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In 1921, MAE WEST was in a musical revue "The Mimic World" with actor William F. Moran.
• • William F. Moran [2 October 1888 — 6 January 1972] • •
• • Born in New Orleans on 2 October 1888, William Moran was entranced by the dramatic arts. By the age of 22, he was on Broadway in November 1910 in "Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman," a revival that was shot down and put out of its misery quickly. But realizing the cinema trade was flourishing, he had sweetly sashayed his way into a shortie by 1916.
• • Perhaps William Moran bore a resemblance to an infamous actor, John Wilkes Booth, because he was cast as the presidential assassin in two silent films about Lincoln. The first was "In the Days of Buffalo Bill" [1922]. The second was "The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln" [1924]. A. Edward Sutherland was cast as William Scott; as a director, Eddie Sutherland helmed "Every Day's a Holiday" [1938], which starred Mae West. And guess who portrayed Mary Lincoln? It was Nell Craig, the actress who was cast in three motion pictures starring Mae West. Nell was seen as Mrs. Bond in "I'm No Angel" [1933]. Perhaps you also recalled her as a society lady in "Goin' to Town" [1935] as well as a mournful looking missionary in "Klondike Annie" [1936].
• • Right before he worked on those movies about Lincoln, William Moran returned to Broadway. In 1921 he was onstage with Mae in "The Mimic World" and he worked with Ned Wayburn that summer in "Town Topics."
• • Between 1916 — 1947, William Moran participated in 25 motion pictures in minor roles. He died in Los Angeles in January — — on Thursday, 6 January 1972. He was 83.
• • On Sunday, 6 January 1935 • •
• • On Sunday, 6 January 1935, one day after her father had died, an interview with Mae West ran in the Sunday Dispatch. The title was "I'm an angel really — Mae West tells for the first time just what she is really like."
• • On Saturday, 6 January 1940 • •
• • Blytheville, Arkansas was a-buzzing on Saturday, 6 January 1940 when the Courier News was delivered. On page 3 was a tsk-tsk tut-tut piece about Mae West, then shooting with W.C. Fields in Hollywood.
• • The article scolded the screen siren because she had been "ruling the roost" during shooting of "My Little Chickadee," making script changes and criticizing the action. Supposedly, the director protested that he had reached the limit of his patience when Mae demanded that cast mate Joseph Calleia dye his hair before their romantic scenes.
• • On Saturday, 6 January 2001 • •
• • The screen classics starring Mae West "I'm No Angel" and "She Done Him Wrong" became the movie package acquired by Turner Classic Movies. "I'm No Angel" made its premiere on that station on Saturday, 6 January 2001.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "I wrote scenes for them to cut. These scenes were so rough I’d never have used them, but they worked as a decoy. They cut them and left the stuff I wanted. I had these scenes in there about a man’s fly and all that, and the censors would be sittin’ in the projection room laughin’ themselves silly. Then they’d say ‘Cut it’ and not notice the rest.."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A book on censorship mentioned Mae West.
• • Aubrey Malone wrote: Almost from the word go, Mae West was seen as Public Enemy Number One as far as Breen was concerned. ... Most of Hollywood’s sex symbols were created by the so-called “Dream Machine” but West was self-made. Her play Sex hit the stage in 1926 and was swiftly branded by both church and state as the height of depravity. John Sumner of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV) believed the public were gullible and didn’t know what was best for them, which meant that they needed to be protected from themselves by people like him. This imperious usurping of the conscience of the nation was fairly typical of such spokespeople. One is reminded of the definition of a censor as somebody who “No’s” what he likes. The placards tantalizingly advertised “Sex with Mae West” while her enemies called her one of the devil’s daughters. The public, meanwhile, just regarded it all as a bit of a hoot. By making fun of carnality (“Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?”) she took the harm out of her own salaciousness. She didn’t exude the raw danger of a Tennessee Williams a couple of decades down the line. Instead she chose to poke fun at prudish shibboleths as a kind of precursor to the “Carry On” era of adolescent locker room repartee. Up until now, this had been the sole preserve of men folk. Sex was originally called The Albatross. If she kept that title, it’s doubtful it would have created such seismic waves. It took a while to gather steam as it was dismissed by most reviewers as unadulterated tripe. But by the first weekend of its run there were lines three deep around the block outside the theater. So much for reviews. Many of the people in the lines were sailors. ...
• • Source: Chapter: "West and the Rest" in "Censoring Hollywood: Sex and Violence in Film and on the Cutting Room Floor" written by Aubrey Malone; published by McFarland, 2001
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started eight years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2538th 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/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1940 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
NYC Mae West.
MAE WEST was the subject of a provocative cover line in Shadoplay's January 1934 issue (cover price 10 cents).
• • Her New Boy Friend • •
• • Hester Lane wrote the article: "Mae Answers the Letter of Her New Boy Friend" (on pages 30 — 31, 76).
• • A month later, the February 1934 issue had a striking cover featuring Mae in red lipstick with an excitable looking red fabric caressing her head on the left side.
• • Shadoplay, alas, was short-lived. From the July 1935 issue forward, Movie Mirror merged with the publication Shadoplay.
• • Source: Article in Shadoplay, Vol. 2, No. 5, January 1934 issue.
• • John Patrick West [March 1866 — 5 January 1935] • •
• • Despite having an ambivalent relationship with her father, Mae West took after him and also worked for him when he peddled fruit in Brooklyn and when he helmed a "detective agency" in New Jersey and New York City. Before opening his own operation, West had walked the beat in Coney Island and elsewhere in Brooklyn.
• • Born on Manhattan's Lower East Side in March 1866, John Patrick West [called "Jack"] grew up feisty, impatient, and strong. As a child he boasted that he'd rather fight than eat. He got his Irish up rather quickly, remembered Mae. He was easily angered and "always ready to do physical violence when the urge was on him." In 1969, Mae revealed in an interview that she thought her father was cruel — — but realized "all his fighting was done doing other people's fighting for them."
• • Jack West was 7 years old in 1873 when his family moved from Avenue C (near the docks) in Manhattan to the borough of Brooklyn, settling first in Red Hook, and then in Greenpoint.
• • On 19 January 1889, in Greenpoint, Battling Jack West and Tillie Delker took their wedding vows before a local minister with Jack's sister Julia West acting as maid of honor.
• • On Saturday, 5 January 1935, "Battling Jack" heard the final countdown; he passed away in Oakland, California of a stroke.
• • On this date we remember John Patrick West with love and respect.
• • On Wednesday, 5 January 1938 • •
• • "Paramount: Mae West Most Likely All Washed Up" was the downbeat headline in Variety Magazine on Wednesday, 5 January 1938. After the NBC broadcast brouhaha, Paramount began monitoring audience feedback to the coming attractions that were onscreen at the New York City Paramount Theatre. Their investigators noted that, since the Adam and Eve skit was on the air, audience members were greeting trailers showing Mae West with generous applause. There was also some hissing and Variety chose to focus on the negative. Typical.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "That's why I want you to see her story — — because her-story is the real lowdown."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article on women in the theatre mentioned Mae West.
• • Anthony Chase wrote: Another American woman playwright who enjoyed the distinction of racking up the highest advance box office sales in the history of Broadway, Mae West, scored a huge hit with her 1926 play, Sex, but saw her 1928 play, Pleasure Man, closed down by the police after its second performance. Despite the fact that she duplicated this success in Hollywood, West’s work is not included in anthologies, she is never mentioned in theater textbooks, and her work is out of print. In fact, the only American woman whose plays are consistently included in the American repertoire is Lillian Hellman, and even she had to go on a deliberate publicity campaign in the 1970s when she saw a list of the nation’s 10 greatest living playwrights and found that her name was missing. . . .
• • Source: Article: "An Uncommon Woman" written by Anthony Chase for Art Voice (Buffalo, NY); posted on Wednesday, 5 January 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started eight years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2537th 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/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1934 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
NYC Mae West.
Jerry Orbach recalled that his first troupe mates, in summer stock at the Chevy Chase Playhouse in Wheeling, Illinois, were MAE WEST, Vincent Price, and January baby John Ireland [30 January 1914 — 21 March 1992].
• • It was 1952 and Orbach had just graduated from high school, wrote David Hiltbrand for Knight-Ridder on Sunday, 4 January 2004.
• • Jerry Orbach [20 October 1935 — 28 December 2004] was not onstage with these notables, however. The 17-year-old was hired to be an apprentice, a general factotum. Orbach remembered: "My first job in summer stock, right out of Waukegan High School, the director handed me the keys to his 1947 Cadillac and told me to pick up Mae West, who was touring in ‘Come On Up, Ring Twice.' When the run was over, she tossed me a $100 bill. It was like four weeks' pay. I was making $25 a week, so it was the most money I'd ever had."
• • On Tuesday, 4 January 1938 in Los Angeles Herald Examiner • •
• • ... the only proper protection ... • •
• • The Los Angeles Herald Examiner used to run a "Views and Reviews" column. It was on Tuesday, 4 January 1938 that readers noticed a short item deriding Mae West: "The name of Mae West — — much more of a miss than a hit — — has been banned from use on its radio programs by the National Broadcasting Company. Such action is the only proper protection for the homes of decent American citizens. ..." Startling, eh?
• • During January 1938 • •
• • In early January 1938, The New York Times jumped into this debate as well. Their headline was "Mae West Script Brings Sharp Rebuke From FCC; NBC Is Censured for 'Vulgar' Broadcast of 'Adam and Eve'" and the article ran on page 59.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "But above all, you've gotta have a certain something."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article in Westfield Republican mentioned Mae West.
• • Westfield Republican wrote: Out of the past came none other than the inimitable Mae West, portrayed by guest impersonator Alice O'Grady, to tell a bit of her experiences at a recent Westfield-Mayville Rotary Club meeting.
• • Westfield Republican wrote: No one thought it unusual to welcome a "woman known by all" for her outspoken view of life. For instance, someone said to her as she was introduced, "Goodness, Ms. West, your diamonds are so beautiful." O'Grady responded as West, "Goodness had nothing to do with it, Dearie." That was Mae West.
• • Westfield Republican wrote: Mae West lived her life as she pleased, particularly during the Roaring Twenties, when life was rather free and unrestricted. One of her greatest shows was on Broadway in the hit, "Diamond Lil," which was full of double entendres. ...
• • Source: Article: "Rotary hears from SUNY Fredonia’s first female president, holds annual dinner" for Westfield Republican; posted on Wednesday, 2 January 2013
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started eight years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2536th 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/
________
Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1952 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWest
NYC Mae West.
