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MAE WEST worked with numerous native Californian actors. Wade Boteler was cast as the ranch foreman in the motion picture "Goin' to Town" [1935].
• • Born in Santa Ana, California in early October, Wade Boteler [3 October 1888 — 7 May 1943] was a busy bit parts player who appeared in over 440 films between 1919 — 1943. The stern looking six-footer was often hired for detective, police inspector, and authority roles. Employed right up to the end, he died in Hollywood from a heart attack at the age of 54.
• • In October, Let's Remember Dorothy Peterson • •
• • Born in Minnesota on 25 December 1897, the pretty brunette became a stage actress. In 1930, she made her screen debut in "Mothers Cry," a weepy domestic melodrama that required the 29-year-old actress to age nearly three decades in the course of the film. Unfortunately, "Mothers Cry" instantly typecast Dorothy Peterson in the careworn maternal roles.
• • Dorothy Peterson played Thelma in the Mae West hit "I'm No Angel" [1933]. In one scene, Tira points to the photos of various suitors who gave her jewelry, then offers Thelma a necklace to cheer her up. Though her last screen appearance was as Shirley Temple's mother in "That Hagen Girl" [1947], Dorothy Peterson did remain active on the New York theatrical scene and on TV until the early 1960s.
• • She died in New York City in the month of October — — on 3 October 1979.
• • On 3 October 1925 • • 
• • Happy Birthday to the author of the novel "Myra Breckinridge," Gore Vidal, who was born in West Point, New York on 3 October 1925. He is 86 years old today.
• • Starting on 3 October 2005 • •
• • The National Film Theatre in London, England held a complete retrospective of the films of Mae West from 3 October 2005 — on.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: “Love isn't an emotion or an instinct — — it's an art."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An item about a ridiculous SNL skit is based on Mae West. Can TV comedy get any lamer than this?
• • Gossip Cop writes: Melissa McCarthy plays Lulu Diamonds in a parody of 1930s tough-talking blonde bombshells like Mae West. In the sketch, on TCM’s “The Essentials with Robert Osborne,” audiences are introduced to snippets from some of her films, where three suitors repeatedly try to woo her. But every time after she utters her character’s catchphrase, ”What don’t you come upstairs, and see me up there sometime,” Lulu Diamonds (McCarthy) takes a nasty tumble down an elegant stairwell. . . .
• • Source: Article: "Melissa McCarthy Falls Down Stairs For Laughs as ‘Lulu Diamonds’ on “SNL” written by Gossip Cop; posted on 2 October 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2072nd 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 • • 1970 • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST worked with Raquel Welch in the oddball motion picture "Myra Breckinridge" [released in the USA on 24 June 1970].
• • 71 Birthday Candles Lit for Raquel Welch • •
• • Happy Birthday to Raquel Welch, whose silver screen aspirations were not furthered by "Myra Breckinridge" [1970]. Born on 5 September 1940, the former model is 71 years old today. When they co-starred together, Mae West was 77 years old. 
Yes, Raquel, give your long-fading Hollywood karma some thought, honey. Welch's fans may have been hoping that the pathetic TV series "Welcome to the Captain" would revive her lackluster career — — but this sit-com was canceled after merely five episodes in 2008. Raquel Welch was seen very briefly in "Legally Blonde" [2001]. Did anyone even notice?
• • Heavy-set comedienne Kathleen Freeman portrayed Bobby Dean Loner in the screen version of Gore Vidal's bestseller. Kathleen Freeman often chuckled about working with every "tough bitch" in the film industry. After this motion picture had been released in 1970, she often recalled the clash between the film's two leading ladies: "Mae West was not an actress; she was not a star; she was the most incredible phenomenon I ever encountered. Place that against the starlet Raquel Welch, who had an enormous ego, and boom — — there were fireworks. And I made darn sure that I wasn't caught up in the cross-fire."
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West wrote this for Leticia Van Allen: "Don't forget to remind me about the policeman's balls — — I mean police show!"
• • Quote, Unquote • • 
• • Looking after Mae's interests, veteran wardrobe director Edith Head (who had dressed Mae before at Paramount Pictures) cleverly suggested that her longtime friend should add a significant costume clause to her contract.
• • In The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years written by David Shipman (1970), the author writes of the far-flung feud between Mae West and Raquel Welch which started on the set of "Myra Breckenridge": Raquel Welch had the title role, but Mae West had top billing. Apparently Miss Welch was no more pleased about this than about the clause in Miss West’s contract which gave her the exclusive right to wear black or white. Indeed there seems to have been dissension on all sides. ...
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • In an interview with actress-director Vera Farmiga, Mae West's name was mentioned.
• • Beantown film columnist Wesley Morris writes: When the subject turns to masculinity in the American movies and how there’s a lot less of it now than there used to be, Farmiga cites the 1930s as a good time for the males of the species. “Those were men, not boys. Men. They had gravitas,’’ curling each syllable of that last word with Mae West-caliber lasciviousness. ...
• • Source: Article: "Vera Farmiga reaches for ‘Higher Ground’ in directing debut" written by Wesley Morris, Boston Globe Staff; posted on 4 September 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2044th 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 • • 1970 • •
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Mae West.
Hedda Hopper asked MAE WEST how she came to know so much about men. "Baby," Mae West replied, "I went to night school!"
• • Hedda Hopper once said: "At one time I thought he wanted to be an actor. He had certain qualifications — — including no money and a total lack of responsibility." Presumably, she was not referring to her Broadway star husband nor to her son Billy, who played a judge in "Myra Breckinridge," which starred Mae West.
• • Born in New York City, William DeWolf Hopper, Jr. [26 January 1915 — 6 March 1970] became an actor. William was the only child of singer and stage actor DeWolf Hopper [1858 — 1935] and actress turned gossip columnist Hedda Hopper [1885 — 1966). In 1924, his 39-year-old mother divorced his 66-year-old father; eventually, she and Billy moved to Hollywood. Hopper appeared in numerous films, mostly uncredited or under the name DeWolf Hopper. The handsome performer is best-remembered, however, for playing Paul Drake on television's "Perry Mason" [1957 — 1966], and then he briefly retired after the series was canceled in 1966. In his final movie appearance he was cast as a judge, Frederic D. Cannon, in Gore Vidal's "Myra Breckinridge" [1970] starring Mae West, Raquel Welch, John Huston, Farrah Fawcett, Rex Reed, and others.
• • Hopper was hospitalized on 14 February 1970, after a stroke at his home in Yucca Valley, and was transferred to a hospital in Palm Springs when pneumonia developed. The pneumonia proved fatal. Hopper was fifty-five at the time of his death in the month of March — — on 6 March 1970. "Myra Breckinridge" was released on 24 June 1970.
• • Come up sometime . . . • • 
• • Australian artist Marie Jonsson-Harrison explains: My painting “Come up and see me sometime” was inspired by one of Mae West's sayings (which I heard growing up). This artwork can also be found on the E-card page of my website (free of course), so why don’t you send it to someone you fancy! Visit Mae and Marie here: www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • by artist Marie Jonsson-Harrison • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST starred in (but could not save) the movie "Myra Breckenridge" [1970]. Before signing on to direct, did the shaggy haired Brit Michael Sarne read Gore Vidal's satiric novel? Perhaps he had many a chance to ponder this sentence: “All men have a lot to learn… I’ve taken it upon myself to teach you.” — Myra Breckenridge.
• • Michael Sarne's debut film had been the quirky "Joanna" (1968) with 20-year-old newcomer Genevieve Waite in the title role. He roped the pretty fashion model into a modest appearance as a dental patient in "Myra" two years hence. Her very short-lived cinema career ended with her third motion picture "Move" [filmed in 1970] — — released on her 23rd birthday on 19 February 1971.
• • Born in Cape Town, South Africa in the month of February — — on 19 February 1948 — — Geneviève Waïte went on to be the bride of the American singer-songwriter John Phillips [31 January 1972 — 1985]. The couple split after having two children with amusing names, one of whom is Bijou Phillips, born in 1980.
• • An Evening with Mae West in Glasgow • • 
• • Trained in role-play, veteran actress Pene Herman-Smith creates this fascinating and complex character in the one-woman show Mae West, written by Ayshe Raif, directed by Leslie Finlay. Once the most famous sex symbol on the planet, Mae West is now alone in her hotel room — — having turned down Sunset Boulevard and watched it win Oscar glory for its star — — Mae is lost. What next? Even at 60, Mae sees “No point in a good body going to waste!" Come along to Oran Mor for a great night out and you'll also be helping support the RNLI. [Òran Mór — — meaning the 'great melody of life' or 'big song' — — is a cultural centre and meeting place in the heart of Glasgow's West End.] Pene Herman-Smith is a professional actress with her own theatre company.
• • WHAT: "An Evening with Mae West"• • WHERE: Òran Mór — Top of Byres Road in Glasgow G12 8QX Scotland
• • WHEN: February 22nd and 23rd, 2011
• • Tell them you heard about it on the Mae West Blog.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 2011 • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST worked with one actor who was nicknamed "the butt of the century" by the legendary Los Angeles Times Hollywood columnist Joyce Haber.
• • Born in Baxter, Tennesse in the month of September — — on 27 September 1945 — — Roger Herren was a handsome young hopeful of brief acclaim during the late 1960s. Gifted with southern charm, a muscular physique, and a handsome face, Herren appeared to be poised for stardom, however, he is known to have had only one credited film role and one credited stage role.
• • What curse befell the six-foot, 185-pound 25-year-old in 1970? Herren saw his career peak and fizzle with his co-starring performance as Rusty Godowsky in the 1970 cinema version of Gore Vidal's 1968 bestseller "Myra Breckinridge" (1970). The controversial film featured the newcomers Farrah Fawcett, who played Herren's girlfriend, and Tom Selleck, in a small but unforgettable role opposite the inimitable Mae West. Tom Selleck actually lost the larger role to Roger Herren.
• • 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 on the mind of Cinema Q, who remembered that one of her motion pictures was released exactly forty years ago on 24 June 1970. "Myra Breckinridge" will be screened on the final night of the yearly Cinema Q Film Festival — — on Sunday, 27 June 2010 — — at 7:00 PM.
• • Mae was disappointed that the filmmakers did not use more of the material she had written for her own scenes.
• • Novelist Gore Vidal was appalled at how his bestseller looked after its turn in Hollywood's spin cycle.
• • Raquel Welch's career seemed to have declined shortly afterward.
• • Has "Myra Breckinridge" [run time: 94 minutes] improved with age? Let us know what you think.
• • WHERE: Starz FilmCenter, 900 Auraria Parkway, Denver, CO 80204.
• • Tell them you heard about it on the MAE WEST BLOG.• • 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.
Farrah Fawcett had a minor role in a motion picture with MAE WEST. The fresh-faced Wella Balsam shampoo model was cast as Mary Ann Pringle in "Myra Breckinridge," released in the USA on 24 June 1970 by 20th Century Fox, a cinematic curiosity inspired by a Gore Vidal novel. 
• • Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, Farrah Fawcett [2 February 1947— 25 June 2009] attended the University of Texas at Austin, attracting attention for her beauty and bountiful mane. Then her real education began — — cratered within the heartbreak and hope of Hollywood aspirations.
• • Her big break arrived in 1976 when the 29-year-old actress first appeared as private investigator Jill Munroe in the TV series "Charlie's Angels," quickly capering to international icon status, out-pacing her brunette cast-mates Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith. Dazzled and impressed by creating an overnight sensation, the actress hop-scotched away from Aaron Spelling's jiggle-wiggle series after one season [1976-77] to pursue a movie career, but her fame never again reached the same heights.
• • In 1978, she made her first of several big-screen flops — — "Somebody Killed Her Husband" (often referred to as "Somebody Killed Her Career").
• • Eventually becoming a nominee for laurels such as an Emmy and the Golden Globe, Farrah Fawcett was often seen portraying victims in highly rated television one-offs such as "The Burning Bed," and cast as more complex females in historical melodramas, i.e., "Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story," "Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story," and a bio-pic on Margaret Bourke-White. Her hairstyle, toothy smile, and bestselling swimsuit poster made her a worldwide sex symbol during the 1970s.
• • Losing her battle with anal cancer, Farrah Fawcett, 62, died Thursday morning at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California. Ryan O'Neal, the longtime companion who returned to her side when she became ill, was with her.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Farrah with Raquel in 1970 • •
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Mae West.
There's never been another movie like MAE WEST's "Myra Breckinridge."
• • But, writes Susan Dunne, that kind of legacy is what camp classics are made of.
• • Susan Dunne adds: Rex Reed, the film critic, stars as Myron Breckinridge, who wants a sex change. He gets one courtesy of a whacked-out doctor, and becomes Myra (Raquel Welch). Myra heads to Hollywood, to go into the biz, to claim an inheritance from her uncle (John Huston), and to teach university classes. Her uncle's friend is a horny seventy-something talent scout, played by Mae West. ("I can't wait till I get back to bed. If that don't work, I'll try to sleep.")
• • Others in the cast are Andy Devine, Farrah Fawcett, and Jim Backus.
• • Michael Sarne's film was based on a novel by Gore Vidal, who washed his hands of the entire thing. It's full of cringe-inducing dialogue and generally smarmy atmosphere. In short, a perfect movie to watch while you're having a few drinks.
• • The 1970 film is 94 minutes and is rated R. It will be shown Sunday [18 May 2008] at 11 a.m. at Criterion Cinemas in New Haven.
• • Criterion Cinemas: 86 Temple St. (at George St.), New Haven, CT 06510. Showtimes: (203) 498-2500.
— — Source: — —
• • Camp Classic "Myra Breckinridge" Good For Laughs
• • Written by: Susan Dunne
• • Published in: Courant.com — — www.courant.com
• • Published on: 15 May 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1970 • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST was the central concern when Time Out New York interviewed her 1970 co-star Raquel Welch recently.
• • Melissa Anderson writes: When Myra Breckinridge, Michael Sarne’s X-rated adaptation of Gore Vidal’s novel was released in 1970, it was greeted with unanimous raspberries: One critic called it “about as funny as a child molester.” Viewers can decide for themselves, but one thing is certain — — the film had a particularly inspired cast, including Mae West, Rex Reed, John Huston and, in the title role, Raquel Welch. The chatty and charming Welch, 67, spoke with TONY from her home in Los Angeles about working on one of the most notorious films of the last 40 years.
• • TONY: What was it like working with Mae West?
• • Raquel: I found her surreal. Here was this star from the ’30s who had this unbelievably different way of doing things. Now she’s doing this movie in 1969—1970, and she’s never made a color movie before in her life.
• • I wouldn’t want to undertake that at 77. I thought, She’s got a lot of chutzpah and she’s completely bonkers. Mae was one of those people I always felt had a distinctly masculine vibration about her.
• • I have often ventured the opinion that she was a man in drag. [Laughs]
• • Source: Time Out New York
• • Author: Melissa Anderson
• • Issue 649: March 6-12, 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Michael Childers • • 1969 • •
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Mae West.
MAE WEST returns to the East Village — — March 7th-9th, 2008 — — and even though "Myra Breckinridge" is not her most deliciously whipped screen-puff, every local critic covered the announcement that the Brooklyn bombshell is back. 
• • Nicolas Rapold, the "h" missing Arts & Letters columnist for The New York Sun, said it best. Rapold explained: Joining Ms. Welch, who might have known better after appearing in Southern's "The Magic Christian," was 1930s vaudeville-born sexpot performer-gag writer Mae West. Here, age 76, she's looking for man-flesh as a casting agent with admirable, unstinting innuendo. . . .
• • But all this leaves the best for last, as Mae West might say, though she'd make it sound dirty, added Rapold. As queen of the casting couch Leticia Van Allen, West leers at rows of aspirant young bucks (including a green Tom Selleck) and savors lines she might have liked to deliver onscreen decades earlier. Costumed specially by Edith Head and encased in makeup or some species of preservative that renders her face a peaked waxen death mask, West presides over her own musical numbers, including a funk ditty. In her way, she's one of the more inspiring bits of taboo-taunting here (— — and it wasn't even her last bow: See 1978's "Sextette" opposite Timothy Dalton). Still, as a critic once wrote of Preminger's "Skidoo," this all inevitably sounds more interesting than it plays.
• • "Myra Breckinridge" — — Through 9 March 2008 [32 Second Avenue, between 1st and 2nd Streets (anthologyfilmarchives.org); 212-505-5181].
• • Source:
• • "Vidal's Not-So-Tender Gender Bender"
• • Byline: Nicolas Rapold
• • The New York Sun
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1970 • •
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Mae West.
Crack open a book on wit and you'll find MAE WEST doing her best work on the sheets.
• • The indefatigable James Geary has cobbled together a new collection: "Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists" [London: Bloomsbury, 2007]. And there's a third edition out of "Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations" [NY: Oxford University Press] edited by the late Ned Sherrin and reissued in paperback.
• • Book-belle Katherine A. Powers discussed these entertaining collections [and their usefulness as holiday gifts] in the Boston Globe.
• • Speaking of Sherrin's edition, Powers said: The book contains over 5,000 humorous aperçus, maxims, aphorisms, epigrams, snippets of repartee, blunders, and oddities arranged by topic with an index of contributors and key words. The contents include the words of lesser people as well as the great comic geniuses, among them my heroes G. K. Chesterton, Mark Twain, H. L. Mencken, W. S. Gilbert, S. J. Perelman, P. G. Wodehouse, Saki, MAE WEST, Evelyn Waugh, Gore Vidal, Tom Stoppard, Alan Bennett, and the two heaviest-hitting contributors of all, Oscar Wilde and that old wag, Anonymous.
• • Not all the entries were hammered out on a hot funny bone; some are inadvertent gems. Politicians are particularly gifted in this area: Donald Rumsfeld's parsing of knowns and unknowns is here, as is onetime Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's "I am not denying anything I did not say." Margaret Thatcher is, as in so many other areas, a mistress of the form ("We have become a grandmother"), although she has nothing on our president, who has had whole books devoted to his utterances. Strangely, however, he has only three entries in these pages, another instance of his being, in his own parlance, misunderestimated.
• • Indeed, if the book has a fault — — aside from some things striking me as not funny at all — — it is the preponderance of British entries over American ones, especially in the selections that have been drawn from the press, radio, and TV. This is the result of the editor's having been British. ...
— — excerpt — —
• • "The spirit of wit, distilled"
• • By Katherine A. Powers
• • Published in The Boston Globe
• • Published on: 16 December 2007
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
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Mae West.
