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| The
myths of Mae – first lady of Hollywood |
Far from
being a dumb blonde bombshell Mae West was a highly articulate woman
and a feminist to boot, writes Piers Plowright
WHAT is it about Mae West that makes the heart lift?
It’s not just the sexiness, the shoulder-swinging lope, the
drawl – like honey poured through broken glass – the one-liners.
It’s not even the chutzpah, the cheek, the willingness to take
on the men and win. It’s something only the greatest entertainers
have and it amounts – for the audience – to ‘liberation’.
I remember going with my father to the Hampstead Everyman Cinema
around 1950 to see My Little Chickadee, a piece of Wild West hokum
in which Mae as Flower Belle Lee and WC Fields as Cuthbert J Twillie,
temporary sheriff of Greasewood City, spar, connive, and compete
to take the mask off ‘The Masked Bandit’. It’s not
a great film – ‘a classic among bad movies’, critic
Pauline Kael called it, but as long as those two are on screen,
sheer joy. And Mae West wins on points.
Born Mary Jane West on the August 13 1893 (Mae was to update that
by at least 10 years in one of her many rewritings of her own history)
in Brooklyn to a one-time part Irish prize-fighter and his fashion
conscious German wife, Mae moved through dance-school, vaudeville,
comedy theatre and film to become by 1934 the highest paid performer
in the USA, earning close to $400,000 a year, over three times as
much as Marlene Dietrich. |
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| OTHER
HEADLINES |
| Book
explosion is a great gift for children |
| BOOKS |
| Penalty
king who dared to defy the money men |
| BOOKS |
| A
confused light shed on the murky world of spies |
| BOOKS |
| ‘I
wanna walk like you, talk like you... oo-be-do’ |
| FEATURE |
| The
A-Z of wonderful works of art |
| FEATURE |
| It’s
monkey magic |
| MOVIES |
| Take
85 for Brubeck |
| MUSIC: CLASSICAL |
| Rap’s
statesman suffers dodgy kit |
| MUSIC: GROOVES |
| Classical
and Gig listings |
| MUSIC LISTINGS |
| Jack’s
full of beans |
| THEATRE |
| Theatre
listings |
| THEATRE |
| Don’t
waste your finest on relatives |
| THE WINE
PRESS |
| It’s
time to talk turkey |
| THE GOOD LIFE |
| Authentic
taste of subcontinent |
| RESTAURANT
REVIEW |
| Do
not let the turkey push the puddings aside |
| THE GOOD
LIFE |
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Don't waste your finest
on relatives
DO you enjoy or endure Christmas? It isn’t only that we’re
bullied into spending money we haven’t got.
FULL STORY
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