Mae West: Cliff Shirpser

Cliff Shirpser was a camera assistant for "She Done Him Wrong" starring MAE WEST.
• • Born in San Francisco on 4 August 1906, he began his Tinseltown career during the silent era with the classic "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" [1921] when he was 15 years old. Always plying his trade within the confines of the studio's Camera and Electrical Department, Cliff Shirpser was attached to a diverse number of motion pictures including several Marx Brothers classics, "Destry Rides Again," and "Gone with the Wind." Eventually, he switched to children's series on TV. For six decades, from 1921 — 1981, he was behind the camera on 188 projects. He also distinguished himself as a producer.
• • Cliff Shirpser died in Los Angeles in December — — on 18 December 1977. He was 71.
• • Internet-Only Auction • •
• • An Internet-only auction, featuring rare autographed photos of Mae West in 1933, etc., will end on Tuesday, 20 December 2011 at 5 o'clock in the evening (Pacific).
• • Contact: Nate D. Sanders Auctions at 11901 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025 to see the list and view all the lot numbers.
• • In December, Let's Remember Legs Diamond [1929 — 2009] • •
• • The blue-eyed writer-actress was already comfortable with convicts, jailbirds, con artists, pistol-packing bodyguards, and killers when she moved into shoot-out central, the mob-controlled hotel on West 54th Street where she worked on her play "Diamond Lil" in 1927. The storyline was incited by the actions of angry inmate Chick Clark and his plot to escape and confront the dame who done him wrong, Diamond Lil.
• • Persistent efforts to kill a dapper neighbor nicknamed Legs Diamond were afoot when Mae West and George Raft were in residence, a few floors above Texas Guinan's speakeasy in the cellar.
• • Born in Philadelphia on 10 July 1897 to two Irish immigrants, Jack Nolan became known on the street as Legs Diamond and sometimes as Gentleman Jack. The handsome risk-taker rose to fame on the East Coast during the Prohibition era. A close associate of gambler Arnold Rothstein and a bootlegger, the flamboyant criminal survived a number of attempts on his life between 1916 and 1931, causing him to be known as the "clay pigeon of the underworld."
• • In 1930, after several unsuccessful attempts to rub him out in his rooms on West 54th Street went awry, Diamond's nemesis Dutch Schultz remarked to his own gang, "Ain't there nobody that can shoot this guy so he don't bounce back?" It's interesting that when the police contacted his wife at home in Albany to inform her that her husband had been shot several times and wounded, Alice's first words were, "It wasn't me."
• • In the month of December — — on 18 December 1931 — — 34-year-old "Legs" Diamond was finished off when he was laying low on Dove Street in his Albany, NY hideout after a night party. Alice Diamond, his long suffering wife, was murdered two years after Legs was buried. It's been suspected that the local police did him in.
• • On 18 December 1937 • •
• • "Every Day's a Holiday," a Gay Nineties motion picture comedy film starring and co-written by Mae West, was released in the USA in December — — on 18 December 1937.
• • On 18 December 1993, Auction in NYC • •
• • Christie's held a "Collectibles & Hollywood Entertainment" sale in New York City on 18 December 1993.
• • Among the rare star-dusted keepsakes was this curiosity: "Lot Description: A Letter to Groucho Marx from Mae West." The catalogue notes that this was an original letter on Mae West's stationary signed in black ink to Mr. Marx. Dated 29 September 1971 it states in part ... "I've always been crazy about your crazy comedy. I remember how I howled watching your rushes in the projection room at Paramount, when I was there too, waiting to watch my own. ... I have to tell you you're the greatest of all the funny men ... whenever you're in L.A. come up and see me." Price realized was $2,530.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: ”Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A book review of a bio on Oscar Levant mentioned Mae West.
• • Alexander Milne wrote: Oscar Levant’s post-movie career as a TV chat show host came to a grinding halt in 1960, when TV executives got tired of apologising to Eisenhower-era corporate sponsors for their star’s risque quips about then-unspeakable topics such as Mae West’s sex life. In retrospect, it is amazing that he survived on air so long in that censorious and puritanical climate. He had even managed to keep his job after making the following remark about Marilyn Monroe’s conversion to Judaism: “Now that Marilyn Monroe is kosher, Arthur Miller can eat her.” ...
• • It is ironic that he was canned for joking about Mae West’s bedroom behaviour; after all, she made a whole career out of self-penned jokes and double entendres about her sex life . ...
• • Source: Review: “The Memoirs of an Amnesiac” by Oscar Levant (1906 — 1972) written by Alexander Milne, a freelance features writer based in South-East England; posted 12 July 2009
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2149th 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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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • filming in 1932 • •
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Mae West: Shoot-Out Central

When MAE WEST was writing her autobiography, she did not reveal much about her parents' carefully cultivated underworld connections.
• • In truth, both Matilda and Jack West had on-gong dealings with gangsters, fixers, con men, murderers, bootleggers, thugs, and ward heelers — — shady associates who could also be helpful in furthering "Baby Mae's" vaudeville career. In 1907, when Hal Clarendon accepted Mae into his Brooklyn stock company [incorporated by 15 April 1907 when Mae was 13 years old], it was because he "respected Mae's connections" to a handsome mobster who would be brutally gunned down by a crime boss five years later on West 43rd Street (just east of Broadway).
• • Did Mae West's recollections surf the names of racketeers and other rough spots when she and friends were taking tea on North Rossmore? Did the actress reveal how much of her Bowery drama "Diamond Lil" [filmed as "She Done Him Wrong"] was inspired by the jailbirds and career criminals her Dad clubbed around with?
• • The blue-eyed writer-actress was already comfortable with convicts when she moved into shoot-out central, the mob-controlled hotel on West 54th Street where she wrote the play in 1927. Persistent efforts to kill Legs Diamond were afoot when Mae was in residence, a few floors above Texas Guinan's speakeasy in the cellar.
• • On August 16th you can walk in the footsteps of two of the 1920s "gaudy gals" — — Texas Guinan and Mae West — — and win special prizes. Discover the shady secrets as well as the glamourous highlights shared by two energetic risk-takers who partied with gin, guns, gangsters, and sinners when they weren't busy onstage.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West's pal Texas Guinan • • December 1928 • •
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Mae West: Mink-Gloved

As the long-term film critic of The Los Angeles Times, Kevin Thomas had ample opportunities to chat with MAE WEST and come up and see her. Only Kevin knows how much the screen legend revealed about her parents' carefully cultivated underworld connections.
• • Both Matilda and Jack West had on-gong dealings with gangsters, fixers, con men, murderers, bootleggers, thugs, and ward heelers — — shady associates who could also be helpful in furthering "Baby Mae's" vaudeville career. In 1907, when Hal Clarendon accepted Mae into his Brooklyn stock company [incorporated by 15 April 1907 when Mae was 13 years old], it was because he "respected Mae's connections" to a handsome mobster who was gunned down by a crime boss five years later.
• • Did Mae West's recollections roam over the names of racketeers and other rough spots when she and Kevin Thomas were taking tea on North Rossmore? Did the actress reveal how much of her Bowery drama "Diamond Lil" [filmed as "She Done Him Wrong"] was inspired by the jailbirds and career criminals her Dad clubbed around with? The blue-eyed writer-actress was already comfortable with convicts when she moved into shoot-out central, the mob-controlled hotel on West 54th Street where she wrote the play in 1927. But let's move on.
• • On Monday evening, 23 February 2009, both Kevin Thomas and Charlotte Chandler were panelists at UCLA, and now his mink-gloved summation of her biography has been printed. His gentle-handed and sufficiently tactful assessment appears below.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Kevin Thomas writes: Charlotte Chandler's gift at getting legendary show business figures to open up about themselves is unique. For "She Always Knew How," Chandler not only got the last major interview with Mae West — — not long before her death in 1980 at 87 — — but also what is almost certainly the most extensive interview West ever gave.
• • It's not that "She Always Knew How" is full of surprises, but that its depth and breadth brings West to life as thoughtful, caring, and reflective, a woman of resilient character, self-knowledge and shrewdness in regard to human nature and in sustaining a career over eight decades.
• • As is well known, West had an extraordinarily close and loving relationship with her Bavarian-born mother Matilda, whose parents forbade her to go on the stage. As a result, she encouraged her daughter. Here, West talks at length about her mother's unstinting confidence in her; Matilda saw her daughter triumph on Broadway with the iconic "Diamond Lil" in 1928, but she died [in January 1930] before West went on to conquer Hollywood.
• • West is candid about how her mother's focus on her exacted a price on both her younger sister, Beverly, who also had theatrical dreams, and, to a lesser extent, on her younger brother, John. Born in 1893, West began performing in lodge halls in her native Brooklyn at the age of 5 and in time became the key support for her entire family, which she remained for the rest of her life.
• • She made no bones about being less close to her father John West, who acquired some renown as the prizefighter Battlin' Jack. Yet in talking to Chandler, West discovers that she had more feelings for him than she realized, crediting him for being a loving and attentive father. Surely, it's significant that West was always attracted to rugged men like her father — — especially boxers and wrestlers. She emphasizes the comfort in which she and her siblings were raised; apparently, Matilda got some financial assistance from relatives because John West was no great shakes as a breadwinner.
• • • • Underworld Contacts • • • •
• • Chandler leaves it to other biographers to reveal that Matilda ultimately ran a roadhouse; she's more interested in West's sense of self. But there's no question that the underworld contacts Matilda developed would prove crucial to her daughter's success.
• • To friends, West could be very open about her relationship with the notorious gangster Owney Madden, a key backer in her original "Diamond Lil" production. Through him, she came to know George Raft — — then one of Madden's drivers — — and Raft was instrumental in getting Paramount to bring her to Hollywood to appear in his picture "Night After Night" (1932).
• • West has often been credited with saving Paramount in the depths of the Depression with her pre-Production Code classics "She Done Him Wrong" and "I'm No Angel," which, in turn, made Cary Grant, her leading man in both films, a major star. By 1935, she had become the highest-salaried woman in the nation.
• • The enforcement of the code in 1934 gradually undermined her screen career, but West soldiered on, returning to Broadway in 1944 with the play "Catherine Was Great." [She also revived "Diamond Lil" on Broadway in 1949.] In the 1950s, she conquered the nightclub circuit performing with a chorus line of bodybuilders, wrote her memoirs and never really retired.
• • West often spoke positively about Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley but never in such detail as she does to Chandler. These remarks are among the most poignant in the book. She recognized that both Monroe and Presley were sex personalities — — she adroitly called herself "a sex personality" rather than a sex symbol — — and she lamented that they allowed others to have power over their lives and careers. Early on, she sought Presley out to give him encouragement, but came to believe that he was too insecure to enjoy his success. She could have costarred with him in the circus picture "Roustabout" but was amazed and disappointed that he didn't have the power to guarantee that she could write her part for herself.
• • West was always her own creation, writing or adapting all her own material. "From the time I was a little girl I loved every minute of the success," she says here, "and it felt more wonderful than I could have imagined."
• • Kevin Thomas reviews movies for The L.A. Times.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
— — Source: — —
• • Book Review: 'She Always Knew How' by Charlotte Chandler
A thoughtful biography of Mae West that benefits from a detailed interview the author had with West not long before she died.
• • Byline: By Kevin Thomas [longtime film critic for The Times]
• • Published in: The Los Angeles Times — — www.latimes.com
• • Published on: 16 April 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Mae-mavens will recall what happened on 18 April 1969 — — Mae and one of her black monkeys appeared on the cover of Life Magazine, an arresting bedroom image for sure.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: "Killer" Madden

MAE WEST had a talent for hooking up with the right gangsters.
• • "So sweet and so vicious," was Mae's character rating for Owney "The Killer" Madden, who died during the month of April.
• • Mae West acknowledged meeting Madden when she moved into the Harding Hotel at 205 West 54th Street. Owney Madden provided the financing for several of Texas Guinan's speakeasies - - and Guinan's Club Abbey operated from the basement of the Harding Hotel during Mae's residency. Texas Guinan employed a tap dancer, George Ranft [stage name George Raft], who was also Madden's bagman.
• • When Owney Madden financed Mae West's Broadway show "Sex," George made nightly visits to pick up the gangster's share of the box-office profits. Soon George and Mae became lovers, a mutually beneficial relationship.
• • Owen "Owney" Madden [born 18 December 1891 in England] grew up in midtown Manhattan's gang-ridden westside. In the early 1900s, his family moved to 352 Tenth Avenue, off the corner of West 30th Street. Mary Madden and her three youngsters had moved in with her sister-in-law Elizabeth O'Neil; both widows were raising children while trying to support a husband-less household. Young Owney soon joined the Gopher Gang and became a one person crime wave.
• • During the Prohibition Era, Madden owned the popular Cotton Club in Harlem. When Francis Ford Coppola made "The Cotton Club," he chose Bob Hoskins to portray Madden.
• • On 24 April 1965, Owney Madden, 75, died in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • West 54th, where Mae met Madden • • 2005
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