Mae West: Zolya Talma

The last revival of "Diamond Lil" — — written by and starring MAE WEST — — staged at the Broadway Theatre [1681 Broadway, NYC] closed during the month of November in 1951.
• • One of the performers who portrayed Russian Rita was Zolya Talma. Born in California on 14 February 1895, the actress appeared numerous times on The Great White Way as well as on TV in two Alfred Hitchcock episodes; she also appeared in "The Rose Tattoo" and other major motion pictures during the 1950s. Zolya Talma died during November — — on 26 November 1983 — — in Los Angeles, California at the age of 88. Today we pay tribute to this Broadway mainstay.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Toronto

A new exhibition in Canada will feature artwork inspired by MAE WEST.
• • "The Surrealists were the sly, decadent, mocking enemies of everything in modern culture that encouraged simplicity," writes Robert Fulford — — unintentionally (perhaps) conjuring up the Empress of Sex who was a sly, mocking pooh-pooher of everything in American culture that encouraged old-fashioned simplicity for women.
• • Until the end of August 2009, Mae and artistic mayhem are on display at the show "Surreal Things" — — Art Gallery of Ontario [Musée des beaux-arts de l’Ontario], 317 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T 1G4. Toll free: 1-877-225-4246.
• • Fulford's article in Canada's National Post comes billboarded with a large, luscious photograph of the Mae West Lips Sofa. Here's a bite-size portion of his frisky essay.
• • Robert Fulford writes: It's a surprise to glimpse the worried faces of Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck flickering across a wall in the midst of an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario. But Surreal Things (to August 30) is a surprising show. It's an engrossing, revealing essay in what we can call Applied Surrealism, the process by which avant-garde European artists started out as revolutionaries and ended up as fashion designers, advertising artists, and all-purpose idea mongers.
• • An enemy of Surrealism could say that this far-ranging collection of outlandish objects proves that the Surrealists became handmaidens of consumerism by turning art into a comic turn. An admirer, on the other hand, could argue that they simply made themselves useful according to the standards of their (and our) time. Either way, they stretched their influence far beyond the Parisian art world where their ideas were first cobbled together.
• • In Spellbound — — Alfred Hitchcock's 1945 thriller — — Bergman and Peck play a psychiatrist and her amnesia-victim patient. Scenes from that film appear at the AGO because Hitchcock hired Salvador Dalí to design the Peck character's dreams. Dalí of course turned out Dalí-esque nightmares that Bergman decoded, saving her patient and solving a murder.
• • Dalí was the man for that job. He loved to blur the borders of art and show business and loved to play with Freud-inflected images. He emerges as the undoubted star of Surreal Things — — and deserves to, no matter what we think of his art. A large constituency has always restrained its enthusiasm for his painting. Even in his best days, each Dalí picture would begin as a sensation, develop into a curiosity, and then calcify into a bore.
• • His pictures are slick, superficial and forgettable — — less interesting by far than Max Ernst's paintings, less memorable than René Magritte's, less piquant than Man Ray's.
• • Even so, Dalí emerges as a titan in any account of how the Surrealists infiltrated the fashionable imagination. When artists rushed to the marketplace like 21st-century geeks auctioning their great ideas for computer games, Dalí led the pack. In the mid-1920s he was a newly-minted Spanish Surrealist, alive with what looked like inflammatory desires. By the mid-1930s, in New York, he was designing windows for Bonwit Teller, a high-end dress shop on Fifth Avenue. Using Surrealism as a marketing tool, he titled his first window, "She was a Surrealist Woman. She was like a Figure in a Dream."
• • Mae West's Lips • •
• • The most numerous and memorable of the things in Surreal Things are Dalí products, like the loveseat that reproduces Mae West's lips, the telephone with its receiver shaped like a lobster, and a brooch in the shape of a mouth with lips of ruby, teeth of pearls. Dalí illustrates the thesis of Ghislaine Wood, the curator who put the show together for the Victoria and Alberta Museum in London two years ago: The very themes of Surrealism lent themselves to commercialization. (The AGO gift shop gets right into the spirit by offering "Parfums Salvador Dalí.")
• • Ghislaine Wood took the show to Rotterdam and Bilbao with great success and presents it here in a somewhat altered version, with some 40 pieces from the AGO's own collection and several other North American museums, most notably the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Conn., which became, in the 1930s, the first North American museum to take Surrealism seriously.
• • "Surréalisme," coined by Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917 to describe his own writing, was later confiscated by André Breton for his plans to free humanity from the twin curses of capitalism and sexual repression. Ideally, Surrealism would create a culture of unfettered dreams. Humanity, granted this intellectual and spiritual liberation, would build a revolutionary society. . . .
• • Article continues at the National Post site — — and go see the Mae West Lips photo.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "You’ll want to dilly Dalí"
• • Byline: By Robert Fulford
• • Published in: Canada's National Post — — www.nationalpost.com
• • Published on: 11 May 2009
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Blush-worthy?

Here's another drive-by scattershot embrace of the latest book on MAE WEST — — the hardcover with that dreadfully Photoshopped dustjacket, a retouched image that makes Mae's lower lip look like something you bait a hook with.
• • Tsk tsk.
• • And it is also sad to realize that the brief interval when BookReporter.com had insightful scribblers keeping abreast of new titles is over. No longer a model of narrative rectitude, BookReporter.com has current standards calibrated to the average soap opera fan.
• • Check out Bronwyn Miller's column below. Blush-worthy, cringe-inducing, gullible, inept? We demur — — you decide.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • SHE ALWAYS KNEW HOW: Mae West — — A Personal Biography
• • • • Charlotte Chandler
• • • • Simon & Schuster [ISBN: 9781416579090]
• • As Mae West herself once proclaimed, “Some women know how to get what they want. Others don’t. I’ve always known how.” This epigram explains the title as well as the mindset of this very driven and singular woman. Charlotte Chandler, venerated biographer of Alfred Hitchcock, Groucho Marx and, most recently, Bette Davis, turns her keen eye to the life and career of one of the most iconic stars of Hollywood.
• • Born Mary Jane West in Brooklyn, New York, in 1893, she quickly found her calling, and it involved a stage, a spotlight and a receptive audience. Mae, who changed her name only slightly from the nickname of “May” for aesthetic reasons, was the first child of Matilda and Jack West. Jack was known throughout New York as “Battlin’ Jack,” a tough, no-nonsense neighborhood boxer who once laid a guy flat with one punch for merely looking at his young wife. Her parents wanted to give their talented daughter all they could and encouraged her to perform on the stage, which she did, with great success. She spent her formative years in variety shows, vaudeville tours and the burlesque circuit, literally growing up in front of her audience.
• • When she came of age, Mae decided that instead of fitting a rather voluptuous peg into a square hole, she would do far better if she wrote her own material. Thus, Mae West the playwright was born. Her first play, scandalously titled Sex, opened in 1926 and became something of a cause célèbre. Mae was convicted of obscenity and sentenced to 10 days in jail. She could have had her lawyer and soon-to-be lover persuade the powers-that-be to knock the sentence down to community service, but Mae felt it was more honorable to do her time — — and, of course, think of the publicity!
• • Years later, she commented, “They say censorship was my enemy, but I’m not so sure about that. Maybe censorship was my best friend. You can’t get famous for breaking the rules unless you’ve got some rules to break. Where would censorship have been without me? Like I always say, I made censorship necessary.” After that, there was no stopping her. Plays that tackled very tough, very modern issues continued until Hollywood came to call. There, as on Broadway, she called her own shots, never afraid to push the envelope.
• • Not only did her trademark sayings like “Come up and see me sometime” (which is actually a misquote from one of her early films) and that one-of-a-kind walk define her persona, Mae proved herself to be a rather acute arbiter of talent. She made sure that Cary Grant was cast alongside her in I’m No Angel, and she persuaded George Raft, a local tough she had known in New York, to come to Los Angeles to pursue acting, eventually becoming her leading man in Night After Night. She was always about the work and took it most seriously. If W.C. Fields turned up to the set of My Little Chickadee inebriated, West would promptly leave. “Sex and work have been the only two things in my life,” she once said, “… but if I ever had to choose between sex and my work, it was always my work I’d choose.”
• • But apart from the work and the men (amazingly, there were only a few really important men in her life), Chandler also divulges what a kind and generous woman Mae was — — always eager to sign an autograph (she kept extra photos in the car, just for this purpose), faithfully keeping up with her fan mail, answering most letters herself, and generously donating to local charities in need. Once, she donated her slightly used limousine to the local convent because she couldn’t bear “to see a nun waiting for the bus” and decided they need a little luxury, too.
• • Most of the stories in this book were culled from conversations Chandler had with Mae at her Ravenswood apartment in Hollywood the year before her death. Her recall is astounding, and her desire to protect her image is unmistakable: “I made up my mind very early that I would never love another person as much as I loved myself. Maybe that sounds selfish to you. It is. But I saw what a mess a lot of people could make of their lives when they are smitten. Some of them go temporarily insane. They find a person who they think holds the key to their happiness — — the only key to their happiness that exists. They don’t understand they’re the ones who give the other person that power. It’s like a fever. The person in that condition may ruin their own life, and the lives of others, as well.”
• • Both reader and author find it difficult to ascertain if Mae is all about protecting the image she carefully created over so many years, or if she really believes it. But with her trademark wit, she retorts, “Some people thought I ought to see a psychiatrist, but why spoil a good thing?”
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
— — Source: — —
• • “Review”
• • Written by: Bronwyn Miller
• • Published in: Bookreporter.com — — www.bookreporter.com
• • Published on: 20 March 2009
• • © Copyright 1996-2009, Bookreporter.com.
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• • N.B.: We put the copyright line there so no one will think WE wrote this drivel.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: The Observer

"Diamond Lil Still Sparkles," writes New York-based reviewer Sara Vilkomerson, referring to the latest biography of MAE WEST — — which she approaches most patiently, wearing velvet gloves and willing to overlook flaws.
• • • • She Always Knew How: Mae West — A Personal Biography
• • • • By Charlotte Chandler
• • • • Simon & Schuster, 317 pages
• • It’s hard to think of any of today’s shiny and carefully coddled stars who could hold their own when it comes to the utter cool that was Mae West. Seriously! Just try to imagine an Angelina or Scarlett or Reese trying to match the sultry vamp of the tiny and curvy blonde in films like I’m No Angel (1933), She Done Him Wrong (1933), and Go West Young Man (1936), let alone writing their own plays and scripts, and crafting quips like “When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better.” Madonna — who has most definitely studied the Mae West playbook — has pushed the boundaries (and then some) throughout her career, but she never spent 10 days [sic] in jail on obscenity charges (as Ms. West did in 1927, after she wrote, performed, directed [sic], and produced the very popular Broadway play Sex).
• • Mae West set out to rule her world in her own inimitable way, defining all of her own terms. As Charlotte Chandler writes in her new biography, She Always Knew How, “when Mae began her career, doors were opened for women. When she finished her career, doors were open to women.”
• • Charlotte Chandler has written biographies of iconic celebrities before: Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Alfred Hitchcock. In She Always Knew How, she relies mainly on a series of interviews conducted months before the actress’ death, in 1980. From the opening pages, when West shows Ms. Chandler her extensive diamond collection, and immediately offers a few vehement opinions on makeup, spring water and enemas for soft skin, the voice of Mae West jumps off the page, sassy, bossy and clever. In fact, there are moments in the book when one might be forgiven for feeling one’s simply reading some forgotten transcript hidden away for decades in a musty attic.
• • (Ms. Chandler never gets around to explaining why she’s chosen to publish her book now, 29 years after the interviews took place.)
• • Because so much of She Always Knew How is Mae West talking about her favorite subject — herself — it’s hard to know what’s true and what’s the carefully constructed myth West created. (Ms. Chandler did talk to actors and friends who knew the star, but the meat of the book is Mae West herself.) There’s no doubt that Mae West had a brilliant and shrewd mind when it came to branding her own image: There was her private self, which only an inner circle of confidantes were allowed to see, and then there was Mae West, in her form-fitting Edith Head creations and 6-inch platform shoes (the secret to her deliberate walk), purring about how a hard man is good to find.
• • “Do you know what question I’m asked the most? About the mirrors on my bedroom ceiling. I say, ‘I like to see how I’m doin’.’ It’s the truth. It’s very exciting. You should try it,” West tells Charlotte Chandler during one of their conversations. “And the next question I’m most often asked is, am I always the Mae West everybody knows, or am I different when I’m alone? The answer is when I’m alone, I’m the same Mae West. But you’ll have to take my word for it, ’cause when I’m alone there isn’t anyone else here.’”
• • Ms. Chandler wisely organizes the book chronologically, and it’s through Mae West’s voice that we hear about her childhood in Brooklyn; the early marriage she didn’t admit to for many years; her Hollywood ascent; and the love she shared with Paul Novak, her constant companion for 27 years, who took faithful care of her at the end of her life. Along the way we get Mae’s sometimes true and sometimes wild assertions (that she discovered Cary Grant, that she saved Paramount Pictures from bankruptcy).
• • And if Charlotte Chandler neglects to provide supporting facts (or proof to the contrary), who cares? She Always Knew How succeeds in making the reader feel privy to a private conversation — a chance to overhear a singular voice that makes us wish a Mae West were around today.
• • Sara Vilkomerson is a reporter at The New York Observer.
— — Source: — —
• • Book Review by Sara Vilkomerson
• • Published in The New York Observer — — www.observer.com
• • Published on: 13 February 2009
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Canadian Club

A San Francisco production promises to draw on musical sources that include MAE WEST, Maria Callas, Ethel Merman, and Judy Garland. The dynamic duo at the heart of "2boys.tv" have been applauded as "the darlings of the Montreal cult cabaret scene" — — which sounds like KiKi and Herb mixed with Canadian Club. Hic!
• • While we're getting our drinks mixed, let's lend an ear to what The Bay Area Reporter has to say about this West Coast concoction imported from the poor man's Riviera.
• • TV or not TV
• • That is the question, as New Conservatory Theatre Center launches its season with a most unusual offering from Canada. 2boys.tv, beginning its run on 6 August 2008, is also the name of the duo (Stephen Lawson and Aaron Pollard) who have been called "the darlings of the Montreal cult cabaret scene."
• • Using burlesque, drag, video projections, opera selections, show tunes, and old films, the pair will present two selections from its repertoire. In Puree, Lawson and Pollard look at the queer politics of marriage, religion, displacement, and liberation using musical sources that include MAE WEST, Maria Callas, Ethel Merman, and Judy Garland. Zona relates the story of an actress descending into madness using elements of Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, Bette Davis, and Katharine Hepburn.
• • This will be the San Francisco debut of 2boys.tv, billed as a special event (i.e., not part of the Pride subscription series), and it will continue through Aug. 31. Call 861-8972 or go to www.nctcsf.org.
— — Source: — —
• • Article: "Global outreach for work on gay liberty"
• • Byline: Richard Dodds
• • Published in: The Bay Area Reporter — — www.ebar.com/
• • Published on: 7 August 2008
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: 39 Steps on Broadway

Mae-mavens recall when MAE WEST is mentioned in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller "The 39 Steps" [1935].
• • On 4 January 2008, "The 39 Steps" debuts at the American Airlines Theatre [227 West 42nd Street, NYC 10036] in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production. A theatrical reinterpretation of Hitchcock's famous film will follow Richard Hannay, who is lured into a world of intrigue by a mysterious woman claiming to be a spy.
• • In honor of the Broadway opening this week — — described as part espionage thriller and part slapstick comedy — — here is the famous Mae West moment with "Mr. Memory."
• • How many remember the opening sequence of the 1935 thriller "THE 39 STEPS"? Actor Wylie Watson [1889-1966] played the role of Mr. Memory. When a rowdy customer stands up during the Music Hall scene in Alfred Hitchcock's film classic, and repeatedly yells, "How old's Mae West?" Mr. Memory politely refuses to reveal the lady's age.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Scene 1 went something like this: • •
• • • Barker: Ladies and gentlemen... with your kind attention and permission... I have the honor of presenting to you... one of the most remarkable men in the world.
• • • Crowd: How remarkable?
• • • Crowd: He's sweating.
• • • Barker: Can you be surprised at that, gentlemen? Every day he commits to memory new facts... and remembers every one of them. Facts from history, from geography, from newspapers... from scientific books, millions and millions of them. Think of the strain involved by his prodigious feat.
• • • Crowd: His feet ain't half as big as yours, cully.
• • • Barker: I'm referring to his feats of memory. Test him, please. Ladies and gentlemen, ask him your questions... and he will answer you, fully and freely. Mr. Memory. I also add, ladies and gentlemen, before retiring... that Mr. Memory has left his brain to the British Museum.
• • • Crowd: Hurray!
• • • Barker: A question, please.
• • • Crowd: How old is Mae West?
• • • Mr. Memory: I know, sir, but I never tell a lady's age. Next, please. ...
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: A Stamp Vamp

Help get MAE WEST commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp.
• • Here's a sample letter and here is where you should write:
• • To: Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee
• • c/o Stamp Development; U S Postal Service
• • 1735 North Lynn St [Rm 5013]; Arlington VA 22209-6432.
• • • • SAMPLE • • • •
• • Dear Chairman - Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee:
• • Please issue a US postal stamp commemorating MAE WEST, the former Broadway star and Hollywood icon who died in 1980.
• • Comedy and entertainment are hallmarks of the popular culture of the United States of America. The U.S. Postal Department has befittingly honored screen legends Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Lucille Ball, James Cagney, Alfred Hitchcock, and Humphrey Bogart by issuing commemorative stamps depicting these adults.
• • However, none of these individuals wrote their own plays. MAE WEST wrote "Diamond Lil" and many other plays that were staged on Broadway.
• • None of these individuals wrote their own movie dialogue. MAE WEST wrote all of her own dialogue for most of the nine films she appeared in.
• • None of these individuals can match MAE WEST when it comes to numerous original quotes. Her witty sayings are often quoted in books and newspaper articles to this day.
• • Please approve the issuance of a US postal stamp commemorating a legendary American talent MAE WEST (1893 - 1980).
• • Source of this letter: The Mae West Blog http://MaeWest.blogspot.com
• • • • The Stamp Selection Process • • • •
• • Ideas for stamp subjects that meet CSAC criteria may be addressed to the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee; Stamp Development; US Postal Service; 1735 North Lynn St Rm 5013; Arlington VA 22209-6432.
• • The Committee only reads hard-copy letters. No faxes or emails.
• • Subjects should be submitted at least three years in advance of the proposed date of issue to allow sufficient time for consideration and for design and production, if the subject is approved.
• • Submit stamp proposals in writing to the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee. This allows everyone the same opportunity to suggest a new stamp subject. All proposals are reviewed by the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee regardless of how they are submitted, i.e., stamped cards, letters or petitions.
• • After a proposal is determined not to violate criteria set by CSAC, research is done on the proposed stamp subject. Each new proposed subject is listed on the CSAC's agenda for its next meeting. The CSAC considers all new proposals and takes one of two actions: it may reject the new proposal or it may set it aside for consideration for future issuance. If set aside for consideration, the subject remains "under consideration" in a file maintained for the Committee.
• • An "I Love Lucy" stamp appeared in the Postal Service's "Celebrate the Century" series. A new Lucille Ball stamp [released in 2001] is the seventh in a "Legends of Hollywood" series. Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Cagney, Alfred Hitchcock, and Humphrey Bogart are among other Hollywood icons who have been featured.
• • Actor Karl Malden is a long-time member of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee, which helps choose stamp subjects and designs.
• • who • • why • • what • •
• • As of March 2001, these are the Committee's Stamp Subject Selection Criteria:
• • It is a general policy that U.S. postage stamps and stationery primarily will feature American or American-related subjects.
• • No living person shall be honored by portrayal on U.S. postage.
• • Commemorative stamps or postal stationery items honoring individuals usually will be issued on or in conjunction with significant anniversaries of their birth, but no postal item will be issued sooner than ten years after the individual's death. The only exception to the ten-year rule is the issuance of stamps honoring deceased U.S. presidents. They may be honored with a memorial stamp on the first birth anniversary following death.
• • Events of historical significance shall be considered for commemoration only on anniversaries in multiples of 50 years.
• • No stamp shall be considered for issuance if one treating the same subject has been issued in the past 50 years. The only exceptions to this rule are traditional themes such as national symbols and holidays.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West’s beauty tip

Charlotte Chandler: Tinsel Town's other blonde
• • The Californian-born author of several bestsellers about Hollywood, Charlotte Chandler won the show business scoop of last century when she interviewed Mae West before the iconic movie star died. "I never see women interviewers," West snarled. Nevertheless, the blonde bombshell spent six hours primping and preening for their first meeting. Charlotte Chandler was invited to stroke West’s porcelain complexion. "I did so very nervously," she recalls.
• • Mae West’s beauty tip? "Warm baby oil - - applied daily by a man."
• • Mae West told her the secret of perfect skin. Federico Fellini cooked pots of pasta for her and Tony Curtis revealed all about his affair with Marilyn Monroe. Name any Hollywood star and the likelihood is that Charlotte Chandler will have interviewed them - - from the siren of the silent screen, Gloria Swanson, to Pierce Brosnan.
• • Mae West stared in disbelief at the unmarried Chandler’s ringless fingers. "You have no diamonds!" she exclaimed. "You must find a man to buy you some." But later she confided to Chandler that she had bought her own king’s ransom of jewels herself.
• • As the New York-based author listened to the tape - - the interview was chosen for the Penguin anthology of Great Interviews of the Twentieth Century - - she was puzzled by a soft susurration in the background. "It was as if a butterfly was beating its wings, then I realised that it was the sound of Mae’s false eyelashes flapping," says Chandler, whose latest book, Nobody’s Perfect, is a personal biography of the great director Billy Wilder.
• • Chandler is adept at getting big-name interviews, although in the case of Mae West blonde undoubtedly responded unto blonde. For Chandler also has a luxuriant mane of pale golden hair, untouched by peroxide. Photographs of her - - whether she is lunching with Fellini, about whom she wrote an international bestseller, or sharing a joke with Wilder - - always feature her smiling glamorously beneath her crowning glory. Indeed, Groucho Marx used to say of her fabulous follicles: "You’ve got your own beret."
• • She jests that her fine head of hair helped her to persuade stars such as Gloria Swanson, Barbara Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers, Kirk Douglas, James Stewart, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis (who admitted that he had slept with Marilyn Monroe before she was famous) to be interviewed for the Wilder book. ("Superb name-dropping!" exclaims Chandler.) I suspect it has much more to do with her undoubted skills as an interviewer and writer.
• • Mae West, Henry Fonda, Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis, and Tennessee Williams stalked freely to her for her second book, The Ultimate Seduction, about people who are seduced by their creative work.
• • Dressed in a smart navy-blue trouser suit, Chandler is a well-preserved woman of uncertain age - - she politely refuses to tell how old she is. She has a gracious manner and wears her famous hair piled on top of her head. . . .
• • Come up and see Mae online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West