Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Mae West: 160 Per Cent

Broadway backers found MAE WEST to be worth her weight in diamonds, according to this financial insight from the trade publication Billboard.
• • "Find 'Diamond' Is Angel's Best Friend" • •
• • For the long pull, diamonds are an angel's best friend. Albert H. Rosen has mailed Christmas checks to "Diamond Lil" backers, bringing their returns to 160 per cent of their respective investments. A year ago it looked as tho "Lil" would be lucky to pay off in rhinestones, what with a five-month lay-off due to star Mae West's broken leg.
• • Source: Item in The Billboard's "Sides and Asides" section; published on Saturday, 6 January 1951.
• • Diem Obiit Mater: on Sunday, 26 January 1930 • •
• • Mae West and her mother were really the love of each other's lives until Matilda died in the month of January — — on Sunday, 26 January 1930 — — at age 59. How terrifying it was for Mae during the winter of 1929, knowing that her mother's illness was worsening. After Matilda died, Mae felt, "There wasn't anyone to play to."
• • Note: On the April 1911 marriage license for Mae West and Frank Wallace, her mother's name is noted as "Matilda Dilker" not Delker, quite probably a clerical error.
• • On Monday, 26 January 1948 • •
• • In Britain, The Times reported on Monday, 26 January 1948 that "Miss West is a competent actress. Appearing in a tawdry ornate framework of her own devising, she puts across her own kind of audacity with good timing and a shrewd sense of its own absurdity."
• • On Thursday, 26 January 2012 • •
• • A spirited talk on Mae West took place in Great Britain on Thursday, 26 January 2012. The topic was "Parker Tyler, Mae West, and Queer Fandom"; the speaker was Dr. James Boaden, Department of History, University of York.
• • According to critic Parker Tyler, Mae West's "sudden greatness was to have introduced a deliberately comic parody of the sex goddess. Her unique blend of sexiness and vulgar comedy, in other words, was the screen's first sterling brand of conscious sex camp." In 1969, Parker Tyler expressed his opinion that Mae was "a female impersonator who is, after all, a woman." A few years later, he wrote the intro to Jon Tuska's book "The Complete Films of Mae West."
• • Overheard in Hollywood • •
• • It was his work opposite Mae West that made Cary Grant  the ideal choice to be co-starred with Loretta Young in “Born to Be Bad.”
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West said:  "Diamonds is my career."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • A book on autism mentioned Mae West, who visited the Dionne quintuplets.
• • John Donvan and Caren Zucker wrote: Exotic by virtue of their genetic rarity, the Dionne quintuplets imprinted themselves indelibly on their generation. They were a matched set, yet unmatched in the example they set of human resilience, and the most famous children on earth. 
• • The future queen of England would visit the quintuplets. Mae West, Clark Gable, and Bette Davis all made the trip north. So did aviatrix Amelia Earhart, six weeks before her final flight, not to mention thousands of ordinary families on vacation.  . . .
• • Source: Book excerpt from "In a Different Key: The Story of Autism"; published in 2016 
• • The Mae West Blog celebrates its 11th anniversary • •    
• • Thank you for reading, sending questions, and posting comments during these past eleven years. The other day we entertained 3,497 visitors. And we reached a milestone recently when we completed 3,300 blog posts. Wow! 
• • By the Numbers • • 
• • The Mae West Blog was started ten years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 3363rd 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 • in 1936

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