Mae West: October 2nd

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 • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: Hollywood

As the news crews gather in Los Angeles for the annual Academy Awards affair, what is there to say about MAE WEST?
• • • • In her bestseller "From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies," Molly Haskell discussed the Mae West persona. Haskell wrote: "Unlike other stars, whom we think of in the context of specific films, her image, complete with body language and voice, lifts buoyantly out of celluloid into space like the inflatable life preserver that was named after her in World War II. She's a pneumatic floozy presiding over an army of panting camp followers, a Catherine the Great from Brooklyn, a Salome who adds on the layers instead of shedding them, a Cleopatra whose infinite variety is debatable."
• • • • According to Molly Haskell: For years Mae West tried to promote a film about Catherine the Great, in which she would offer a warmer and more sensual alternative to what she described as Dietrich's "hollow-cheeked doll." Although Mae West finally succeeded in launching an unfunny Broadway play on the subject of the czarina, for most of her career she was in fact playing a bawdy, carnivalesque version of Catherine, surrounded by an "honor guard" of admirers. See her, as the lion-tamer in "I'm No Angel,"entering atop an elephant, wearing a white spangled jumpsuit. Looking at her now, we can't but applaud this middle-aged woman (she was 40 when she made her first film), undisguisedly rotund, flaunting an unliposuctioned, unsiliconed body and demanding her sexual privileges!
• • • • With unshakable confidence, she seems to have hungered for the spotlight from infancy, and when she got a chance to make her song-and-dance debut at the age of 7, she took it and never stopped showing off.... [Excerpt from an essay by Molly Haskell published in August 1993 in The New York Times.] Molly Haskell is the author of "From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies."
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • "Belle of the Nineties" 1934 • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: DeMille

Many men looked at MAE WEST — — but Oscar never glanced once in her direction. In filmland, Mae West secured no nominations for acting. And her financially successful movies for Paramount scored no Oscar wins.
• • However, just in time for the Academy Awards ceremony comes this mention of Mae West when film preservationist Cecilia DeMille Presley was honored by Chapman University on Friday, the 23rd of February, in Indian Wells.
• • The Desert Sun noted that the granddaughter of former Paramount Studios Chief Cecil B. DeMille, who splits her time between Los Angeles and the Palm Springs, California desert, was honored for her gift of extraordinarily rare film-related art to Chapman University's new $42 million Marion Knott Studios within the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.
• • The collection includes art for MAE WEST films, John Wayne films, and also pieces in media ranging from animation cells to rare stills, poster art, and storyboards.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • to come • •
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Mae West.

Mae West: Big O

It's time for the big O. MAE WEST never took Oscar to bed - - that cold gold-plated statuette - - but there are a lot of people heading to "Oscar country" in time for the 79th Annual Academy Awards. And the Los Angeles tour guides are ready.
• • If you're en route to California, you can come up and see Mae and her friends on a junket called "Dearly Departed." A Director of Undertakings, who has researched “a scary amount of knowledge about all things Hollywood” [according to a recent independent Viator user review], ushers travelers through decades of death, murder, and fun during this excursion. Prices for the Dearly Departed Tour start at $35.00. Scenes frequented by the famous and infamous are explored, as well as the "final scene" for many an actor including MAE WEST, Frank Sinatra, River Phoenix, Bela Lugosi, etc.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • to come • •
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Mae West.