Texas: Washington Sq Woman

Mary and Mary (-Jane) — — Quite Contrary

The law and Lady Luck played a role when Marie Guinan [1884-1933] and Mae West [1893-1980] reinvented themselves in Greenwich Village.

• • In 1907, a demure 23-year-old Sunday schoolteacher rented a $2/ week room [72 Wash. Sq So] and assumed a louder identity: TEXAS Guinan. The neighborhood suited her. Even while earning a Park Avenue income ($700,000 in 1927, i.e., $5.5 million today), Tex kept her West Eighth Street duplex.
• • After singing in several main-stem musicals, Tex starred in 30+ silent Westerns [1917-21] in Hollywood. In 1922, Tex returned to The Big Apple where nightlife had changed. Speaks — — all the rage — — had no entertainment, she noticed when visiting a Washington Square So. club run by her neighbor Barney Gallant (formerly Eugene O’Neill’s roommate). Gallant’s barstools were warmed by Walter Winchell, literati from The New Yorker, and big spenders.
• • Now 38 years old, Tex began to orchestrate whoopee for clubs — — herself on center stage. Soon she was in the money, in the paddy wagon, and in the headlines. News of her arrests and antics fanned her fame.
• • • • Village sites linked to Texas Guinan include her former homes, where her friends and showgirls lived, her church, her bank, and where the diamond-draped speakeasy queen garaged her 2 armored cars.
• • • •


• • Mary-Jane West [1893-1980] — stage name Mae West — reinvented herself in Greenwich Village as playwright Jane Mast. Billed as the “baby vamp” in Brooklyn in 1899, the singing comedienne did not enjoy a steady rise to stardom a la Texas Guinan. Instead she performed in vaudeville and on Broadway for 20+ years without making headway.
• • In 1920, Savoy and Brennan put the Greenwich Village Theatre on the map with The Greenwich Village Follies. July 1922, Mae rehearsed The Ginger Box Revue there. In Act 2, Mae sang “Eugene O’Neill, You’ve Put a Curse on Broadway” as she spoofed The Hairy Ape [debut: Provincetown Players March 9, 1922]. But The Ginger Box was a flop. After Mae turned 30, she had few bookings [1923-25]. Encouraged by her mother, the actress began writing (penname: Jane Mast).
• • Her play Sex premiered April 1926; though critics bashed her, the box office boomed for 11 months. Jim Timony urged her to launch another show. For inspiration, Mae visited Paul & Joe’s [62 W. 9th St.]; a restaurant by day, after dark it became a famous gay cabaret. Mae auditioned 50 gay men she met there for The Drag. To keep The Drag off Broadway, police arrested Mae and the cast of Sex February 9, 1927, and locked her up in Jefferson Market Jail, where she mined material for Diamond Lil. News of her unjust imprisonment and trials made Mae West a household name.
• • • • Village sites linked to Mae West include clubs, eateries, cells, etc.
Mae West and Texas Guinan BRUNCH and TOUR on Sunday August 20, 2006. Reserve at Village Restaurant [62 West 9th Street, NYC]: 212-505-3355.
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
• • Photo: Mae West • 1928 • Mae set the play in Suicide Hall [295 Bowery]
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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
Illustrator: Tom Tierney • • Texas Guinan • • 1927
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas G.: Eighth [Street] Wonder

Give this little girl a big hand.
TEXAS GUINAN: Never eats meats, but must have at least a dozen oranges a day.
• • She was raised in a convent. Loretta Convent, Waco, Tex. Was the same old kid even in those days. She would climb to the top of the church steeple and take the dinger out of the bell. Her real name is Mary Louise Guinan.
• • Once was in motion pictures. Made Westerns and was known as the "Female William S. Hart."
• • Her home in New York is on Eighth Street. Just on the northern edge of Greenwich Village. Claims she wouldn't live anywhere else in this town of ours. She possesses the quickest feminine wit on Broadway.

• • Lives alone. Her mother lives several doors away. Spends most of the time at her daughter's place.
• • Her house looks like an antique shop. Pictures. Bric-a-brac. Mirrors. Odd furniture. Cushions. Gilded draperies. They all clutter the place. Chinese incense burns continuously.
• • There are nineteen floor lamps in the living room.
• • Recently she abandoned the expression, "Hello, sucker!" Customers began to take it seriously.
• • When she finishes at the club she goes horseback riding in Central Park or visiting. It is nothing for her to drop in on friends at seven in the morning and sit on their beds talking until noon.
• • She likes noise, rhinestone heels, customers, plenty of attention, and red velvet bathing suits.
• • The hardest thing in the world she finds is sleeping. Always takes an aspirin tablet to quiet her nerves before retiring.
• • When not certain of a man's name she calls him Fred.
• • Has a parrot who can say only two things. One is "telephone." The other is "go to hell."
• • At home she never drinks coffee. At the club, black coffee is her favorite drink.
• • She never touches liquor.
• • Is very proud of her press clippings and keeps a scrapbook. So religiously does she keep this book that reference to the "Texas Chain Gang," an article by Ernest Booth which appeared in the American Mercury, is clipped as personal publicity.
• • She takes three puffs of a cigarette and it is gone. She once lost thirty-five pounds in two weeks by taking pepper and mustard baths.
• • In an interview, she once stated that she wants her funeral to be the speediest ever given. A cop on a motorcycle is to lead it.
• • Since, she has made more plans. Jazz syncopators are to render torrid tunes. College songs are to be sung boisterously as the coffin is lowered into the grave. The wake is to be held at her night club.
• • In her bedroom there is only one window. It is covered by four curtains to keep the sunlight out.
• • She is very fond of jewelry. The bigger it is the better she likes it. She wears jewelry on her bosom, fingers, wrists, arms, ears, and (occasionally) the heels of her slippers.
• • She frequently wears red stockings.
• • Was shot once. By herself. It was a stage accident while she was on the road in The Gay Musician. She was rushed to a hospital in a locomotive engine. She had a steel tube inher side for over a year. Today all that remains of that incident is a slight blemish, the only mark on her body.
• • She is only comfortable when sitting on two chairs.
• • She has six uncles. They are all Catholic priests.
• • Recently it was stated that she sleeps on her left side and likes carrots. To which Mme. Guinan retorted: "I wonder how that guy knew I liked carrots." She sleeps on her right side in a long silk gay-colored nightgown and likes strawberries.
• • She makes funny noises with her teeth when she laughs.
• • Her lucky charm is a padlock.
Source + writer: unknown. [Originally published in 1930]
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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • photo: Texas Guinan's Eighth Street • 1920s
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan in Greenwich Village

It was 100 years ago when Mary Louise Cecilia Guinan [1884-1933] arrived in Manhattan - alone, newly divorced, and steeled by self-determination. In Waco, Texas, the Irish-American tomboy had been called "Mayme." She matured into "Marie Guinan," recalled broadcaster Lowell Thomas (in his 1976 autobiography), the demure Sunday school teacher he had a huge crush on. In 1907, the ambitious 23-year-old rented a $2/ week room in 72 Washington Square South and assumed a louder identity: TEXAS Guinan. Soon she made her family move east to join her.
• • "Tex could never have lived anywhere but in Greenwich Village," observed her biographer Louise Berliner, whose grandfather Maxwell E. Lopin was the lawyer who kept the speakeasy hostess out of jail after numerous police raids during the 1920s. Evidently, it was true because - even when she was earning $700,000 a year [$5.5 million today], enough to afford a Park Avenue address - Tex retained her West Eighth Street apartment until her death at 49.

___Texas_Guinan_banked_on_Eighth_Street___
• • Greenwich Village addresses linked to Texas Guinan:
* * * 72 Washington Square South - Tex's first furnished room in NYC
* * * 17 West 8th Street - Tex's large and luxurious apartment
* * * 22 West 8th Street - where Tex housed her showgirls
* * * 75 Washington Square South - where Tex garaged her 2 armored cars
* * * St. Joseph's on 6th Avenue - where Tex and Lew Ney ["Mayor" of Greenwich Village] baptized a baby in March 1927
• • More Texas Guinan - and Mae West - locations will be covered on the tour Sunday August 20, 2006. Reserve at Village Restaurant.
• • WALKING TOUR is part of the ANNUAL MAE WEST GALA.
• • WHEN * WHERE * WHAT: Sunday August 20, 2006 at 12 noon, "Mae West and Texas Guinan in Greenwich Village during a Lawless Decade," a tour of the Washington Square area with an emphasis on locations linked to the transgressive careers of Mae West and Texas Guinan during the Roaring 20s. Meet at Village Restaurant, 62 West 9th Street [near Sixth Avenue], where a free exhibition of rare archival images of MAE WEST and TEXAS GUINAN can be viewed from August 17th until August 31st during restaurant hours.
• • Fee includes BRUNCH at Village + gin cocktails right after tour: $25.
• • Rain or shine.
• • Reservations: (212) 505-3355.
• • Subway: IND to West Fourth Street station; PATH Train to 9th Street
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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • envelope: Texas Guinan's bank was on 8th Street & Broadway • 1927
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Becomes a New Yorker: 1907

It was 100 years ago when Mary Louise Cecilia Guinan [1884-1933] arrived in Manhattan — alone, newly divorced, and steeled by self-determination. In Waco, Texas, the Irish-American tomboy had been called “Mayme.” She matured into “Marie Guinan,” recalled broadcaster Lowell Thomas (in his 1976 autobiography), the demure Sunday school teacher he had a huge crush on. In 1907, the ambitious 23-year-old rented a $2/ week room in 72 Washington Square South and assumed a louder identity: TEXAS Guinan. Soon she made her family move east to join her.
• • “Tex could never have lived anywhere but in Greenwich Village,” observed her biographer Louise Berliner, whose grandfather Maxwell E. Lopin was the lawyer who kept the speakeasy hostess out of jail after numerous police raids during the 1920s.
• • • • TEXAS GUINAN in GREENWICH VILLAGE: • • • •
* * Walking Tour on 20 August 2006 * *

1-Day Only: MAE WEST & TEXAS GUINAN BRUNCH & TOUR
BRUNCH: Village Restaurant, 62 West 9th Street, New York, NY 10011
FEE: Brunch with 2 gin cocktails + walking tour: $25.00
DATE: 20th August 2006 - Sunday - begins at 12 noon
TOUR: historical Village locations focused on Mae West and Texas Guinan
GUIDE: Village historian LindaAnn Loschiavo
RSVP: T: 212-505-3355 - Village Restaurant, 62 West 9th Street, NYC
BONUS: Pay in advance and get a free gift
WHY: Exhibition & events are part of the annual Mae West Birthday Gala
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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • photo: Texas Guinan's residence • 1907
NYC
Texas Guinan.