Sunday, March 18, 2012

Mae West: Life Story

It was on Wednesday, 18 March 1953 that people were reading about a new motion picture based on the life of MAE WEST.
• • Hollywood gossip columns announced this: Her name is Pat Morrissey. She has platinum blonde hair, and big dark eyes. She expects soon to star in a film of the life of Mae West. She was photographed shortly after her arrival in London for a cabaret engagement. The Mae West film will be shot after Pat returns to America. "The casting people think I am just the right size for the part," she said. Her height is only 5 feet 2 inches.
• • Source: Article: "New Film Star" published on page 14 in The Mercury (Hobart, Tasmania) on Wednesday, 18 March 1953.
• • Obviously, this project fizzled out and so did the screen career of five-foot-two cabaret singer Pat Morrissey, sad to say.
• • Louis Bromfield [27 December 1896 — 18 March 1956] • •
• • Club Napoleon’s escapades inspired a sly short story — — "Single Night" by Louis Bromfield — — a narrative that Mae West, Kathryn Scola, and Vincent Lawrence would fine-tune and finesse into a screenplay about a speak with the working title of Number 55.
• • Though he made his name writing about rural life, Louis Bromfield was intrigued by the downward mobility of West 56th Street, once the preserve of bluebloods but now in the hands of gangsters who ran the speakeasy Mona Lisa [36 West 56th] or Larry Fay, who opened his parlor floors to drinkers.
• • Born Lewis Brumfield in Ohio on 27 December 1896, the 6' 2" inch journalist won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Early Autumn [1926], and then turned to writing fulltime. His short story "Single Night" became the backbone of the Paramount film "Night After Night" [released on 30 October 1932]. Two months after the film was distributed to moviehouses across the country, bootlegger Larry Fay met a spectacularly crimson-soaked death inside 33 West 56th Street on 1 January 1933.
• • Author and farmer Louis Bromfield had a more serene death, at age 60, on 18 March 1956.
• • In the 18 March 1936 issue of Variety • •
• • Variety reviewed "Klondike Annie," calling the motion picture "chic" and starting the critique on the front page. But the man-on-the-aisle objected to several elements therein. "Miss West is handicapped by having to wear rather dowdy dresses in about half the footage. In other portions she struts fine feathers and wears a set of furs that will make the women gasp," he commented on page 17. Variety Magazine's issue was dated for 18 March 1936.
• • In the March 2000 issue of The New Criterion • •
• • The New Criterion published the article "Mae Days" by Mark Steyn (Vol. 18, March 2000). Mark Steyn wrote: "But quite a lot of Mae West is going quite a long way on the New York stage these days. It’s been twenty years since her death, almost seventy since her career peaked, and, on a random sample, I find most people today have no very clear idea who she was. Yet she’s out there . . . ."
• • On 18 March 2007 in NYC • •
• • Mae West was featured at the South Street Seaport on 18 March and 24 March 2007 when a salute to old-time variety artists was onstage.
• • Organized by Montauk Theatre Productions/ Shooting Star Theatre and the show's creators NY Artists Unlimited, both shows were matinees and geared towards all ages.
• • "Voices of the Town — — A Vaudeville Salute!" featured a line-up that included Mae West, The Marx Brothers, Sophie Tucker, Bert Williams, Florence Mills, Eva Tanguay, Marie Dressler, and more.
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said: "Gentlemen, pet your women. They love it like a tabby cat. Occasionally suggest that they buy a new dress, even if they have enough to clothe an 1890 chorus."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • An article about well-known quotes mentioned Mae West.
• • L.M. Boyd wrote: It was Mae West who revitalized the old bird-in-the-hand line. Except what she said was: ''A man in the house is worth two in the street.''. . .
• • Source: Item: "Names and Faces" written by L.M. Boyd for Orlando Sentinel; published on 18 March 1992
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2242nd 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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