Sherlock Gets Locked Up

MAE WEST was arrested on 9 February 1927 along with the cast of "Sex," the cast of "The Virgin Man," and the cast of "The Captive."• • Snooty Basil Rathbone, who died during the month of July — — on 21 July 1967 in New York, NY — — was cuffed and brought downtown to Jefferson Market Police Court along with Helen Menken and their co-stars. • • Born in South Africa on 13 June 1892, Basil Rathbone was one year older than Mae West — — but in his mind, he was worlds apart even though they were both starring on Broadway in 1927.• • During the 1920s, most of Basil Rathbone's work was in the legitimate theater. For many of his Broadway roles he portrayed a suave, sophisticated seducer of women — — quite a change from the legendary ascetic Baker Street detective he would play later in his career.• • Making a sensation at the Empire Theatre was a drama that had been highly regarded in Paris: "The Captive." Basil Rathbone was cast in the role of Jacques Virieu, a young man engaged to be married, only to discover that his fiancée [played by Helen Menken] is in love with someone else — — a woman. Since homosexuality was such a controversial topic during the Roaring Twenties, the entire cast was charged with offending public morals, and the play was closed right after the police raid.• • Basil Rathbone was very angry about the censorship of his work, but even more aggrieved that show people would start whispering that he was arrested and booked — — with Mae West.• • For years, Basil Rathbone and his wife made their home at 135 Central Park West. Mae lived in several westside locations, occasionally not far from Rathbone. But there is no record of their taking tea together to reminisce over their arrest on indecency charges in 1927.
• • The Empire Theatre • •
• • Built in 1893, the Empire Theatre had been situated at 1430 Broadway (between West 40th and West 41st) in Manhattan. An impressive playhouse, it seated about 1100. J.B. McElfatrick was the architect. Producer Charles Frohman had it built "uptown" at the suggestion of Al Hayman — — "Everything theatrical is moving uptown," he advised. Al Hayman took ownership after Frohman died on the Lusitania in 1915. In 1948, the Astor estate purchased the Empire Theatre and announced, in 1953, that it would be torn down to make way for an office tower. Waves of nostalgia spread through the theatre community, and performers gathered to celebrate the venue in a restrospective farewell performance. The bulldozers arrived in 1953 and an edifice was wrecked.• • Brush up those zippy Mae West lines right on Broadway — — Sunday afternoon August 16th — — and forge a-Mae-zing memories.• • Walking Tour: "Gaudy Girls on The Gay White Way: Mae West & Texas Guinan in the Theatre District"
• • When: 4:00 PM on Sunday — — 16 August 2008 — — rain or shine
• • Meet: Shubert Alley, 44th Street, West of Broadway, New York, NY 10036
• • Price: $10 [this walking tour lasts about 90 minutes]
• • Subway: N or R [BMT] train to West 42nd Street; 1 [IRT] train to Times Square
• • Attire: why not wear a Mae West-inspired hat?
• • Info: T. 212-614-9683 — — or post your RSVP or tour question here
• • Online: MaeWest.blogspot.com — — TexasGuinan.blogspot.com
• • Who: Playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo makes the tour educational and entertaining.
• • LindaAnn Loschiavo's history play "Courting Mae West" was onstage in July 2008 at the Fresh Fruit Festival. She is working on a biographical travel guide "Mae West's New York, 1899—1959" and will show some of her unusual theatre memorabilia and vintage photos during the tour and reveal secret addresses tied to Mae West that have not been disclosed before. These rare pictures show the area as it looked during the 1920s when Mae West and Texas Guinan had their name on several marquees.
• • Surprises: Prizes and other nice things are part of the fun
• • Members of the press may attend on August 16th as our guest. RSVP required.• • • • Mae West Walking Tours You Might Have Enjoyed • • • •
• • 2006 TOUR: Our regular Mae-mavens will recall seeing the historical exhibition "Onstage Outlaws: Mae West and Texas Guinan in a Lawless Era,” which opened to the public after a Gala Roaring-20s theme Press Preview on Mae’s birthday 17 August 2006. And on Sunday afternoon 20 August 2006, more than two dozen beautiful people gathered on West Ninth Street to enjoy a special treat — — "Washington Square Women: Mae West and Texas Guinan in Greenwich Village" — — followed by a Jazz Era brunch served with champagne and the Cos-MAE-Politan cocktail, garnished with two strategically placed plump raspberries.
• • 2007 TOUR: On Friday evening 17 August 2007, a fascinating guided adventure — — "The Mae West Side Story" — — escorted numerous intrepid walk-abouts to three of Mae's former residences along with other sites linked to the Brooklyn bombshell.
• • 2008 TOUR: On Sunday afternoon 17 August 2008, the captivating Diamond Divas led a group of over two dozen Mae-mavens to several locations in Greenwich Village linked to her stage career, gay themes, courtroom woes, and the work of individuals she admired such as Lillian Russell, Tony Pastor, Texas Guinan, Eugene O'Neill, and Rae Bourbon. The 2008 walking tour — — "Mae West's Walk on the Wild Side" — — celebrated the 115th birthday of the Empress of Sex with an extravagant musical program, performed live by Met Opera soprano Marlena de la Mora and Sharon Weinman, which included these numbers: "Everything's Coming up Mae West"; "Mon Coeur S' Ouvre a Ta Voix"; "The Prisoner's Song"; "Frankie and Johnny"; "Come Down Ma Evening Star"; "I Could Have Danced All Night"; "Gentleman Jimmy"; and a grand finale taken from the score of "Diamond Lil."
• • Tour photos can be seen on the Mae West Blog.
• • For more details, do read the Mae West Blog and/ or post your email. [Your info will not be posted nor available so that miscreants and rascals can access it.]
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Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Basil Rathbone with Helen Menken • • February 1927 • •
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Jefferson Market.

Mae West's Jail Tale

The past is another country — — and MAE WEST was most comfortable there.
• • However, in her Broadway blockbuster "Diamond Lil" [1928] Mae's aim was not to resurrect the naughty nineties — — but to present that bygone decade's sins in shifty soft focus. The world of Diamond Lil, restrained by Victorian morality despite a certain cheeky daring, was a backwards glance to a time of innocence, picturesque entertainment, well-behaved wildness, corset-clad temptresses, The Police Gazette's seductions, and 5-cent beer.
• • Drama critic Stark Young [1881—1963] analyzed Mae's clever maneuvers in his article for The New Republic:
• • "Diamond Lil" is as daring in the end [as 1926's "Sex"], the same sexy morsels, embraces, interventions of the law with rank suspenses, frank speeches, underworld, and so on. But it is more covered, continuous, and studied than the other production, and the crowd of characters, the costuming and vaudevillistic intervals, pull the whole of this later play into a more familiar style, less crudely, and sheerly singular than "Sex" appeared to be [excerpt from The New Republic — 27 June 1928].
• • Louis Lopardi, who will direct "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship and Secrets" in July at the Algonquin Theatre, also feels enriched by the past. His own production — — The Purgatory Project, Part 2 — — reimagined the lives led by four famous historical figures: Sigmund Freud, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Lee Harvey Oswald.
• • A history buff as well as a thespian, Lopardi especially enjoys plays with a classical echo, texts rooted to a mythic past. For instance, he found "Metamorphoses," a play based on the Greek poem Metamorphoses by Ovid, fascinating and he relished the modernized adaptation written by Mary Zimmerman a few years ago. Ovid works onstage because those depictions of yearning and confused desires are timeless, feels Lopardi.
• • Since he has frequently decanted Ovid's ancient songs, he noticed right away the mythic skin underneath "Courting Mae West" — — the Brooklyn bombshell's story reimagined as the metamorphosis of King Midas. How you get the golden touch is one of the subtle sub-plots here. As Mae's career goals recalibrate her box office appeal, she will earn her hard cold slice of success — — but at a cost.
• • "I like a multi-layered comedy," admits Lopardi. "The best shows make you laugh for an hour and a half — — and then, untethered from your Playbill, you mull it over at home."
• • Bringing "Courting Mae West" to an audience requires funding. To support A Company Of Players, a non-profit theatre group established in 1979 to present meaningful theatre, please click on this link — — http://www.companyofplayers.com/support.htm
• • A Company Of Players is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 type organization, and donations to the group are considered a charitable, tax-deductible contribution.
• • Contribute through "Pay Pal" or you can mail a check to: A Company Of Players, 545 Eighth Avenue, #401, New York NY 10018-4307.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" — — based on true events when Mae West was tried at the Jefferson Market Police Court — — will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] soon after the Independence Day holidays.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Mae West • • February 1927 • •
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Jefferson Market.

Under the spider web, evil lurks

• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — the comic book • •
• • • • A new play often starts with a STAGED READING.
• • • • At a STAGED READING, the actors read the script to the audience. During NYC staged readings, the actors are usually dressed simply, in all black, and there are no props nor scenery.
• • • • Since my play is set during the Prohibition Era [the action runs from December 1926 - December 1932], and I wanted to give the audience the "feel" of the costumes and the thrill of the 1920s atmosphere, I created a colorful comic book that was used as a "playbill" for each Staged Reading.
• • • • The "Courting Mae West" comic book has a different narrative arc than the stage play along with its own "cartoon-like" version of the dialogue — — along with supernatural creatures such as a talking blackbird and a mild-mannered, bespectacled reporter who tears off his business suit to become the super-hero FIRST AMENDMENT.
• • • • The comic book rewards theatre-goers by setting the stage when there IS no stage, just black-clad actors, 7 scripts, and 7 chairs.
• • • • The MAE WEST Blog — — MaeWest.blogspot.com — — will post more comic book panels this week.
• • After the 9 February 1927 performance of "SEX," Mae was hauled off to Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue and Greenwich Avenue, where she spent the night locked up with streetwalkers and drug addicts.
• • In this panel, Censorship, Bigotry, and Hidden Agenda plot against Mae West under the wrought iron spider web at Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue [New York, NY].
• • From the "Courting Mae West" comic book version.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Jefferson Market
• • Artist: Michael DiMotta • • Mae West • • February 1927 • •
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Jefferson Market.

Inez Milholland [1886-1916]

This never-to-be-forgotten leader comes to mind for many reasons. If you never met INEZ MILHOLLAND [1886 — 1916], war resister, suffragette, civil rights organizer, and human dynamo, then make her acquaintance here.
• • Though it seems like yesterday that she was arguing the merits of her case in Jefferson Market Court, it took place almost 100 years ago on 18 January 1910.
• • This is what the newspapers said about the trial in January 1910:
• • • MISS MILHOLLAND WILL APPEAL IF CONVICTED • • •
The cases of Miss Inez MILHOLLAND, daughter of John E. MILHOLLAND, and Lieut. Henry W. TOURNEY, of the Coast Artillery Corps — — who were arrested last night as the result of a demonstration by striking shirtwaist workers which Miss MILHOLLAND was leading — — were called in Jefferson Market Court, Manhattan, to-day, and after much testimony had been taken were continued until to-morrow afternoon.
• • Miss MILHOLLAND, accompanied by the lieutenant and 500 strikers and their sympathizers, were marching in Waverly Place in front of a factory when Police Captain HENRY demanded that they disperse. They refused, declaring that Magistrate BARLOW had declared so long as they kept moving they could not be disturbed. HENRY disputed this. He told the court to-day that the strikers and their followers blocked the streets and obstructed traffic. His uniform was badly torn in the melee which followed the refusal of Miss MILHOLLAND to order her followers to disperse and the [ . . . ] were badly ruffled because young women, in ignorance of the divinity that hedges the person of a New York police captain, demanded his number.
• • It is rumored that as the result of his coming into conflict with the civil authorities and being locked up — — both he and Miss MILHOLLAND were placed in a cell until John MILHOLLAND arrived to bail them out — — Lieut. TOURNEY may have to face a court-martial. In all, fifteen strikers and sympathizers were arrested last night.
• • Should the police prove their charge of disorderly conduct and obstructing an officer in the discharge of his duty against Miss MILHOLLAND the case will be appealed to the highest courts in order to get a decision on this question as well as to have determined how far a person may go on "peacefully picketing" a plant where there is a strike. Miss MILHOLLAND is a graduate of Vassar and an ardent advocate of women's suffrage. . . .
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Inez Milholland was born in Brooklyn, New York on 6 August 1886. She attended Vassar and was suspended after organizing a women's suffrage meeting in a cemetery.
• • She matured into a record-setting collegiate athlete, an attorney, a forceful and charismatic public speaker. Friends remembered Inez as a tall, beautiful woman in flowing robes, riding a white horse at the head of a great movement [March 1913]. She fought for labor, was a writer and magazine editor, served as a correspondent in the First World War, was jailed as a suffragette in England, and died at 30 while on a speaking tour as a suffragist in this country.
• • Her last public words were, "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?"
• • In 1913 Milholland led the women's suffrage demonstration in Washington on a white horse. Wearing white robes, the photograph of Milholland during the parade became one of the most memorable images of the struggle for women's rights in America.
• • Milholland lived in Greenwich Village [New York] and was associated with a group of socialists involved in the production of The Masses journal. [This group included Max Eastman, John Reed, Crystal Eastman, Inez Milholland, Louis Untermeyer, Randolf Bourne, Dorothy Day, Mabel Dodge, Floyd Dell, and Louise Bryant.]
• • Like most of the people involved with The Masses, Milholland was opposed to America's involvement in the First World War. In December 1915, Milholland and other pacifists travelled on Henry Ford's Peace Ship to Europe.
• • On her return to the USA she became one of the leaders of the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage. The movement's most popular orator, Milholland was in demand as a speaker at public meetings from coast to coast.
• • Inez Milholland, who suffered from pernicious anemia, was warned by her doctor of the dangers of vigorous campaigning. However, she refused to heed his advice and she collapsed in the middle of a speech in Los Angeles on 22 October 1916.
• • She was rushed to a hospital. Despite repeated blood transfusions — — blood donated by her sister Vida — — 30-year-old Inez died on 25 November 1916.
• • Jefferson Market Court commemorates this peace activist and suffrage martyr, and rejoices in her bright spirit as this troubled city prepares to go to the polls in November 2008, the sixth year of the wasteful war in the Middle East — — the US-led take-over in Iraq that has resulted in thousands killed.
• • Every New York City historian remembers our hometown firebrand Inez Milholland. In Greenwich Village, many daughters have been named in your honor.
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Jefferson Market
• • Photo: Inez Milholland • •
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Jefferson Market.

"Commit the crime on 8th Street"

In 1917, a talented 37-year-old author was finishing her manuscript Greenwich Village. Recently widowed, Mrs. Robert Peyton Carter had relocated from West 112th Street (the northern precinct where her actor-husband had preferred to live) far downtown to 241 West 13th Street — — and she had fallen in love with her bohemian neighborhood. With several screenplays and even a Broadway play to her credit, the writer had no trouble attracting an illustrator to work on her project. Shortly after celebrating her 40th birthday, however, she sickened and died. OLD JEFF can picture this beauty in 1917, 90 years ago. Enjoy an excerpt from her book — — and her forever-young photograph. Anna Alice, gifted one, you live on in every New Yorker's history-loving heart!
• • • • Greenwich Village • • • •
By: Anna Alice Chapin [1880 — 1920]
Illustrator: Alan Gilbert Cram
[NY: DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, 1925; COPYRIGHT, 1917]
• • Illustration: JEFFERSON MARKET. The old clock that has told the hours of justice for Greenwich Village during many years.
— — excerpt — —
• • It is an odd coincidence that the present Jefferson Market Police Court stands now at Tenth Street — — ­ though a good bit further inland than the ancient State’s Prison. The old Jefferson Market clock has looked down upon a deal of crime and trouble, but a fair share of goodness and comfort too. It is hopeful to think that the present regime of Justice is a kindlier and a cleaner one than that which prevailed when the treadmill and the dark cell were Virtue’s methods of persuading Vice. Someone, I know not who, wrote this apropos of prisons in Greenwich:
• • "In these days fair Greenwich Village
• • Slept by Hudson’s rural shores,
• • Then the stage from Greenwich Prison
• • Drove to Wall Street thrice a day —­ — —
• • Now the sombre ‘Black Maria’
• • Oftener drives the other way."
• • • • OLD JEFF: But I like to think that the old clock, if it could speak, would have some cheering tales to tell. I like to believe that ugly things are slipping farther and farther from Our Village, that honest romance and clean gaiety are rather the rule there than the exception, and that, perhaps, the day will sometime dawn when there will be no more need of the shame of prisons in Greenwich Village. ...
• • . . . the Village is a small place, and a true Village in its neighborliness and its readiness to pass a message along.
• • Really, there is nothing quainter about it than this intimate and casual quality, such as is known in genuine, small country towns. Fancy a part of New York City —­ —­ Gotham, the cold, the selfish, the unneighborly, the indifferent —­ —­ in which everyone knows everyone else and takes a personal interest in them too; where distances are slight and pleasant, where young men in loose shirts with rolled-up sleeves, or girls hat-less and in working smocks stroll across Sixth Avenue from one square to another with as little self-consciousness as though they were meandering down Main Street to a game of tennis or the village store! Sixth Avenue, indeed, has come to mean nothing more to them than a rustic bridge or a barbed-wire fence —­ —­ ­something to be gotten over speedily and forgotten. They even, by some alchemy of viewpoint, seem to give it a rural air from Jefferson Market down to Fourth Street —­ —­ ­these cool-looking, hat-less young people who make their leisurely way down Washington Place or along Fourth Street. People pass them —­ —­ people in hats, coats and carrying bundles; but the Villagers do not notice them. They do not even look at them pityingly; they do not look at them at all. Your true Green-Village denizen does not like to look at unattractive objects if he can possibly avoid it.
• • Of course, they do make use of Sixth Avenue occasionally, on their rare trips uptown. But it is in the same spirit that a country dweller would take the railway in order to get into the city on necessary business. As a matter of fact there is no corner of New York more conveniently situated for transportation than this particular section of Greenwich. I came across a picturesque real estate advertisement the other day:
• • • • “If you ever decide to kill your barber and fly the country, commit the crime at the corner of Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue. There is probably no other place in the world that offers as many avenues of flight.”
• • But nothing short of dire necessity ever takes a Villager uptown. He, or she, may go downtown but not up. Uptown nearly always means something distasteful and boring to the Village; they see to it that they have as few occasions for going there as possible. . . .
—­ —­ —­ —­ —­ —­ —­ —­
• • Native New Yorker Anna Alice Hoppin, whose penname was Anna Alice Chapin [1880 —­ 26 February 1920], was an author who had received a private education and studied music under Harry Rowe Shelley. She wrote and published her first book A Story of Rhinegold [1897] when she was 17 years old. Other books were: Wonder Tales from Wagner (1898); Wotan, Siegfried, and Brunhilde (1898); Masters of Music (1901); Discords (1905); The Heart of Music (1906); Königskinder (1911); The Nowadays Fairy Book (1911); The Topsy Turvy Fairy (1913); The Eagle's Mate (1914); and Greenwich Village (1917), illustrated by Alan Gilbert Cram and published posthumously in 1925. Anna Alice Chapin also wrote several screenplays, short stories for magazines, and with Robert Peyton Carter, a British actor (16 years her senior) whom she married in 1906, a melodrama The Deserters, produced on Broadway in 1910. They had no children and Robert Peyton Carter predeceased her. After a short illness, 39-year-old Anna died at home: 241 West 13th Street. Her sister Mrs. Austen G. Fox, her literary executor, arranged for several manuscripts to be published and made into films during the 1920s.
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Jefferson Market
• • Jefferson Market • Alan Gilbert Cram • 1917 •
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Jefferson Market.