Mae West: Roy Hall Great Balls

MAE WEST recorded an LP "Great Balls of Fire" [MGM label, 1972] — — and one track was "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," that great rockabilly standard. Produced by Ian Whitcomb, Mae's tracks were backed by The Hot Rockers.
• • Mae-maven and faithful reader David Pekrol wanted to add this comment: This album was actually recorded in 1968 but shelved for 4 years until they could find a distributor. The original test pressing showed the album still needed some work. . . . Mae recorded "Love Potion #9" for the record --- --- but for some reason they didn't put it on the released album. It's unfortunate because it is very good.
• • Covered by 70-something young-at-heart Mae West, the energetic "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" was still so associated with Jerry Lee Lewis that the individuals who created it in 1954 were overshadowed.
• • James Faye "Roy" Hall was born in Big Stone Gap, Virginia in the month of May — — on 7 May 1922. An elderly neighbor taught him to play the piano and also demonstrated the unfortunate habit of losing himself in drink. Playing in a band, writing songs, drinking heavily, and pursuing his instincts about entertainment led Hall to open a hang-out in Nashville called the Music Box (later renamed the Musicians Hideaway) where he played piano and wet his whistle. In 1954, a young man approached Hall for a job. He was Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy paid Jerry $15 a night to do duets with him. That same year Roy Hall and a black musician named Dave Williams took a trip to the Everglades that resulted in a rock and roll classic: "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On." In March 1955, Big Maybelle made the first recording for the Okeh label, produced by the young Quincy Jones. In September 1955 Decca signed Hall and he recorded a few songs for this label including "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On." The version by charismatic Jerry Lee Lewis became far more popular, though. The royalties owed to Hall were handsome, however, when he was sued by his ex-wife, she wound up with most of the profits.
• • Roy Hall kept on kept performing around Nashville, Tennessee where he died at 61 years old on 2 March 1984.
• • Happy Birthday to Lee de Broux • •
• • Lee de Broux played the role of Jack West, Mae's father, in the 1982 bio-pic "Mae West." Born in La Mesa, California on 7 May 1941, busy Lee turned 70 today. Last year the character actor was seen in three separate indie films.
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Does the current crop of "chick flicks" reveal there is "A New Woman" type on the silver screen? Denver Post Film Critic Lisa Kennedy writes: "Whitney Cummings is the funniest woman I know," Michael Patrick King, longtime director of "Sex and the City," has said about the comic before he added: "If she's really a woman." It's a good line — — from the guy who brought us Mae West's love child, Samantha Jones, no less. But it teases a legit concern. No, not about Cummings' X-chromosome bona fides, but about who loves — — and benefits — — most from the mainstreaming of the ribald. ...
• • Source: Article: "Emancipated, yes, but empowered? The problem with bawdy women" written by Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post Film Critic for The Denver Post; posted on 6 May 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 1923rd 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: Max C. Freedman

MAE WEST recorded an LP "Great Balls of Fire" in 1972 — — and one track was "Rock Around the Clock," that great rock and roll standard.
• • Written in 1953 and first recorded by the Italian-American band Sonny Dae and His Knights [Arcade label], it became a phenomenal hit instead for a country music performer Bill Haley [1925 — 1981]. When Bill Haley & His Comets recorded it [Decca label] on 12 April 1954, the front man was pushing 30 and looked older.
• • Covered by 79-year-old Mae West in 1972, the hit was still so associated with Bill Haley that it will surprise people to learn that the songwriter was actually born the same year as Mae — — but in the month of January.
• • Hailing from Philadelphia, Max C. Freedman [8 January 1893 — 8 October 1962] was a veteran Tin Pan Alley songwriter who was best known for his novelty number "Sioux City Sue." But when he teamed up with James E. Myers (aka. Jimmy DeKnight) in 1953 to write a fast and furious rock and roll tune called "Rock Around the Clock," both men became known as chart-toppers. By then song-man Max was 60 years old.
• • Keeping up with the times, Mae offered her own sassy version on this album produced 18 years later.
• • Mae West's songs featured in "Brassy Broads" • •
• • This sassy and brassy revue "Brassy Broads" is a tribute to the divas of the American stage and screen. Three vivacious ladies take the lead to perform iconic numbers like “In the Mood,” etc. Featuring songs old and new from those great dames Mae West, Sophie Tucker, Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Bernadette Peters, and Bette Midler.
• • The premiere is tonight — — on 8 January 2011 at 7:30 PM at Florida Studio Theatre, 1241 North Palm Avenue, Sarasota, FL 34236.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: 1933 with Ruggles

MAE WEST worked with director Wesley Ruggles, who died on January 8th.
• • Here is what The New York Times film critic had to say about "I'm No Angel" in his review (printed in the newspaper on 13 October 1933). Mordaunt Hall wrote: "Miss West plays her part with the same brightness and naturalness that attended her second film role. There is no lack of spontaneity in her actions or in the utterance of her lines. She is a remarkable wit, after her fashion. Cary Grant is pleasing as Clayton and Walter Walker is excellent as the considerate old judge. Gregory Ratoff does well as Tira's lawyer. Wesley Ruggles has directed the film with his usual intelligence. ..."
• • Born in Los Angeles was Hollywood director Wesley Ruggles [11 June 1889 — 8 January 1972]. A younger brother of actor Charles Ruggles, Wesley directed one of Mae West's most successful films in 1933.
• • In 1915, he began his career as an actor, appearing in several silent films — — a few with Charlie Chaplin. In 1917, he turned director, making more than fifty insignificant and forgettable films before he won acclaim with "Cimarron" [1931] and the financially flush and critically astounding blockbuster starring Mae West the following year. "I'm No Angel" raked in even more profits than "She Done Him Wrong" — — and this was in the height of the Depression.
• • Wesley's brother, actor Charles Ruggles had one of the longest careers in Hollywood, lasting more than 60 years and encompassing more than 100 films.
• • Wesley Ruggles died on 8 January 1972 — — at age 82 — — in Santa Monica, California.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1933 • •
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Mae West: Rudolf Friml

MAE WEST was a hit in the legit thanks to Rudolf Friml.
• • Born in Prague on 7 December 1879, Friml was a pianist, violinist, and composer. When Victor Herbert refused to compose a new operetta for the temperamental diva Emma Trentini, the assignment went to Friml. "The Firefly" [1912] became a popular hit, and Friml went on to compose twenty Broadway scores — — including one for a long-running hit that featured Mae West — — and two original screen musicals
• • Playing opposite Ed Wynn in Arthur Hammerstein's "Sometime," with music by Rudolf Friml, Mae West performed the shimmy for an appreciative Broadway audience. In the dance known as the shimmy, there was hardly any movement of the feet, but continuous movement of the shoulders, torso and pelvis.
• • This light-hearted show opened at the Shubert Theatre on 4 October 1918. The musical closed in June 1919, after running for 283 performances. That was ninety years ago this October — — when 25-year-old Mae was first cast in a big mainstage show produced by Arthur Hammerstein. Years ago, Mae admitted she and Hammerstein had a fling.
• • The Shubert Theatre is still located in the heart of Times Square [225 West 44th Street, NYC 10036].
• • Time Magazine ran an article on the composer in their November 1939 issue. Friml told an interviewer that Victor Herbert communicated via an Ouija board. Unfortunately, the spirit world never offered Friml sufficient other-worldly advice to help resurrect his career.
• • When musical tastes changed in the 1940s, Friml decided to retire from composing for the stage and screen. He remained an active lecturer and classical composer in his later years, including occasional appearances on TV.
• • Rudolf Friml died during the month of November — — on 12 November 1972 — — at age 92.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Shubert Theatre • •
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Mae West: Mandolin Dave

Few people made MAE WEST laugh louder than vaudevillian Dave Apollon.
• • Born in Kiev, Russia on 23 February 1897, Dave's heavy "sour cream accent" was so hilarious that Mae West knew exactly how to increase his comic capital when they worked together during 1922 in the ill-fated "Ginger Box Revue" [slated to open at the Greenwich Village Theatre in Sheridan Square].
• • When a shady producer short-changed the cast by not producing the expected costumes and scenery, Mae pushed Dave Apollon onstage to deliver a prologue. Apologizing for the third-rate production the audience was about to see, Apollon muttered under his breath, "Ach! It was better under the czar with the lousy pogroms!"
• • Though Dave Apollon also worked as a mandolin player, it was not his musicianship that brought him the enormous popularity and success he was to achieve in vaudeville. Instead it was his Russian accent. Always on the lookout for entertainers with unique charms, Mae West first noticed his built in assets.
• • In "Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It," Mae described her first encounter with Dave during the Ginger Box Review debacle.
• • Mae West wrote: "At a rehearsal of this show I first met Dave Apollon. He had just arrived in this country, after some hardships, and was in the show. He was a fine mandolin player and Russian dancer. I first saw him dressed in a very tight-fitting green tweed suit that looked as if it had been made for a smaller brother, high button shoes, and a high Hoover collar. He was short but slender, with a round elf's face, and a turned-up nose over a mocking mouth. He had a sour-cream heavy Russian accent, and a very amusing way of expressing himself in a fractured English almost like double-talk. Dave was very funny, I thought, but in the show he just played the mandolin and did a short dance. I couldn't help being amused by him and I would have him come to me so that I could ask him questions just to hear him mangle the language. I would try not to laugh out loud, just inwardly, and somehow everything became funnier that way. When Dave Apollon would start talking it would break me up inside. He'd ask, 'Whut suz funnik I'm saying please to tell me?'"
• • I said to him, "Dave, with your mannerisms, voice, and puzzled expression that seems to struggle to understand what is said, you make me scream with laughter. What would you be able to do to an audience?"
• • "But no thenk you — — I serious minded fella, this mandolin and dancing very serious for me is enough."
• • Mae West persisted and soon had Dave reading lines in a skit about Circe and her lovers. When the show opened in South Norwalk, Connecticut, it was discovered that the scenery was too small for the theater. The producer was about to write a formal apology for the theater manager to read to the opening-night audience, when Mae came up with an idea.
• • "Get Dave Apollon to go out before the curtain, in a spotlight, in his own tight little green street suit, and with that borscht dialect he should really be, funny telling them about the scenery." They captured Dave, fed him hot tea, patted his back, told him he could do it. Finally, Dave did go out on the stage to make the announcement. The more he got tangled up in the English language, the more scared and bewildered he looked, the more the audience howled. He became so screamingly funny the audience doubled up in the seats. They applauded madly, thinking it was all a part of the original show. He came off pop-eyed. "I sweating like a hoss," he said.
• • Dave Apollon died in Las Vegas at age 75 during the month of May: 30 May 1972.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Strip — Teese

Ecdysiast Dita Von Teese told The New York Times that her all-time heroine is MAE WEST, who also worked in burlesque once.
• • Personal hero: Mae West. There hasn’t been another actress in the world who wrote every line she ever said in a film.
• • Biggest misconception about burlesque: That it’s about dancing around in hot pants with feather boas. Burlesque was about the striptease. The stars of burlesque took their clothes off, end of story, period.
• • Hardest thing about stripping: To make it look effortless and natural.
• • Fanciest corset: It’s by Mr. Pearl, without a doubt the world’s most-sought-after corset maker. He lives in Paris, and all the couturiers go to him. He has an unmatched talent for creating the perfect wasp waist. Each corset requires between 6 and 20 fittings.
• • Michigan native Dita Von Teese [born 28 September 1972] excels at self-promotion. She used a brief relationship with Marilyn Manson (to whom she was married from 2005 — 2007) to pole vault herself into the Olympian realm among exotic take-off artists.
— — excerpt — —
• • Domains | Dita Von Teese, Show Stopper
• • Interview by EDWARD LEWINE
• • Published in: The New York Times
• • Published on: 30 March 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Rochelle Hudson

Thanks to MAE WEST, movie-buffs will never forget Rochelle Hudson, who played Sally Glynn on the 1933 classic "She Done Him Wrong." We're thinking about her because she was born in March — — on 6 March perhaps in 1914.
• • Unfortunately, the skidrow barrooms saw far too many Sally Glynns.
• • Mae West knew the stories about the notorious Bowery "resort" near Houston Street, namely McGurk's Suicide Hall [295 Bowery]. The second chapter of "Diamond Lil" (a 256-page novelization of the play published by Macaulay in 1932) is Suicide Hall.
• • Mae West understood that the Bowery boy and his female counterpart — — the "Tough Girl" — — had to be made amusing before they would be accepted as entertainment. And so by the time Diamond Lil sashays inside Suicide Hall, bejeweled and gowned, the sinister setting had been properly de-fanged.
• • The real Suicide Hall was no place for a nice girl. According to an article [13 May 1999] in The New York Times, the building had been a hotel during the Civil War, catering to returning soldiers. By the 1890s it was a brothel and a dive where . . . a half-dozen destitute courtesans drank carbolic acid and died. John H. McGurk, the owner of the saloon on the ground floor, then capitalized on the notoriety of the place by renaming it McGurk’s Suicide Hall.
• • In the original Broadway production of "Diamond Lil" [1928-1929], the troubled young Sally was portrayed by Lois Jesson. The fresh-faced stage actress, who had graduated from Mansfield High School (the class of 1917) in Richland County, Ohio, stayed active in legitimate theatre in New York City for five years after her 1928 debut.
• • Paramount Pictures, who re-cast most of the roles when making "She Done Him Wrong" [1933], saw a glimmer of Sally Glynn in Rochelle Hudson.
• • Oklahoma City native Rochelle Hudson [6 March 1914? — 17 January 1972] was active in the entertainment scene from the 1930s—1960s.
• • Rochelle Hudson's career began when a friend of her mother's, who had connections with the studio of 20th Century Fox, got the 16-year-old signed to a contract in 1930. At first, the teenager was trained by Fox's voice coach, who then farmed her out for singing work on radio and voice-overs in Warner Brothers' popular cartoon "Bosko." Hudson's first flicker of credit on the silver screen, on loan to RKO Pictures, was as Carmen in "Fanny Foley Herself" [1931].
• • Often shoe-horned into sunny girl-next-door parts, Hudson was also effectively cast as tomboys and slatterns.
• • By December 1932, Rochelle Hudson (now in Paramount's hands) got her chance to walk into Suicide Hall — — Gus Jordan's saloon — — and leave an indelible impression on celluloid.
• • As in Mae's play, Sally Glynn enters with torn clothes. In silhouette, she attempts suicide but is prevented, and brought to Lady Lou's boudoir upstairs to recover. Intuitively, Mae West's character senses this is a romantic problem. When Sally wonders how she knows it is man-woe, Lady Lou replies: "You know, it takes two to get one in trouble."
• • Lou asks: "What was he? Married?"
• • Sally replies: "Yes, but I didn't know."
• • Lou explains: "Men's all alike — — married or single. It's their game. I happen to be smart enough to play it their way. You'll come to it."
• • Ever optimistic, Lady Lou suggests that Sally gets a new wardrobe and a change of attitude: "Always remember to smile. You'll never have anything to worry about. Forget about this guy. See that you get a good one the next time."
• • Sally frets that she's a goner: "Who'd want me after what I've done?"
• • Lou replies: "Listen, when women go wrong, men go right after them."
• • Lou explains to Gus Jordan, Serge Stanieff, and Rita what the commotion was: "Some guy done her wrong. The story's so old it should have been set to music long ago."
• • Rita demonstrates interest in the wronged girl, thinking she might be useful to them in their underworld schemes: "What a sweet, innocent face?... Can you sing and dance, perhaps? ... Well, but you'd be willing to learn... Then I think I can find you a very nice position. Have you heard perhaps of the Barbary Coast?"
• • Gus and Rita tell Lou that they will help Sally Glynn, though obviously they have evil intentions — — and (supposedly) Lou is unaware of their criminal designs. But one look at Lady Lou and the audience may doubt anything could escape her.
• • After doing herself credit as the wretched luckless Sally, Rochelle Hudson went forward to co-star in "Wild Boys of the Road" [1933], portray Cosette in "Les Misérables" [1935], and play Natalie Wood's mother in the iconic "Rebel Without a Cause" [1955].
• • Notable roles for Rochelle Hudson also included: Claudette Colbert's adult daughter in "Imitation of Life" [1934]; Richard Cromwell's love interest in the Will Rogers (a fellow Oklahoman) showcase "Life Begins at 40" [1935]; and the daughter of carnival barker W.C. Fields in "Poppy" [1936].
• • Man woes pursued her in real life, though; she went to the altar four times.
• • After her heyday in the 1930s, Rochelle Hudson's career dwindled into "B"-picture leads. TV kept her busy for awhile. She co-starred on the 1954 sitcom "That's My Boy" and made appearances in many anthology series.
• • In 1967, she retired from show business for good and used her contacts as a real estate agent to the stars.
• • Pneumonia and a love for the bottle hastened an early curtain. She died on 17 January 1972 in Palm Desert, California when she about 57.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Friml

MAE WEST racked up a long-running success thanks to Rudolf Friml.
• • Born in Prague on 7 December 1879, Friml was a pianist and composer.
• • Playing opposite Ed Wynn in Arthur Hammerstein's "Sometime," with music by Rudolf Friml, Mae West performed the shimmy for an appreciative Broadway audience. In the dance known as the shimmy, there was hardly any movement of the feet, but continuous movement of the shoulders, torso and pelvis.
• • This light-hearted show opened at the Shubert Theatre on 4 October 1918. The musical closed in June 1919, after running for 283 performances.
• • Time Magazine ran an article on the composer in their November 1939 issue. Friml told an interviewer that Victor Herbert communicated via an Ouija board. Unfortunately, the spirit world never offered Friml sufficient other-worldly advice to help resurrect his career.
• • Rudolf Friml died during the month of November — — on 12 November 1972 — — at age 92.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Off-key

"If you ever have a romance in any way with MAE WEST, you're finished," Jim Timony warned pianist Harry Richman, who decided to be delivered to temptation.
• • In 1922, Harry Richman — — a tall, slim, sophisticated musician born in Ohio — — was an unknown when Mae West gave him a big break. According to one biographer, Richman was an obscure piano man when Jim Timony approached the bachelor about auditioning as Mae's accompanist — — and to fill in the gaps by entertaining the crowd while she changed her costume. Examining the 27-year-old beanpole with apprehension, Mae asked, "Are you versatile?"
• • She hired the tall, debonair pianist with a pronounced lisp and they were soon performing together on the ritzy B.F. Keith vaudeville circuit. Despite his speech impediment, Mae urged Richman to sing and speak during their routine. "That lisp is distinctive," she said. "It could be the makin' of ya." And, sure enough, wherever their act was booked, the pair got excellent reviews.
• • But Richman decamped, running off to be Nora Bayes accompanist.
• • In 1966, his autobiography A Hell of a Life was published. In it he recounts his private and public relationship with Mae West. They remained respectful towards each other up until the end.
• • Entertainer Harry Richman [10 August 1895 – 3 November 1972] was an actor, a singer, dancer, comedian, pianist, songwriter, bandleader, and cabaret performer. He was born Harold Reichman in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• • Unlike Mae West, Richman's film career was brief and unmemorable; though he was charismatic in person, his acting skills were limited. [Of the film "Puttin' on the Ritz," critic Leonard Maltin wrote: "A songwriter drinks and goes blind — — after seeing this, you'll want to do the same".] This didn't affect Richman's popularity though; he remained a popular nightclub host, TV guest, and stage performer.
• • In early November it's a good time to remember showman Harry Richman, who died at age 75.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Cake Wake

MAE WEST inspired a dessert — — and last week the inventor of the May West snack cake died.
• • Montreal Gazette staffwriter Alan Hustak just reported that Rene Brousseau, the Quebec City baker who claimed to have invented the May West, one of the province's most popular snack foods, died in Quebec City on July 23 at age 89.
• • Brousseau was born in Quebec City in 1918. During the Depression, he dropped out of school when he was 15 years old to work as an apprentice baker.
• • Brousseau was working as a pastry chef at the Vaillancourt Bakery in Quebec City during the Second World War when he came up with the idea for the chocolate-coated, cream-filled vanilla cake. It is generally assumed the cake was named for the bawdy U.S. actress Mae West, the star of a popular wartime movie, My Little Chickadee.
• • But Brousseau's son, Jacques, said the dessert got its name because the cake was so puffy, it resembled a life preserver that was also nicknamed Mae West.
• • The spelling of the brand name was changed to May after the actress died in 1980, to avoid a lawsuit from West's estate.
• • Brousseau never profited from his recipe, but according to his son was given a $50 bonus when May Wests started selling like hotcakes.
• • Nothing legally exists to prove Brousseau was the inventor of the May West, but no one ever contested his claim.
• • In 1972 the trademark was bought by Vachon Inc., now a division of SaputoInc. The treat is still manufactured and remains one of Quebec's most popular snack foods. ...
— — excerpt — —
• • Source: The Montreal Gazette — — www.canada.com/
• • Byline: Alan Hustak
• • Published on: 4 August 2007
• • Nourish your Mae West memories on Friday evening 17 August 2007, when a guided tour will explore Manhattan's WEST-side during the "Mae West Side Story" walking tour. The event — — open to the public — — is timed to salute Brooklyn's own sexpot on her birthdate. [See the Annual Mae West Gala posting below.]
• • Only 12 more days until Mae's birthday!
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Violet Trefusis

A MAE WEST fan, British socialite Violet Trefusis had extraordinary bad girl genes all her own.
• • Born in Great Britain during the month of June [6 June 1894], sweet Violet Keppel was the daughter of the courtesan Alice Keppel, a mistress of King Edward VII of England.
• • Alice Keppel — anxious to keep her daughter shielded from a scandalous affair with another woman, Vita Sackville-West — arranged a marriage for Violet with Denys Trefusis.
• • Living abroad in gay Paree, Violet Trefusis adopted Mae West's fashion flair of the 1890s after enjoying the American film "She Done Him Wrong."
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Illustration: • • Mae West's fan • • 1934 • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: Long Playing

MAE WEST did not do a lot of TV nor radio. However, a long-playing record — "Original Radio Broadcasts" [Mark 56 Records, 643] released in 1974 — contains an interesting sampling of Westian witchery.
• • Naturally, this compilation includes the infamous 1937 sketch entitled "Adam & Eve" performed by Mae West (as Eve) with Don Ameche (as Adam) on the Chase and Sanborn Hour hosted by ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his wooden sidekick Charlie McCarthy. This was the skit that got Mae West banished from NBC's airwaves.
• • A "Frankie & Johnny" sequence was performed in the mid-1930s on the Rudy Vallee Show. And you'll hear two full length appearances by Mae on the American Forces Radio Service Christmas Shows of 1971 and 1972 during the Vietnam War.
• • Mae is at her best with the young men in uniform, teasing them with her special brand of innuendo. Classic Mae West lines are here, for example, "When I have to choose between two evils, I generally pick the one I never tried before!" and "In the New Year, I'm going to have Good Will towards Men .... and the More Men, the More I Will!"
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Dave Apollon

Few people made MAE WEST laugh louder than Dave Apollon.
• • Born in Kiev, Russia on 23 February 1897, Dave's heavy "sour cream accent" was so hilarious that Mae West knew exactly how to increase his comic capital when they worked together during 1922 in the ill-fated "Ginger Box Revue" [slated to open at the Greenwich Village Theatre in Sheridan Square].
• • When a shady producer short-changed the cast by not producing the expected costumes and scenery, Mae pushed Dave Apollon onstage to deliver a prologue. Apologizing for the third-rate production the audience was about to see, Apollon muttered under his breath, "Ach! It was better under the czar with the lousy pogroms!"
• • Dave Apollon also worked as a mandolin player.
• • The vaudevillian died in Las Vegas at age 75 during the month of May: 30 May 1972.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Eugene R. Richee

MAE WEST was photographed by the best.
• • During the Depression, when a lack of employment impacted on the boxoffice, Hollywood studios - - in an effort to establish a dedicated fan base for their actors and actresses - - sent out thousands of still photos to newspapers.
• • Photographer Eugene Robert Richee was employed by Paramount Studios between 1925 and 1935. He took pictures of Mae West chiefly for "She Done Him Wrong" and "Belle of the Nineties." Beginning in 1932, he took head-to-toe studies of the Brooklyn bombshell as well as several eye-catching close-ups of Mae in millinery.
• • He also often photographed Louise Brooks, whose striking hair-do made her one of his favorite Hollywood subjects. Additionally, Richee did striking portraits of Veronica Lake, Marlene Dietrich, Claudette Colbert, Clara Bow, Kay Francis, Carole Lombard, and other stars. One of Richee's trademarks was his placement of lights, especially the tiny finishing spots that highlighted hair and cast long eyelash shadows onto cheeks. You can see an example of that trick in his portraits of Marlene Dietrich.
• • The Museum of Modern Art undercut Richee's reputation by their sly habit of reproducing photos with a credit line that named only MOMA's Film Archive. Unfortunately, Richee's name is less well-known than it ought to be - - but his pictures speak for themselves. With a still camera, he invented fantasy images whose sheen and seduction became the ultimate Hollywood trademark.
• • Eugene Robert Richee died in 1972.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • • by Eugene R. Richee
NYC
Mae West.