They're No Angels

In 1958, this was Oscar night in Hollywood, and the hit of the evening was a duet between this somewhat singular couple, Miss Mae West and Mr. Rock Hudson.  We catch them here in rehearsal, and I think it's as close to an actual candid of Mae as ever I've seen.

The resulting number, a shambolic but highly entertaining rendition of "Baby, It's Cold Outside," is arguably the gayest moment in television history at least until Paul Lynde's Hollywood Squares debut and possibly the biggest camp in-joke since the last performance of Florence Foster Jenkins.  I love the final performance, Rock dapper in his evening suit and Mae in her uniform of feathers and armorlike sequins, but here, a few hours earlier, doesn't it look like they're having fun?  It makes me wish they hadn't both had to put on such limiting public faces, ones that kept them from ever seeming quite so carefree and spontaneous.

Here, though, it's clear they've got each other's number - Mae, remember, had already been through Cary Grant, after all.  It's like the reverse of the end of She Done Him Wrong, really: "You bad girl," she thinks, and he replies, "Mmmm, you'll find out..."

Mae

She's a Brooklyn gal, so don't be fooled by fine feathers. She will cut a bitch.

Picture This: A Coupla Swell Dames

For no better reason than that things have been a little melancholy lately, let's spend a moment considering this marvelous confection by the brilliant Miguel Covarrubias, part of his long-running "Impossible Interviews" series in the old real Vanity Fair.

The idea of Miss Mae West sitting down with the formidable Queen Marie of Rumania to discuss life, love, and diamonds is both delicious and, in its own demented way, quite sensible. They actually had a lot in common, those girls, not least a gift for self-transformation.

West started out a scrappy and deeply unsuccessful small-time vaudevillian from the wrong side of Brooklyn and ended up - even now, almost thirty years after she left us - an international synonym for sex taken not-too-seriously. Marie, from her precariously Ruritanian position in the 1930s as Queen Mother of the Balkans, must have looked back at her sheltered girlhood as a proper Victorian English princess with something like disbelief.

Together, I think they would have had a ball.

Just Sayin'

Miss West

Mr. Milstead

Compare and contrast.

Masquerade

Miss Debbie Allen impersonates Josephine; Miss Ann Jillian, Mae. It must have been a long and rather trying evening all around.

Actually, I'm afraid they were working; every stitch of those costumes screams "mid-80s TV movie," demonstrating a breathtaking disregard for historical accuracy not seen since the Fox musicals of the 1940s.

Happy Birthday, Cowboy

That tall drink of water, Randolph Scott, was born this fine day in 1898. His craggy allure and affable screen presence were for many years the best reasons to sit through the dozens of Westerns in which he was the most interesting thing on screen.

I like him best, though, earlier on, in the '30s, when he leavened his diet of sagebrush and chaps with a great deal more variety than you might think.

He made an effective aw-shucks-ma'am foil to Mae West, for example, in Go West, Young Man; he supported Kate Smith in her ill-fated foray out of her niche on radio; he even made a lively (non-dancing) sidekick to Fred Astaire in Roberta and Follow the Fleet (my two favorite Fred-and-Gingers, actually).

These days, though, he is in danger of being best remembered for his decade-long occasional cohabitation with Cary Grant at the latter's Malibu beach house. Well, whatever may or may not have gone on behind closed doors, they certainly made a striking couple, no?

Diva Paraphernalia

Only the most extreme of divas should attempt a scenario involving so many key accessories: fur, feathers, chaise, and hunky stud. For most, any two at most is enough of a challenge.

For Mae, of course, it's just another day at the office. And baby, it's hot inside...

When Ladies Meet...

They talk about these two fierce bitches:

But what do you suppose they talked about, my little chickadees?

Image du Jour: Miss West

Proof that with the right foundation garments, platform heels, and lashings of fox fur, anything is possible.

That might be my new motto to live by...

I'm It! Part III: The Reckoning

Peenee strikes again! And with a far more devilish task than ever seen before: The Mrpeenee Auto Haiku Tag Meme:

• In five syllables, no more, no less, describe the worst movie you can think of.


• In seven syllables, no more, no less, describe your worst date. Bonus points if it was sordid.


• In five syllables, no more, no less, describe the worst job you ever had.
  Put it all together and you have a haiku of life’s low points.

So:


Sextette. You can really consider it a laff-riot campfest only as long as you can keep out of your mind the knowedge that Mae took it very, very seriously. I suppose you can admire the old girl for carrying on, but in the end no one ever participated so thoroughly in the trashing of her own reputation.

Grandma goes berserk.

I never really was, as grandmother would have put it, Fast, but even I was young once, and out and about in the bars. One night, as the Pointer Sisters wailed in the background and the friends and I lounged around in only slightly dated Wham!-wear (yes, it was a long time ago), I was approached by a rather dashing figure. The jeans and flannel struck a piquant note, as did the more than passing resemblance to Al Parker (sigh).

We got friendly; we got friendlier; we got into his pickup; we got into my apartment; we got into, not to be indelicate, each other's pants.

Then:

Hot trucker reveals lace thong.

And a predilection for spanking, but that's another story.

My nastiest and shortest-tenure job was as assistant at an academic non-profit of vague purpose. The director was a shambling old queen whose primary functions seemed to be fudging the numbers on grant applications and enraging the members. It paid nothing, my desk was actually in a hall closet, and he treated me like dirt.

Lackey to a sot.

And thus:

Grandma goes berserk;
Hot trucker reveals lace thong.
Lackey to a sot.

Yup, that's just about as bad as my what-passes-for-a-life has gotten. What a cheerful way to start our weekend (for in these parts, Thursday is Saturday, and if that doesn't keep you good and confused, not much will).

Now I'll have to mull over the tagging victim. Hmm.....

Image du Jour

I can spend hours just staring at this picture and wondering, "What the hell do you supposed they talked about?"