Mae West: Des Moines

This snatch of dialogue from a MAE WEST comedy will introduce a bit of news.
• • The Chump: I don't suppose you believe in marriage, do you?
• • Tira: Only as a last resort... What do you do for a livin'?
• • The Chump: Oh, uh, sort of a politician.
• • Tira: I don't like work either.
• • Surely, some elected officials work harder than others, however, eleven Oval Office residents have slept soundly at the famed Hotel Fort Des Moines, which is becoming a Hilton. The hotel has hosted both presidents and presidential candidates — — including Calvin Coolidge, Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.
• • Owner Jeff Miller said the renovations will take at least a year, which might inconvenience some political candidates since his rooms have been a popular stopping place for those with large entourages who need to be in Iowa. Over the years, notable guests have included the likes of Mae West, Nikita Krushchev, William Jennings Bryan, Charles Lindbergh, Liz Taylor, and others.
• • In fact, the web site shows Mae's photo and states: If our lobby could talk, it would tell you how a cast of characters including Hollywood film diva Mae West came up and saw us sometime in the 1930s.
• • If our lobby could talk, it would tell us how Richard Nixon tromped though on his way to a landslide victory in 1972, only to resign two years later. . . .
• • Opened in 1919, the hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
• • It cost $1.3 million to construct back in 1919. According to general manager Paul Rottenberg, "It was built as a 'super' hotel. Every room had its own bath; there was circulating ice water to every room; and the water passed through ultraviolet light to be purified."
• • Happy 90th Birthday to the Hotel Fort Des Moines [1000 Walnut Street | Des Moines, IA 50309].
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Fashion Icon

"MAE WEST in the fashion pages?" you ask — — and why not?
• • What designers desire most is to enter the high blue door of interpretation. It's merely cut cloth that sewing machines piece together, after all. To give fashion context, there must be retrospectives, muses, icons, and that happy tag-along element: flair.
• • Last month, British tabloids ran photographs of Kate Moss as she was busy purchasing a £12 T-shirt from the Camden branch of Snappy Snaps. A reporter noted that Kate Moss chose one featuring a print of Mae West — — with the logo "Mae the spirit be with you!" written across the front.
• • Buttocks clenched, the UK Style Desk went into overdrive, shrieking: She's always had an eye for a trend, but even Kate Moss's most devoted fans may be surprised by the supermodel's latest fashion foray. For eschewing her usual haute couture haunts last week, Moss was to be seen shopping at budget camera shop Snappy Snaps, hardly known for its stylish credentials. Dressed down and hiding behind a pair of Prada sunglasses, she was spotted in the store's Camden branch buying a £12 T-shirt from its Demented Divas range, which includes images of Mae West, Cher, Shirley Bassey, and Madonna.
• • About her a-MAE-zing T-selection, designer Al Pillay exclaimed: 'I'm thrilled that Kate Moss has one. They've become very sought-after images. Amy Winehouse has one [from UK's The Daily Mail, 27 April 2009, page 35]." Soon all the capons will be sporting them (once they discover the coke-heads are snapping 'em up)! If you see the shirt being worn in your area, especially by any bow-legged jezebels, do phone in.
• • Al Pillay originally did these amusing sketches for his personal greeting card line. What do you think of his version of Mae West?
• • Also in the United Kingdom, the trendy femme brand Hellz Bellz channelled Mae for their Christmas Holiday catalogue last year — — Hellz 2008 Holiday ‘Born Bad’ Collection. Toasting the Brooklyn bombshell, and what she meant to them, the designers called the line "Born Bad." Their press release explained: “Our Holiday 2008 collection represents for the “Born Bad” femme fatale. With Mae West’s racy quotes which sprang, tough-dame style from the side of her mouth, she’s been firmly stamped as the personification of Hellz through her story of survival, persistence, independence, and unshakable self-esteem. In her life which ended in 1980, at the age of 87, she became both an icon and pioneer for both men and women everywhere.”
• • Two fashion tributes to the Empress of Sex, a durable diva, from King Arthur's country. Right-oh!
• • 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
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: In England

A new show in England about the history of cinema will feature MAE WEST.
• • In Great Britain, actor Robert Powell has assembled an "affectionate and nostalgic romp through the first 113 years of cinema," according to the Express and Star.
• • Interviewed by reporter Mark Andrews, Powell promised not to be boring: “It’s a little of entertainment, a bit of film, a bit of history, and a bit of fun.”
• • The production begins with cinema pioneers the Lumiere Brothers in Paris in 1895 — — and finishes with Bond 22 being filmed at Pinewood Studios in 2008.
• • The audience is introduced to Mae West, Charlie Chaplin, Mickey Mouse, and Humphrey Bogart along the way, with appearances by Clark Gable, Groucho Marx, Marilyn Monroe, and Jack Lemmon.
• • Also appearing in the production are Christine Croshaw and Clive Conway.
• • The journey will be sweetened with musical interludes from Scott Joplin, George Gershwin through to John Barry’s “James Bond” theme.
• • "Robert Powell’s Silver Screen" is on at Lichfield Garrick Theatre on 30 May 2009, starting at 7:30 pm. Telephone the box office for details: 01543 412121 [UK].
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Affectionate look at history of cinema"
• • Byline: By Mark Andrews
• • Published in: UK's Express and Star — — www.expressandstar.com
• • Published on: 12 May 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Blame Bridgeport

MAE WEST might have put the blame on Bridgeport — — but did she go back to bedevil a playhouse?
• • During the early 1920s, impresario Sylvestre Poli brought the Poli Palace to the Nutmeg State.
• • Designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb and eventually renamed Loew's Palace Theater [1325 Main Street, Bridgeport, CT 06604], this landmark was the biggest movie theater ever erected in Connecticut — — and the largest among Bridgeport's 20-plus theaters. Poli's was actually one of two theaters built inside a single building (the other being the Majestic).
• • Despite the public's curiosity about the controversial vaudevillian Mae West, and her latest play "The Drag," Jim Timony could only manage to secure half a week at Poli's Park, which was then in use as a burlesque house in Bridgeport. It was a dreary and wintery Monday on 31 January 1927 when the Morals Production Company hoisted a banner over the trolley cars criss-crossing Main Street. Pedestrians were intrigued by this saucy announcement: "The Drag" by the author of SEX — — more sensational than Rain or The Captive!"
• • While they were lodging at the Arcade Hotel, Beverly West and Edward Elsner (Mae's sister and director) were arrested at 5 AM on 2 February 1927. Both the play and the arrest were the talk of Bridgeport.
• • Ghost-busting and career-boosting • •
• • Currently researching a local squad of spirit-chasing cops, whose haunts are the historic Bridgeport theaters, John Burgeson has alerted readers of The Connecticut Post to the intersection of ghost-busting and career-boosting aims currently afoot on Main Street.
• • Writing from Bridgeport, John Burgeson asks the famous question: When the ghosts that haunt Bridgeport's old Poli Palace theater get out of line, who you gonna call?
• • Why the cops, of course — — or, more specifically, the East Coast Paranormal Police.
• • Now, the newly formed ECPP might have a shot at fame. On Monday, a TV producer was in town to shoot footage of the ghost-hunting cops in action inside the Poli Palace and Majestic theaters downtown on Main Street, two long-abandoned, historic showplaces that score high on the creepiness scale.
• • "Today, we're doing a pitch tape for a new show we have in mind," said Rob Johnson, a production coordinator for Pangolin Pictures. "We understand that the Poli Palace might be haunted and Jim Myers suspects that there might be a poltergeist here."
• • Jim Myers, a 12-year veteran with the Bridgeport Police Department, is the man behind the ECPP, which has been getting help from one of the heavy hitters in the ghost-hunting business, famed psychic and Monroe resident Lorraine Warren.
• • Pangolin Pictures, which has three Emmy Awards to its credit, is primarily a producer of nature films for cable networks. These include "Tarantulas: King of Spiders" and "Jaws and Claws."
• • Johnson notes that while there are other ghost-hunter shows, Pangolin likes the fact that Myers uses "police training" to investigate strange occurrences.
• • "We think that's an interesting angle that will be new to paranormal shows," he said. "In 'Ghost Hunters,' they're plumbers by trade. Jim's group all have had police training."
• • On Monday, Johnson and his assistant, Gina Fitch, were busy shooting footage of Myers and his 11-person team as they explored the dusty innards of the Poli Palace and two attached buildings, the Majestic theater and the Savoy Hotel.
• • In 2007, the direct-to-video cop action flick starring Steven Seagal shot in downtown Bridgeport included scenes filmed at the Poli and Majestic theaters. The showcases continued screening movies sporadically into the early 1970s, long past their glory days as venues for elaborate live entertainment, and later for first-run Hollywood movies. Through the early 1950s, it wasn't unusual for movie stars to turn out on opening night to boost attendance.
• • While plans have been floated over the years to restore the theaters, nothing has ever become of them. Johnson hopes that the pitch tape, which will be about five minutes long, will be pedaled to the various cable channels, such as Discovery, National Geographic Channel, TLC, the History Channel and so forth. He said that it may take six months or longer for the channels to decide whether to proceed with the idea.
• • "It's just a quick piece to show Jim and his team, and what they can do," Johnson said, "and to show the network what it would look like as a series."
• • If a network picks up the idea, the ECPP would be central to the show, which would follow the team as it checks out various reports of paranormal activity up and down the East Coast, Johnson said.
• • Bridgeport City Historian Mary Witkowski, also interviewed Monday by Johnson, said there's no shortage of reasons why there might be strange goings-on inside the theaters.
• • Mae West: Is that you? • •
• • "First it could be the Golden Hill Paugusset [Indian] tribe, whose graves may have been disturbed when they built there. It could be Dutch Schultz, the rum-runner who was murdered in New Jersey — — he did a lot of business in Bridgeport back in the 1930s. Or, it even could be Mae West ---- she had performed here, got into trouble and spent the night in jail," Witkowski said. "Maybe she wants to get back at us."
• • Myers said he has 16 to 18 members in the ECPP, and all are trained in police work. "I actually come in here on a weekly basis because the city gave me the key, so I can keep an eye on the place," Myers said. "I've seen a couple of photos that were taken here that were pretty strange."
— — Source: — —
• • Article: "Ghost-hunting cops haunt historic Bridgeport theaters"
• • Byline: By John Burgeson
• • Published in: The Connecticut Post — — www.connpost.com
• • Published on: 11 May 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • The arrest at the Arcade Hotel after "The Drag" is dramatized in the play "Courting Mae West." Beverly's drunken antics and Mae's strategies are featured in Act I, Scene 2. You can watch a portion of this surprising scene on YouTube.
• • The "scene of the crime" is still in business: Arcade Hotel — 1001 Main St, Bridgeport, CT 06604; Tel (203) 333-9376.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Vegas to 47th

MAE WEST gave Steve Rossi his punchy stage name. He was born 76 years ago in the roughneck section of Manhattan then known as "Italian Harlem" and was raised on the West Coast when his musician father was hired by NBC. Mostly known as a Las Vegas resident and night club entertainer, Steve Rossi was cast in "Senior Class," a light-hearted song-laden trip down memory lane, a few years ago. The show featured six golden agers: Steve Rossi, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Ronnie Schell, Ruta Lee, Gary Collins, Marcia Rodd. New producers dieted the ensemble down to a quartet — — and refocused the material before preparing it for The Big Apple.
• • Loyally, The Las Vegas Sun (Steve's hometown paper) did a little puffing. Jerry Fink's article appears below.
• • Jerry Fink writes: After more than half a century of entertaining, Las Vegas singer, comedian, and actor Steve Rossi is set to make his debut in an off-Broadway production. “Don’t Leave It All to Your Children!” begins previews this week at the Actors Temple Theatre and is scheduled to run through June 28, 2009.
• • The 90-minute musical revue is an adaptation of “Senior Class,” both written and directed by Saul Ilson.
• • The 76-year-old Rossi is part of an ensemble cast of four that includes Barbara Minkus (“Picon Pie”), Marcia Rodd (“The Last of the Red Hot Lovers”), and Ronnie Schell (“Gomer Pyle”). Rossi and Schell have done “Senior Class” at the Annenberg Theater in Palm Springs, Calif., for the past four years.
• • “The producers saw ‘Senior Class’ and liked it but they didn’t know if it was strong enough for Broadway,” Rossi says. “Now with the new theme and new material, it looks pretty strong.” The revue is about Baby Boomers becoming seniors. “There are a series of vignettes about getting older and about life,” Rossi explains.
• • Rossi, a native New Yorker who grew up in Southern California, has performed in every medium but a Broadway play. “Don’t Leave It All to Your Children!” gets him close. At 339 West 47th St., the Actors Temple is about a block off the Great White Way.
• • Best known as the straight man of a comedy team with Marty Allen, Rossi says he has always been too busy to pursue the New York stage.
• • “When Marty and I were hot we could have been on Broadway any time we wanted, but we didn’t take advantage of it,” he says. “For some reason our management never thought it was a good career move.”
• • Allen & Rossi, who were brought together by Nat King Cole in 1957, made more than 700 appearances on television (44 on “The Ed Sullivan Show”), made 16 comedy albums and appeared in the spy spoof film “The Last of the Secret Agents” before they split in 1969. They reunited briefly twice. ...
• • Rossi was discovered by Mae West in 1953.
• • He was a 20-year-old student playing the lead in “The Student Prince” at the Civic Light Opera Company in Los Angeles. Mae West caught the performance and hired him for her show, which ended up at the Sahara in Las Vegas.
• • After graduating from Loyola University, he entered the Air Force. While stationed near San Francisco, he became friends with legendary radio announcer Don Sherwood and frequently appeared on his radio and television shows. Rossi, who never seems to slow down, says if the show catches on and he’s in New York for a while, he will produce a burlesque show and probably perform some stand-up comedy.
• • “I don’t feel any older than I did 20 years ago,” he says. “A lot of women take me for like 50 and 55 — — although last night a girl took me for a hundred.”
— — Excerpt: — —
• • THEATER — — Straight man of Allen & Rossi cracks wise just off Broadway
• • Byline: Jerry Fink
• • Published in: The Las Vegas Sun — — www.lasvegassun.com
• • Published on: 6 May 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Henri Sabin

Henri Sabin did an outstanding likeness of MAE WEST in 1936, perhaps as a work commissioned by Paramount Pictures.
• • The Frenchman seems to have relocated to Hollywood during the 1930s, where he found work sketching for motion picture industry books. Using pastels, Sabin created softly glamorous and luminous portraits of the screen royalty of the era. In addition to the Empress of Sex, Sabin did a colorful bust of Joan Crawford, Merle Oberon, and the Mexican lovely Delores Del Rio.
• • In 1965, Sabin turned out a lush oil painting of Parisienne sex kitten Brigitte Bardot [born 1934]. Continuing his specialty of celebrity portraiture, Sabin also did a sizable oil of boxer Mohammed Ali.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: West Ninth

Announcing a new eatery on West Ninth Street, Page Six referred to MAE WEST.
• • Former Ninth Street resident and gossip guru Richard Johnson wrote this as his appetizer.
• • Johnson mentioned that: "WEST Ninth Street will soon have a new restaurant. Larry Poston, of the Waverly Inn and Pastis, has teamed up with Johnny Swet, of Balthazar and Freeman's, to take over the space that was once Marylou's, and the Penguin before that. They plan to go back to the building's original 1870 name, Hotel Griffou, an inn run by French-born Marie Griffou who served Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe [!!!], and the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. When Mae West was forced to appear at the nearby Jefferson Market Courthouse to answer obscenity charges, her first stop after the trial was the bar at the Hotel Griffou. The reincarnation will open in late June [New York Post — — 8 May 2009]."
• • If there was a bar at the Hotel Griffou in 1927, when Mae West was first arrested, it certainly was kept hush-hush — — during the Prohibition Era. Certainly by 1909, the "Griffou" was gone; the name had been changed to Hotel Europa by the new owner.
• • Madame Marie Griffou • •
• • The late Madame Griffou was a powerhouse who first established her special brand of Spanish and French hospitality on the corner of West Eighth Street and MacDougal Street, when this short comely stretch was still known as St. Clement's Place. Since the space was too small for Marie Griffou, she soon sublet it to an Italian widow, Madama Gonfarone, whose establishment took off once she teamed up with Ancleto Sermolino.
• • In the 1860s, Marie Griffou sailed to the USA with a Cuban Negro named Xavier Hernandez (and other people born into slavery whom she had purchased). These slaves became the backbone of Hotel Griffou, when Madame opened for business in 1874. Hotel Griffou stretched out between 19 — 23 West Ninth Street. At the basement level, its old-fashioned Rathskeller attracted men of letters and Oscar Wilde was a patron there in 1882 during his American tour. William Dean Howells dined there and it was respectable enough for the daughters of U.S. Presidents as well.
• • How many believe that Marie Griffou served Edgar Allan Poe [19 January 1809 — 7 October 1849] — — when the poet died several years before the Frenchwoman sailed to America?
• • How many believe that Marie Griffou served Mark Twain [1835 — 1910]? Naaaah!
• • The author of the book "Forgotten New York" apologized for his own error on page 157. In reference to Hotel Griffou, he noted, "It is doubtful Mark Twain could have been a regular at the hotel; in the 1880s he was living in Hartford, traveling in Europe, and spending his summers at Nook Farm in Elmira."
• • West 9th resident Thomas A. Janvier, fascinated by the odd Latin Americans who stayed there, featured the stopping place a few times. In one of his works, the restaurant was called "The White Pup." More notably, it was renamed "Casa Napoleon." Recrossing Washington Square and moving up Fifth Avenue, we find at 19 and 21 West Ninth Street the little Franco-Spanish South-American Hotel, which was the original of the Casa Napoleon, the modest and inviting hostelry where lived so many of Mr. Thomas Janvier's men and women . . . .
• • Thomas Janvier, who frequently bent an elbow here, dwelt at length (in his fiction) on the establishment's "attractive look," and the balcony that ran along the line of the second-story windows, in which flowers were growing in great green wooden tubs. The Louis Napoleon of Mr. Janvier's stories is Louis Napoleon Griffou. The Dunbars, Breams, Witherbys, and the rest have taken their departure, but in their place there has sprung up another coterie of newspaper men, flippantly and facetiously known as "the Griffou push."
• • Especially amused by the "Griffou Push" was William Dean Howells. The Casa Napoleon appeared briefly in his "The World of Chance." During the early 1900s, fans of his recognized Hotel Griffou thinly disguised as a little restaurant Howells sent his character Ray to during the young writer's first weeks in New York. And it was here also that the Marches of "A Hazard of New Fortunes" came to dine during the long weeks spent in futile flat-hunting. (The Howells very briefly lived at The Portsmouth on West 9th Street.)
• • There are many more fascinating stories linked to 21 West 9th that can be documented. Maybe some real-life narratives will be served up shortly as the restaurateurs try to unveil the newcomer.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Mickey Carroll

A very special actor who worked with MAE WEST has met his final curtain.
• • Word comes that Mickey Carroll, one of the last surviving Munchkins from the iconic 1939 screen classic "The Wizard of Oz" died recently at age 89. It was his only motion picture but his brief cameos were most memorable. .
• • Born in St. Louis on 8 July 1919, Mickey Carroll's birthname was Michael Finocchiaro. The son of Italian immigrants who carved marble cemetery monuments, he grew up with a twin sister and four older siblings, all of whom are deceased.
• • It was a pituitary condition that caused Carroll's height to stop at 4-foot-3.
• • What he lacked in stature he made up for with an abundance of appeal, personality, and comedic timing. When presidential hopeful Franklin D. Roosevelt was campaigning in New York City, Mickey Carroll helped warm up the voters. He was also hired as a crowd-getter during Harry Truman's whistlestop campaign.
• • In St. Louis, Carroll tripped the light fantastic at the Muny Theater when he was still an elementary school pupil. Afterwards, he appeared in Chicago clubs and on the Orpheum Theater vaudeville circuit.
• • Expanding his specialties, Mickey Carroll also did Phillip Morris live radio ads — — "Call for Philip Morris!" — — and appeared in shows with Mae West. He followed up those successes with radio shows with George Burns, Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, and Al Jolson.
• • In November 2007, Mickey Carroll received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame along with six other surviving Munchkins: Ruth Duccini, Jerry Maren, Margaret Pellegrini, Meinhardt Raabe, Karl Slover, and Clarence Swensen.
• • Until January of this year, the pint-size performer enjoyed living in his own home in Bel-Nor. After he got a pacemaker, however, he began boarding with a caretaker, who told the press that he died in his sleep, very peacefully, and perhaps dreaming of following the yellow brick road in the wonderful land of Oz.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Finalized

There was a great deal of mayhem in the life of MAE WEST when her marriage to Frank Wallace was first exposed — — and divorce proceedings began.
• • As all Mae-Mavens know, on the morning of 11 April 1911, a teenager wed her 21-year-old co-star Frank Wallace [birthname: Frank Szatkus] in Milwaukee. He and Mae West had been performing at the Big Gaiety Theatre there, part of the Columbia Amusement Company, an Eastern burlesque wheel run by Henry Jacobs and John Jermon.
• • Mae, who was still 17 when they eloped, had met the entertainer the previous year. Matchmaker Matilda West had gone backstage to tell this soft-shoe artist that she had a youngster who was a “comer” — — a good partner to pair up with.
• • A dark-haired, wiry acrobatic dancer, Frank was determined not to follow the example of his sedentary father, a Lithuanian tailor from Queens, New York. Threading his way through the vaudeville and burlesque circuit, he shared the bill with Mae West and Willie Hogan at Canarsie’s Waldo Casino in Brooklyn. In those days, they often rehearsed in the basement of the house that belonged to Mae’s parents. Following rehearsals, Matilda would serve a Bavarian supper of pig’s knuckles and sauerkraut.
• • When singing ragtime favorites — — like “Ragtime Rosie Ragged the Rosary” and “Everybody’s Doin’ It” — — West and Wallace consciously imitated black performers, sliding, shuffling, and stepping in a sultry, passionate, smooth style that brought them bookings in Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Philadelphia.
• • According to Frank Wallace, after a few weeks of rehearsal, “we went on the Fox circuit. Later we signed with Jacobs and Jermon, the burlesque producers.”
• • Mae claimed she only wanted to sleep with Frank, not tie the knot. However, Etta Woods, an older singer on the bill with them, persuaded Mae that it was better to be married in case she got pregnant accidentally. After they said their vows, Mae insisted that the marriage be kept a secret from her family and their booking agents.
• • The length of their tour in “A Florida Enchantment” lasted a few months, after which Mae returned to her parents in Brooklyn and encouraged Wallace to join a different road company, which he did.
• • West and Wallace never lived together as man and wife. Their secret elopement only came to light when Mae became a Hollywood headliner in the 1930s and Frank, run down at the heels and looking for a meal ticket, decided to sue his successful wife.
• • The final divorce decree was granted in the month of May — — on 7 May 1943.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Dom Gone

We bid a fond adieu to a comedian who worked with MAE WEST.
• • Brooklyn native Dominick "Dom" DeLuise was born on 1 August 1933 to Italian American parents Vicenza and John DeLuise.
• • Like Mae, Dom DeLuise hailed from Brooklyn, New York. During the 1960s, the moon-faced entertainer was often seen on TV variety shows and also boosted the comic quotient in motion pictures featuring Mel Brooks and Burt Reynolds.
• • The 75-year-old funnyman passed away on Monday evening — — 4 May 2009 — — at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, according to his agent Robert Malcolm. DeLuise's wife Carol and three sons were at his bedside when he took his final breaths.
• • "Dom DeLuise was a naturally funny man," averred film critic Leonard Maltin. "He didn't need a script to be funny, but smart people like Mel Brooks knew how to give him just the right setting and showcase."
• • Dom DeLuise, who has many movie credits to his name, was also seen in Sextette [1978]. Released by Crown International, this musical comedy starred Mae West. Others in the cast included Timothy Dalton, Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, George Hamilton, Alice Cooper, and Walter Pidgeon.
• • Dom DeLuise also played host in the documentary film "Mae West . . . and the Men Who Knew Her."
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Code Uncloaked

Meditating on MAE WEST jumpstarted the juice for one discerning essayist published by Bright Lights Film Journal.
• • There is much to consider and mull over in Erich Kuersten's delightful piece "Help us, Mae!" — — and we know you'll savor his hazy thoughts on the transition from real sex to digital hallucinations [below].
• • According to Erich Kuersten, the pre-code is alive and well today, just not onscreen. The stars have split their private life off, so the tabloids tell the sordid stories, while the screen shows teenagers trying on clothes to montage pop. But since 1934 America has always liked its love and desperation to be separate. In real life, the love of the desperate is as intense as the love of the genuinely enchanted; in fact in our age of digital hermits and alienation, there is no difference.
• • Take for example, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, Babs Streisand and Madonna. These are camp icons for a reason, women whose ferocious drive was such that they changed the face of beauty in order to make themselves pass for beautiful. The hallowed hierarchy of class, genes, and style that make us "attractive" is relative, of course; it's in the eye of the beholder: a very lonely sailor might, for example, fall in love with a dust mop, or mistake a seal for a beautiful mermaid. On the other hand, a jaded rock star might see Sienna Miller as an ocelot or common sea snail.
• • Take Mae West for another example.
• • Take Mae West for another example. Kind of heavy and yet small breasted, short and coarse, but it didn't matter. She could have been a dust mop crossed with a sea snail and men would still be falling for her. No one could tell Mae she wasn't a knockout glamour girl, so whether she was or not becomes — with the passing of each new generation — more and more immaterial. She defines beauty because we have seen her on the silver screen being adored. It must be true; we saw it on television.
• • Remember Cary Grant and Mae West in "She Done Him Wrong"?
• • She's so startlingly progressive, we presume all of ancient history defined her as the ultimate; it all has the iconic haze of myth, folklore. Mae is like (and would probably sleep with) Paul Bunyan, or John Henry, the steel-drivin' man. Like them she's embodying an archetype, she is the elevation of the cathouse harlot to the status of a benevolent, wisecracking Aphrodite. If she was genuinely beautiful, the ridiculous fawning of the men around her would be irritating and immodest. But because it's Mae, it's joyous, because we realize that beauty — if it wasn't already in the eye of the beholder before her — is now. She made it flex and bend until even the shy and ugly kids got some, too. She brought cake out to the guards. She shared her humongous appetites with her next-door neighbor in the Paramount dressing rooms, Marlene Dietrich; they passed guys like Gary Cooper and Cary Grant around like playing cards. West actually launched Grant's career for him. She had an eye for real moxie — a talent scout like her is sorely missed in Hollywood these days. But at any rate, the disciples of her brilliance live on; there are shades of her in everyone from Roseanne Barr to Diane Keaton, Paula Prentiss and up to Nicole Kidman and Anna Faris. Age, height, weight have nothing to do with it per se, it's all in the hips and their willingness to subvert the status quo from within, and the genius to know how to make it work and the nerve to pull it off at just the right time. When a girl at the end of her rope admires Mae's diamonds in "She Done Him Wrong," for example, Mae remarks, "Men, it's their game. I just happen to be smart enough to play it their way."
• • What does that mean exactly? It means she doesn't fight the current, and so has the energy to swim to the front and direct the whole wave. This means Mae is genuinely subversive, which is why the Catholic Legion of Decency was so quick to have her censored (she made only one radio appearance in her entire life, an "Adam and Eve" sketch, which got her banned forever). It's nothing in her double entendres so much as her complete lack of inhibition and — even more important — the copious admiration and financial gain she shows herself getting, onscreen, for her unmarried sexual congress. If Mae's characters had died alone and unloved, having sacrificed all for her child to marry a prince, etc., she would have been fine with the censors. But daring to indulge in the forbidden fruits and end the film all the richer and with Cary Grant on your arm and no harm done? It was just too dangerous to a rigid class and sex system like the Catholic delusory 1930s.
• • Those moralists wanted sex to be served in little teacups to a temperate nation. Mae served it by spreading tea leaves on the floor and flooding the building with hot water. It was like showing the corruptible females of the world a magic faucet by which they could drown their men's precious capitalist system with a few flicks of their diamond-bespangled wrists. And that doing it was not only easy but rewarding as hell; Mae was a lost generation Tyler Durden!
• • What was more than a mere threat to the Christian status quo, though, was Mae's willingness to peek behind the magic curtain where the big deals are made, and to point out that regardless of how much they bellow and bluster, they're all just men underneath the suits and uniforms. They can be had. If the Christians were reading this right, Mae was training women all over the country to step into men's affairs and topple them, just to see if they can. The whole social ladder seemed to shake and buckle from the force of Mae's tsunami hips.
• • We don't really have a similar figure to Mae West today, right now, do we? Kate Winslet, Vera Farmiga, Naomi Watts, Nicole, they're all genetic miracles who represent the next step in our evolution, knock on wood, and the sexually active party girls, like Paris Hilton, aren't really movie stars (the Paris equivalent of the time would have been Peggy Hopkins Joyce).
• • No, the merely semi-attractive women — the ones for whom finding dates is actual work — have no one to champion them, no one like Mae West or Bette Davis to star in movies where they're adored as beautiful and desirable beyond words while all the straight men in the room go "What? I don't get it." Instead, the non-goddesses have to make do with martyrdom, the dregs of the coffee cup. I guess the closest we have at the moment are those British soul singer tarts across the sea, but I'm too old to know anything about that.
• • All I know is, I watch Bette in some of these DVDs, like Now Voyager, and I long for the blurriness of VHS. As our world moves more and more to high definition and blu-ray, that eye of the beholder is going to see some things better left obscured by Blanche's paper lantern, that's all I'm saying, with all the format changes. Even the most airbrushed and metallic of goddesses won't catch any fanboys if they can see "that" much. You know what I mean, bro? Do I got to underline it in highlighter marker? Darkness makes everyone equally attractive. It's key! The high-def future will mean the end of sex for all but the supermodels. The rest of us will punch our way through days so gray and isolated they make Gilliam's Brazil look like Christmas with Bing Crosby. No matter how lovely you think you are, we'll be able to see into your pores from the back row.
• • Spend some time in France or England and you'll see a whole different approach to casual hooking up for sex. It's not that big a deal. People feel better, eat better, look better, when they're having steady sexual relations, say twice a week minimum. In America, somewhere along the line we got the idea that it's better not to have sex unless the partner is gorgeous, rich, famous, or you're very drunk; otherwise, we're "saving" ourselves. If we take home someone unattractive, we slump home the next day, guilty, as if we were so hungry and poor we ended up eating at McDonald's and now feel sick. But we don't really feel sick, my friends, that's social conditioning! That's why we need a Mae West or a Bette Davis to come along and sashay their weight around, or smile their crooked teeth and still have Tyrone Power or Cary Grant grow mad with desire for them. Maybe we don't want it, but we need it. We're a nation that's grown sexually anorexic.
• • Help us, Mae! Show us how to enjoy our food again.
— — Source: — —
• • Desperation and Divinity — — "Help us, Mae!"
• • • • Hazy thoughts on the transition from real sex to digital hallucinations
• • Byline: Erich Kuersten | Columnist
• • Published in: Bright Lights Film Journal — — www.brightlightsfilm.com
• • Published on: May 2009 | Issue 64
• • Copyright © 2009 by Erich Kuersten
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Walkin' the Dog

MAE WEST adored ragtime. She once told an interviewer about grooving very early to "the black man's sound." Whether she was imitating the sultry Shimmy she watched in a Chicago club or swinging to the latest jam she heard in Harlem, Mae's musical taste was in formation: "we copied it because it was the greatest. [Black people] had been developing it for years."
• • In 1928, she performed a rag that she especially loved onstage in "Diamond Lil" and its Hollywood counterpart "She Done Him Wrong" [1933]. The lyricist and composer of this song — — "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone" — — was Shelton Brooks [4 May 1886 — 6 September 1975], who published it around 1913. He was good friends with Mae's maid Bea Jackson; his nickname for her was "Hot Story Telling."
• • Born in Canada in the month of May, Shelton Brooks moved to Detroit in 1901 with his family; his parents were Native American and Black. His father was a preacher and Shelton and his brother would play the organ during services.
• • Surrounded by music, Shelton wrote his first big hit in 1910 — — "Some of These Days" — — using his own lyrics. He had already introduced the song in his own vaudeville act when Sophie Tucker's maid introduced both him and the tune to Sophie. The vaudevillian, who would eventually style herself as "the Last of the Red Hot Mamas," made this number her very own theme song.
• • "Walkin' the Dog" • •
• • His 1916 instrumental tune "Walkin' the Dog" inspired a dance that first swept dancehall-crazed New York City, and then the rest of the country. That year, the variety act "Mae West and Sister" performed "Walkin' the Dog" as their grand finale.
• • Shelton Brooks died in Los Angeles in 1975 when he was 89 years old. He is buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Zabo Koszewski

Irvin 'Zabo' Koszewski toured with MAE WEST during the 1950s. Like the Brooklyn bombshell, the East Coast native was a stage-worthy Leo born in August.
• • Jon Thurber writes in the Los Angeles Times: 'The longtime Santa Monica resident was a constant presence at Muscle Beach, where in his prime he'd pump out 500 Roman Chair sit-ups in about 15 minutes."
• • Zabo's midsection wowed even veteran muscle-movers. "He had a 10-pack of abs when everyone else had a six-pack," recalled John Balik, publisher of Iron Man Magazine. In his prime, Zabo was a natural fit for the Mae West Revue. In 1953, he won the Amateur Athletic Union's Mr. Pacific Coast title. In 1954, he snagged the AAU Mr. California title, following those honors with numerous "best abdominal" titles in three decades of bodybuilding competitions.
• • According to a recent issue of the Los Angeles Times, Irvin 'Zabo' Koszewski died on 29 March 2009 of pneumonia at a hospital in Doylestown, Pennyslyvania. The longtime resident of Santa Monica and a Muscle Beach mainstay was 84, writes Jon Thurber in his detailed obit.
• • "The history of Muscle Beach was about its people as much as the sun and the sand," Balik wrote in his magazine, noting that Koszewski "was the embodiment of the spirit of Muscle Beach."
• • He was born in Camden, N.J., on August 20, 1924, and was a gifted athlete as a young man. At Collingwood High School, near his home in Woodland, N.J., he was an all-state guard in football, he wrestled, and he swam competitively. He began lifting weights as a teenager in the late 1930s and didn't stop.
• • He enlisted in the Army after Pearl Harbor and served in the South Pacific. After his discharge he wrestled professionally for a time and started competing in bodybuilding competitions. He was the AAU's Mr. New Jersey in 1948, and the AAU's Mr. Middle Atlantic in 1950.
• • But California beckoned, so he and three buddies piled into a car in the early 1950s and headed for Santa Monica.
• • Friends also recalled him as extremely well-read, funny and philosophical.
• • He trained consistently and constantly, friends said. And he was still working out just months before he died
• • Along Muscle Beach, Koszewski's abdominal workouts became legendary. In his prime, he would do 500 Roman Chair sit-ups, usually in about 15 minutes.
• • "He was a simple guy in what he needed," Balik said. "He pared things down to his friends, the beach and the workout. Those things were the center of his life. The standing joke about Zabo is that he wouldn't go further inland than Lincoln Boulevard."
• • And like many of the other stars of Muscle Beach, Koszewski appeared in entertainer Mae West's nightclub act as one of her Muscle Beach Boys. He also appeared in some films including bit parts in "Spartacus" and "Planet of the Apes," as well as the Cheech and Chong vehicles "Nice Dreams" and "Things Are Tough All Over," where he was the stunt double for Tommy Chong.
• • He was competing in bodybuilding competitions well into his 40s.
• • Koszewski was the manager of Joe Gold's gym and the World Gym in Santa Monica and was working until a few months before he died.
• • He came down with pneumonia early this year and moved to Pennsylvania to be near his daughter, Nancy Pyle.
• • She survives him, as does another daughter, Candice Wallace of Sacramento, and three grandchildren.
— — Source: — —
• • "Irvin 'Zabo' Koszewski dies at 84; bodybuilder renowned for his abs"
• • Byline: Jon Thurber | Obituary
• • Published in: The Los Angeles Times — — www.latimes.com
• • Published on: 1 May 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Ira Hards

In 1928, MAE WEST approached Ira Hands to stage her latest play "Diamond Lil" at the Royale Theatre on Broadway.
• • Born on 24 June 1872 in Geneva, Illinois, Ira A. Hards aspired to be an actor. After a round of performances, touring in regional theatres, the personable 29-year-old made his Broadway debut in "Don Caesar's Return" [1901]. He began keeping company with Ina Hammer, who was also getting cast in mainstage productions in Times Square, and the theatre couple married. In between starring in an acclaimed silent film version of "King Lear" and on Broadway, busy Ina Hammer branched out as a stage director and soon took on another role: as a real-life mother with a sweet newborn daughter.
• • In September 1928, as things were winding down in Manhattan for the beauteous Bowery queen Diamond Lil, Ira Hands escorted his daughter Ina Isola Hards down the aisle when she wed Lieutenant Gordon Philip Saville of the Army Air Corps. Things were going well for the versatile theatre pro, who had developed new skills: directing, dialogue coaching, and producing.
• • Booth Tarkington [1869 — 1946] was especially indebted to Ira Hands for directing his Broadway plays "Magnolia" [1923] and "The Intimate Strangers" [1921]. After Mae's arrest in 1927, Booth Tarkington was commisioned to write an article — — and "When Is It Dirt?" [published in Collier's, The National Weekly, on 14 May 1927] discussed the issue of censorship and government intervention.
• • Ira Hards did well enough to maintain a residence in Manhattan and a country house in Connecticut. He found time to establish his own stock company at the Westchester Playhouse in Mount Kisco, New York, and devoted himself to a group called Young Actors' Development.
• • Among the many highlights of his busy three decades long career in the theatre world, Ira Hards directed and staged the original 1927 production of "Dracula" (starring Bela Lugosi) that ran for 261 performances at the Fulton Theatre on West 46th Street. Coincidentally, Hards's Stage Manager for "Dracula" was Carl Reed, who became Mae West's producer for the ill-fated Broadway run of "Pleasure Man" (1928) at the Biltmore Theatre.
• • When Ira Hards died in Norwalk, Connecticut in the month of May — — on 2 May 1938 — — The New York Times referred to the 65-year-old as a retired producer who presented many Broadway plays. His wife Ina passed away 15 years later in 1953.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Don Ruffin

Arizona artist Don Ruffin did a portrait of MAE WEST. Some of his artwork will be displayed on Saturday 2 May 2009.
• • Born in 1928 (according to AskArt.com), Don Ruffin became a nationally recognized painter during the 1970s. Among the portraits he did was that of Senator Barry Goldwater. The artist died at age 49 in 1977.
• • Don Ruffin was introduced to Mae West by a mutual acquaintance — —.psychic Richard Ireland. According to Mark Ireland, some of Don's canvases were "inspired by psychic experiences."

• • Anthony DeFrange also painted Mae West (1971) • •
• • The painter, who enjoyed giving psychic readings at parties, told his neighbor Tony DePrima that he would soon be a pallbearer for a close friend, remembered Mark Ireland. Curiously, a week later, Don Ruffin passed away and Tony DePrima carried his casket during the funeral.
• • The organizer of the Cinco de Mayo celebration coming up at West Valley Art Museum, Ms. Sheny Ruiz Milligan will bring along her private collection of paintings by the Phoenix artist. Sheny fondly recalled Don Ruffin's extraordinary portraits of actress Mae West, Barry Goldwater, and other notables. He also specialized in Southwestern scenes with a spiritual element.
• • Here's where the fun takes place this weekend: West Valley Art Museum, 17420 North Avenue of the Arts, Surprise, Arizona 85374.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/ ________ Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml Mae West
• • Photo:  Mae West, oil painting in 1971 • •
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Mae West: Satin & Latin

It was on 30 April 1956 that Robert W. Dana's felicitous coverage of "The MAE WEST Review" appeared.
• • Dana's popular daily dish "Tips on Tables" was printed in the now defunct New York World-Telegram & Sun.
• • His column "Mae West's Show Grows" [dated April 30th] indicated Dana had seen the routine previously.
• • Robert W. Dana wrote: The old belief that everything should be bigger and better — — a thought most forcefully pronounced by Hollywood trailers — — can be applied with forthright honesty to Mae West, who has returned to the Latin Quarter [in New York City on West 48th Street], where she scored heavily in the fall [sic] of 1954. . . .
• • A native New Yorker, Robert Dana was born in 1907. His lengthy writing career began on the Drama Desk of the New York Herald Tribune. Years later, after penning a column on restaurants and night spots for this daily paper, Dana gathered those reviews into a book published in 1948. So well-known was he among New York's nightlife czars, that he did a stint for awhile as a night club and restaurant press agent. Subsequently, Robert Dana commandeered a regular byline at the New York World-Telegram column. This energetic reporter also hosted a radio show and short-lived TV program offering his opinions on the stars and entertainers during the 1940s—1950s.
• • Staying active and alert to the end, Robert W. Dana lived to be 89 and died in 1996.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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