Playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo was born
in Borough Park and raised in Bensonhurst. But she never had
much interest in fellow-Brooklynite Mae West until she moved
to Manhattan.
There Loschiavo’s curiosity about the history of the block where
she lived, West Ninth Street near Sixth Avenue, led to some surprising
discoveries.
"As I started doing the research, I realized that many judges
had lived on the street, because the Jefferson Market Courthouse
was there," Loschiavo told GO Brooklyn.
It was at the courthouse that, in the spring of 1927, a 35-year-old
rising star named Mae West was sentenced to 10 days at the Women’s
Workhouse on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island) for obscenity
in her Broadway play titled "Sex." And it is in that
same building – now the Jefferson Market Courthouse Library –
that Loschiavo’s play, "Courting Mae West," will have
its first staged reading on Feb. 7.
Loschiavo says her play is about a journalist who wants to become
romantically involved with West.
"She’s interested in him because he can give her editorial
coverage," said Loschiavo. "There are no courtroom
scenes, but the play does talk about her arrest. Through Mae
West, I can tell other stories, too – like the story of [New
York call girl] Starr Faithful, who died at the age of 25 while
at a boat party and inspired John O’Hara’s [novel later turned
into a film starring Elizabeth Taylor] ’BUtterfield 8’; the trial
of Sacco and Vanzetti; and the [exploits] of Amelia Earhart,
who was created by the press even before her first solo flight."
West was born Mary Jane West, in 1893, on Herbert Street, in
what is now Greenpoint. Later, her family lived on Bushwick Avenue
and Euclid Avenue. At that time, Bushwick was the capital of
beer making. West’s maternal grandfather, Jakob Delker Doelger,
was a Jewish-Bavarian brewmaster, and West was often referred
to as "the German girl," by neighbors.
West’s mother, Matilda (Tillie) married the Anglo-Irish John
West. West was a former featherweight prizefighter nicknamed
"Battling Jack." Tillie was a corset model.
"We can assume that Mae, who was barely 5 feet tall and
always wore platform shoes, had pretty much her mother’s figure,"
says Loschiavo. As for her father’s influence, it was while visiting
the gym that young Mae developed a taste for those "beautiful
men" with "magnificent muscles."
Backed by a pushy stage mother, West started in vaudeville, appearing
alongside Harry Houdini and Dan the Drinking Dog. By the time
she was 8 years old, West was appearing regularly at the Gotham
Theatre in Brooklyn.
Bushwick, which originally included what is now Greenpoint, Williamsburg
and Ridgewood, was once home, in its eastern edge, to many of
the city’s best theaters and was considered an alternative to
Manhattan’s theater district.
"Sex" was West’s first venture on Broadway. It was
followed by "Drag," a play about transvestites. Although
"Drag" did moderately well in New Jersey, West chose
not to take it to Broadway. Finally, in 1928, West had her first
Broadway smash hit with "Diamond Lil" – the play that
created the wisecracking, warm-hearted persona we all came to
know.
But above all, West was known for her enthusiastically salacious
one-liners. Her words of precious wisdom include: "It’s
better to be looked over than overlooked"; "When women
go wrong, men go right after them"; "When choosing
between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried
before"; "I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t
resist it"; and "It’s not the men in my life that counts
– it’s the life in my men."
Looking back on Mae West’s long and lusty career, it’s easy to
see that she was everything Madonna could have been – if she’d
only been born in Brooklyn.
A staged reading of LindaAnn Loschiavo’s
"Courting Mae West" will be presented at the Jefferson
Market Library, on Feb. 7, at 2 pm. The library is located at
425 Sixth Ave. at West 10th Street in Manhattan. Dress in Roaring
Twenties garb to get a free gift. Attend a Mae West look-alike
contest at a private after-party at 3:30 pm at a nearby location.
The event is free and open to the public. RSVP to nonstopny@aol.com
or (212) 243-4334.
