Texas Guinan: Sister Aimee

In 1932, when a Broadway producer read Nancy Barr Mativy's biography, "Sister Aimee," he heard cash register bells ringing — — and realized that no one was better qualified to play the title role than TEXAS GUINAN. 
• • The night club queen, known for her famous comebacks, once said to a huckster: "Listen, sucker, you take them by the sun. I take them by the moon. Now don't let's interfere with each other's business." Though she didn't say this to Aimee, it would have been apt, yes?  
• • The New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell, speaking to Guinan about this stage play, asked if she was worried Aimee might sue producer Charles Hopkins. "Well, it's no skin off my ass," was her candid reply.
• • "Texas Guinan to Act" • •
• • Charles Hopkins has a plan which should attract a lot of attention. He is arranging to produce a stage version of Nancy Barr Mativy's book, "Sister Aimee," and our old night club friend, Texas Guinan, will be seen as Aimee, the adult.
• • Texas should be ideal, for such a role, although it may cause many a smile to see the radiant Tex playing the part of an evangelist. Naturally, as I have forgotten to state, the play will deal with the life of Aimee Semple McPherson. Helen Rowland will be Aimee, the child; Edith Barrett Aimee, the girl; and then along will come Texas Guinan as the Sister Aimee of the present.
• • Source:  Syndicated show biz column rpt in The Indianapolis Star (Indiana); published on Sunday, 6 March 1932.

• • Aimee Semple McPherson [9 October 1890 –– 27 September 1944], also known as "Sister Aimee" or simply "Sister," was an evangelist and media sensation in the 1920s and 1930s; she was also the founder of the Foursquare Church.
• • Aimee McPherson had founded the Foursquare Gospel church. She supervised the construction of a large, domed church building in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, and it was completed in June 1923. Named Angelus Temple, it had a seating capacity of over 5,000.
• • When Aimee Semple McPherson, the famous West Coast evangelist (with an expensive marcel-waved hair-do) visited New York in 1927, she insisted on visiting Texas Guinan's speakeasy on West Fifty-fourth Street.
• • Naturally, Texas welcomed McPherson and the two formed somewhat of a mutual admiration society. It was a promotional dream — — two gals of Irish descent in different types of show business. Aimee thanked Texas and invited her to her Glad Tidings Tabernacle the next day. Texas and her chorus girls showed up (before going to work), to the astonishment of everyone.
• • At the time, women in the pulpit ministry were rare — — those who wore makeup and jewelry in the pulpit, nonexistent. McPherson's uniqueness in this respect, her flamboyance and her unashamed use of low-key sex appeal to attract converts, endeared her to her crowd of followers in Los Angeles. She would invariably appear before parishioners in a white gown, carrying a bouquet of flowers.
• • On 27 September 1944 she was found dead of an overdose of prescription barbiturates.
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• • The legal battles fought by Mae West and Jim Timony are dramatized in the play "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets," set during the Prohibition Era. Texas Guinan is in some scenes, too. Watch a scene on YouTube.
• • Website for all things Mae West — http://MaeWest.blogspot.com 

• • Exciting Texas Guinan news is on the horizon. More anon.
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Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • news clip in 1933 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.