen Examiner Alan Petrucelli writes: And this story, which we’ll call The Women, Part Deux, is a hoot! One day director George Cukor “begged” Caron to make up a lunch quartet with — — are you ready? — — Mae West, Greta Garbo, and Barbra Streisand. Caron coos: “An absolutely historical luncheon, I know, but I would have felt very uncomfortable in front of these great dames. You know what happened? Streisand says, ‘Gee, Miss West, I do so admire your work,’ and West replies, ‘Sure honey, I can tell by the way you been stealin’ it…’” [from "Leslie Caron? Oui! Make no reservations about it, just thank heaven for this little/ big girl" printed on 7 September 2009; by Pittsburgh Stage and Screen Examiner Alan Petrucelli; published in: The Examiner — — www.examiner.com].
• • Hmmmm. Though that nostalgic nugget goes together like misfitted pipes amid nougat, and the imagined comeback by Mae West to Brooklyn's Barbra twangs like a nail mis-struck, it is nice to see the Empress of Sex fondly recalled by an awestruck foreign thespian who did not have lunch with her after all (and who did not do her own singing on screen either). We do hope her memoir is a real page-turner quite unlike the clutch of mud most of these celeb tell-alls have been.• • 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.
Rex Reed once co-starred with MAE WEST. Here's an excerpt from his column on the rise and fall of Oscar.
• • Rex Reed writes: Call me yesterday’s child, but after the thrill of Doris Day arm in arm with Clark Gable, or Mae West’s carnal gibes at Rock Hudson on a raunchy duet of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” that almost knocked the show off the air in 1958, the sight of Charlie Kaufman and a coven of assorted Desperate Housewives just doesn’t quite make it.
• • I still think Judy Garland should have won for the achievement of a lifetime in A Star Is Born (1954), instead of dreary Grace Kelly. I remain unconvinced that Judy Holliday should have won in 1951 for Born Yesterday over Bette Davis in All About Eve.
• • How can a sane mind explain how The Greatest Show on Earth beat out The Bad and the Beautiful in 1953? Orson Welles never really won anything; neither did Alfred Hitchcock. James Dean changed the face of movie acting forever, but Oscar gave him the middle finger twice — posthumously, too. Kim Stanley, my favorite actress of all time, wasn’t even nominated for The Goddess.
• • Already disheartened, I pretty much stopped covering the Oscars on a regular basis after Titanic swept the awards in 1998, and for no logical reason, a silly, spastic fop named Roberto Benigni beat Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan the following year. When it comes to grousing, I’m just scratching the surface. It all reminds me of what Hunter Thompson once said about the music business: “A dark, plastic hallway where pimps and thieves run free, and good men die like dogs. … There is also a negative side.”
• • The winds of change have now reached gale force, but here we go again. The songs have been a joke since real songwriters stopped writing them. The last great song with any legs written for the screen was “New York, New York” in 1977. It wasn’t even nominated. In the old days you got musical numbers by Kern, Berlin, and the Gershwins. Now you get X-rated rap about pimps. Aware of the negative impact this trash has provoked, the Academy this year is limiting the category to three songs instead of five, and the performance time to one chorus each. No cigar, but it’s a start. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Oscar and Me"
• • Byline: Rex Reed
• • Published in: The New York Observer
• • Published on: 17 February 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Critic Rex Reed was born on 2 October 1938 in Fort Worth, Texas to Jimmie M. Reed and Jewell Smith.• • 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 was Madonna's role model when she was still a wanna-be entertainer. Born in mid-August one day before her idol, the material girl was famously chided by her British husband for trying to stay youthful and sexy after her 50th birthday. Canadian Guy Barbineau meditated about this connection between M and M.
• • But before we line up his paragraphs for a moment in the spotlight, one correction must be made. Liberace's perceptive quote was: I cried all the way to the bank. "Laughed all the way to the bank" makes no sense, you know. You do know, Guy, we hope.
• • Writing for Xtra West, Vancouver resident Guy Barbineau observed: The one thing Madonna [born on 16 August 1958] has done that really offends people is being successful.
• • It's not religion. It isn't sex. It's all about who has power.
• • Society always did and still does get its knickers in a twist when smart, opinionated, and outspoken women and gay men come into power — — and have a public voice. To think otherwise is naive.
• • Now Madonna's being criticized for daring to be sexual at 50. Like Mae West, another gay icon, she's laughing all the way to the bank.
• • There are plenty of similarities between the two. West learned her walk, talk, and shtick from New York drag queens in the 1920s. She pushed buttons, landing herself in jail by writing and performing in plays like Sex and the homosexually themed The Drag — — thus drastically increasing their ticket sales — — before becoming the world's biggest movie star for several years in the 1930s.
• • "I believe in censorship. It made me a fortune," Mae West said. Madonna could say the same thing. ...
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Why we love Madonna — — As Sticky & Sweet rolls into town, Xtra West pays tribute to one of the world's biggest gay icons"
• • Byline: Guy Babineau in Vancouver, Canada
• • Published in: Xtra West — — www.xtra.ca
• • Published on: Thursday, 23 October 2008• • 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.
October 2nd is a special day on the MAE WEST calendar of memories.
• • On 2 October 1938, Rex Reed — — Mae's good-looking co-star in "Myra Breckinridge" 
— — was born in Fort Worth, Texas. Currently, the 69-year-old Reed pens a column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for a rarely-read newspaper — — The New York Observer. The late great Spy Magazine used to poke fun at the fey Dakota resident. Labeling him as one of the ten most embarrassing New Yorkers, Spy's staff was fond of saying that Rex Reed's positive film reviews "sound like the overblown testimonials of an unctuous Judy Garland fan after hoisting one too many kir royales at the piano bar."
• • On 2 October 1985, Rock Hudson died of AIDS. The tall, dark, and handsome actor sang a memorable duet with MAE WEST — — "Baby, It's Cold Outside" — — during an Academy Awards Show in 1958. This was a rare invitation extended to Mae to perform during the annual Hollywood awards ceremony. As they concluded the number, Rock offered Mae a cigarette, noting that it was "king-sized" — — and Mae replied, "Mmmm, it's not the men in your life, it's the life in your men!" They ended with a long, slow, passionate kiss.• • It would never be cold inside — — if Mae West was there. • • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1958 • •
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Mae West.
That unreliable source of information — — the celebrity tell-all — — has showed no signs of bookstore slowdown since Mae West penned her memoirs with the help of a ghostwriter [Stephen Longstreet] fifty years ago in 1958. 
• • Many celebrity memoirs over-exaggerate the rotten aspects of a childhood in order to flatter the achievements that follow it. However, Julie Andrews resisted this in Home A Memoir of My Early Years.
• • In her autobiography Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It, Mae West certainly revealed no household poverty nor unhappiness, no past traumas, no "slippery slopes" where she fell down on the upward climb to success, no struggles with alcoholism, no childhood sexual molestations, etc. And it was not a kiss and tell book either.
• • Mae West (who was totally disinclined to air dirty linen) used this as a reason: that her fans wanted to know that Mae West always triumphed, that people did not want to see her as unable to cope or besieged by demons. Her book covered up a lot of unpleasantness.
• • What did Mae West hide in her memoir and her media interviews?
• • She hid the fact that she was sexually molested when young by a relative and also by a teacher. She hid the fact that she had a love affair with a married man when she was 21. She hid the fact that she got lousy reviews for 25 years. She hid the fact that she was fired from several Broadway shows before April 1926 (when she wrote "Sex" and produced it with her mother's savings). She hid the fact that no one would hire her between 1923 — 1925. She hid the fact that she was a bigamist, etc. She hid a lot of warts.
• • In other words, Mae West refused to give herself "a wound."
• • The public prefers stars who have a WOUND: who have had demons to overcome, whose glamorous public image hides dark secrets, etc .
• • While Mae West, who died in 1980, has no fan clubs, and is all but forgotten, Marilyn Monroe [1926 — 1962], who did not write her own plays and scripts, and who struggled with pills and alcohol and depression all her life, who had many marital break-ups, etc., has fan clubs galore and a legion of fans around the globe.
• • Fans love stars who have been WOUNDED.
• • One of the key elements of "Courting Mae West" that Steve Rossi (and other people who knew Mae) commented on is that this play shows Mae West under siege and wounded, and it is quite poignant when you watch Mae struggle and resolve her problems.
• • "Courting Mae West" opens on Saturday night 19 July 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre in New York City. Louis Lopardi directs this 95-minute serious-minded comedy.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1897 • •
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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/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1958 • •
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Mae West.
Waco, Texas natives figured in the life of MAE WEST. The first was Texas Guinan. The second was Travis Banton [18 August 1894 — 2 February 1958], the chief designer at Paramount Pictures. Banton is considered one of Tinseltown's key wardrobe wizards during the 1920s-1930s.
• • When he was young, Travis Banton's family moved to New York City, where he was schooled at Columbia University and at the Art Students League where he studied art and fashion design. An early apprenticeship with a blue-blooded dressmaker earned him fame. When Mary Pickford selected his gown for her wedding to Douglas Fairbanks, his reputation was established.
• • During the 1920s he created costumes for many leading actresses such as Bebe Daniels, Pola Negri, and Clara Bow. During the 1930s he forged the style of Mae West — — in I'm No Angel, 1933 and Belle of the Nineties, 1934. He also dressed Claudette Colbert, Marlene Dietrich, Kay Francis, Greta Garbo, and Carole Lombard. In 1927, he became Designer in Chief at Paramount and set the hallmark of elegant, sensuous clothes, often cut on the bias. For 12 years his assistant was Edith Head, teaching her everything she knew. Meanwhile, the practical Edith covered up for him, filling in when he disappeared.
• • In the film Belle of the Nineties [1934], Travis Banton went to town on Mae. The film opens with a vaudevillian styled production full of scantily-clad dancers. Set in the 1890s, the famous opening features Ruby Carter [Mae West] appearing in front of various backgrounds such as a rose, a butterfly, a spider, and finally as the Statue of Liberty.
• • During his illustrious film career, Travis Banton designed costumes for 200 or more productions. His last challenge was dressing Rosalind Russell for "Auntie Mame." He died at the age of 63 — — on 2 February 1958.
• • 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.
October 2nd is a special day on the MAE WEST calendar of memories.
• • On 2 October 1938, Rex Reed — — Mae's good-looking co-star in "Myra Breckinridge" — — was born in Fort Worth, Texas. Currently, the 69-year-old Reed pens a column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for a rarely-read newspaper — — The New York Observer. The late great Spy Magazine used to poke fun at the fey Dakota resident. Labeling him as one of the ten most embarrassing New Yorkers, Spy's staff was fond of saying that Rex Reed's positive film reviews "sound like the overblown testimonials of an unctuous Judy Garland fan after hoisting one too many kir royales at the piano bar."
• • On 2 October 1985, Rock Hudson died of AIDS. The tall, dark, and handsome actor sang a memorable duet with MAE WEST — — "Baby, It's Cold Outside" — — during an Academy Awards Show in 1958. This was a rare invitation extended to Mae to perform during the annual Hollywood awards ceremony. As they concluded the number, Rock offered Mae a cigarette, noting that it was "king-sized" — — and Mae replied, "Mmmm, it's not the men in your life, it's the life in your men!" They ended with a long, slow, passionate kiss.• • It would never be cold inside — — if Mae West was there. • • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West with Rock Hudson • • 1958 • •
NYC
Mae West.
MAE WEST was so well known during the 1930s that even an unfortunate experience would lead to mega-watt attention. The media capitalized on this, naturally. Her terrifying jewel robbery became a popular episode on the radio show "Calling All Cars" — — The Mae West Jewel Robbery. 
The talented American artist Richard Marquis (born in 1945) created the Mae West Cup and it was on display. The catalogue credit for the piece read: Richard Marquis and Italy, Murano, Venini Glassworks, 1969-1970; Blown a canne glass; zippered cloth container; H: 8 cm, W: 12 cm, D: 10.5 cm. The Corning Museum of Glass.
