Texas Guinan: Doris Eaton

Oh those days when TEXAS GUINAN offered world-class whoopee at the El Fey Club and Club Intime.
• • Let us talk about two sisters Texas knew:  Pearl Eaton [1 August 1898 — 10 September 1958] and Doris Eaton Travis [14 March 1904  — 11 May 2010], a former Ziegfeld Follies star (and the last surviving Ziegfeld girl).
• • In the 2003 memoir by Doris Eaton Travis, "The Days We Danced: The Story of my Theatrical Family," the stage star  reminisced about her sister Pearl Eaton. "Pearl worked in several supper clubs in the 1920s. But her longest stay at any one club was with Texas Guinan at the famous El Fey Club at 107 West 45th Street, which opened in 1924. It was owned by a shady and notorious character named Larry Fay.  . . . Larry actually asked me out to dinner on one occasion, but I declined, making it clear Mama did not allow me to go out with 'older men'," wrote Doris who was 20 years old in 1924.
• • According to several sources, showbiz was rough country for the Eaton brothers and sisters, who packed plenty of alcohol and drugs along for the ride.
• • From 1916 — 1928, Pearl Eaton was on The Great White Way, performing in musicals, revues, and shows by Ziegfeld and Earl Carroll.  Doris said:  “Florenz Ziegfeld, to us and our family, was just a delightful person. My sisters, Mary and Pearl, my brother Charlie and I all worked for him, and he treated us just beautifully, almost like a father. When I went with my mother up to his office, he was always gentlemanly and kindly. He was sort of a quiet person.”
• • But Tinseltown, that rocky terrain where screen dreams rise, settle, surge, and slide, was an unsteady employer.  Pearl Eaton tip-toed through from 1929 — 1936, offered merely the shallowest breathing space inside ten films. "Klondike Annie" was the last of these.
• • But the good news is that Doris and Pearl Eaton are making their presence known at their old haunt in midtown Manhattan.

• • This weekend, the charming supper club entrepreneur, Herve Rousseau, who has owned Flute (205 West 54th Street) since 1997 — — the site of Texas Guinan's Club Abbey and Club Intime — — was being interviewed for the upcoming documentary "In the Footsteps of Texas Guinan." He shared this fascinating story with us.
• • Herve Rousseau explained that, a few years ago, he was buying new art for his club. "I must have looked at well over 10,000 prints and I selected ten pieces. I showed these to my wife, my employees, and some friends. The choice was unanimous. Everybody liked the same female portrait the best. So I bought it and we hung it up opposite the entrance. One night, one of my regular clients looked at the artwork more closely and told me the portrait was of Doris Eaton.  This was several years ago, when she was promoting her new memoir."
• • Herve Rousseau continued: "I researched her name and discovered she had been a guest at Texas Guinan's clubs and her sister Pearl Eaton had worked for Texas and Larry Fay. Now she's back here again."
• • This was a "goosebumps" moment for all the listeners. What a great story.
• • Photo: Herve Rousseau and the camera crew at Flute on 2 April 2016
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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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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • Herve Rousseau at 205 West 54th Street • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Daniel Frohman

Silent film actress TEXAS GUINAN met Daniel Frohman when she was in her mid-30s and remembered the encounter as a "great day" in her life.
• • Daniel Frohman honored • •
• • At the testimonial dinner to Daniel Frohman, on Sunday night, Texas Guinan was among those who were there to pay tribute to Mr. Frohman, who was celebrating his fiftieth year in theatricals.
• • "There are two great days in my life," Miss Guinan said emotionally, "the day I met Daniel Frohman. And the day . . ."
• • lnterrupted a heckler, "And the day that you saddled Paul Revere's horse before rumble seats were invented . . .!" came a very loud shout.
• • Source:  Item rpt in The Scranton Republican (Scranton, Pennsylvania); published on 3 December 1930.
• • Daniel Frohman [22 August 1851 — 26 December 1940] was an American theatrical producer and manager, and an early film producer.
• • Texas made numerous silent films with his company,  Frohman Amusement Corp. in 1919 such as "The She Wolf" co-starring  George Chesebro.

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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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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • in 1919 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Wilson Mizner

TEXAS GUINAN was friends with Wilson Mizner. In 1928, she floated the story that she was considering marrying him. There was one kink. If only he would propose.
• • "Texas Guinan to try again" • •
• • Texas Guinan, queen of the night clubs, who is ready to commit matrimony — — and with her Wilson Mizner, author, playwright, traveler, bon vivant, wit and millionaire. There is one obstacle in Texas's path. She does not know whether she can get the only man she would have — — this man being Wilson Mizner.  Texas said she is badly smitten but not desperate. She is waiting for Wilson to make up his mind.
• • Note: Wilson Mizner [1876 — 1933] is noted for many bons mots such as, "Be nice to people on the way up because you'll meet the same people on the way down," and, "If you copy from one author, it's plagiarism. If you copy from two, it's research."

• • Source:  The Milwaukee Sentinel; published on Thursday, 15 November 1928
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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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Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • in 1928 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • news clip in 1933 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Louis Sobol

The Manhattan press agent Louis Sobol recalled his relationship with TEXAS GUINAN in his memoir.
• • Louis Sobol wrote: Texas Guinan was another of Earl Carroll's friends. She was an outstanding figure during the Prohibition era, a night club queen who addressed her patrons as "suckers" and exploited her entertainers with the words, "Give this little girl a hand."
• • Texas grew to know me so well that when my father and mother came to New York, she entertained them at her club. Characteristically, Texas directed all the attention toward mother. Every time that anything would happen, Texas would cry, "How did you like that, mother? How was that, mother? Did that please you, mother?"
• • The attention, though very flattering, was to have its repercussions.  A week after, when mother and I went to see "Carmen" at the Metropolitan Opera House, we made the customary lobby promenade, during the first intermission.  All of a sudden we saw a woman rush up to a man, grab him by the arm and cry, "Look, Charlie, there's mother from Texas Guinan's."
• • The incident struck me as so funny that I wrote it up and sent it  to the old Life Magazine, which straightway published it and sent me a five-dollar check.
• • The story of Texas Guinan has been told, I believe, in songs and films, but my own delight on her career partakes of the incongruous. Though she spent practically most of her time in the denatured atmosphere of a night club, when her work was over, I have heard that she sank into a bed covered with multiple pillows, amid heavy hangings, perfumed dolls and bric-a-brac. Doubtless, too, the windows were closed for fear that a gust of fresh air would contaminate the odor of greasepaint.

• • Fresh air was what Earl Carroll and I sought when the day's work was over.  . . .
• • Belle Livingston, idol of the noctambulists • •
• • Among the queens of this almost forgotten time was Belle Livingston, once the idol of the noctambulists. She is, now in her eighties, a large woman, self-assured, with red hair and a flushed skin. She indicated that her past was distinguished and went in for literature. Her night club introduced the informal idea of having guests sit on the floor, a floor made comfortable with voluptuous pillows which flanked the walls, walls made equally comfortable with satin upholstery. Outside the police hovered regularly about the place and created that illicit atmosphere which made those days continuously exciting.
• • Belle was the first woman in New York to run a speakeasy. She was dubbed the Belle of Prohibition. She once remarked to Texas Guinan:  "My place won't seem like home if I'm not raided." She was jailed at one time for four weeks in a Harlem prison.  . . .
• • Source:  Book: "Broadway Heartbeat: Memoirs of a Press Agent" by Louis Sobol (NY: Hermitage House, 1953] 
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • in the 1920s • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Feets Edson

Hyman Edson worked with TEXAS GUINAN at most of her nightspots.  When she opened a world-class whoopee rousing club in Valley Stream in 1932, it was arranged that Edson would guard the terrain by opening a roadhouse directly across Merrick Road. For entertainment, Edson engaged a talented impressionist who often dressed in an evening gown but who was skilled enough to do both female and male impersonations.
• • Jackie Maye Booked at Showplace • •
• • Hyman "Feets" Edson [1894 —1964] will reopen Long Island's Showplace, and will feature Jackie Maye, just to prove to the waiting hordes that there is still a market for female impersonators (flatterer! Ed.).
• • And just guess who'll open the La Casa, at Valley Stream? Give up? Texas Guinan! Surprise! Texas Guinan, who just tootled overseas long enough to Okay Paris, and who has been announced as opening everything but Grant's Tomb, to date, will settle down at La Casa, and make sleeping tough in Valley Stream.
• • Announced on Saturday, 28 May 1932:  Frank Winegar [1901 — 1988] booked at Texas Guinan's La Casa.
• • Source: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, NY); published on Wednesday, 18 May 1932

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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • news clip from 1965 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Clarence Robinson

Oh those days when TEXAS GUINAN offered world-class whoopee at the Valley Stream nightspot on Merrick Road that she named La Casa Guinan.
• • "Racket Dears" Revue at La Casa Guinan • •
• • Before the pick of metropolitan critics, Texas Guinan opened, what she says is the finest floor show she has ever presented, at the La Casa Guinan roadhouse in Valley Stream, Long Island on Friday night. With an enviable record as producer of a number of The Cotton Club  and Follies Bergere floor shows, Clarence Robinson had full charge in the staging of this extravaganza for Texas Guinan and her Racket-Dears .  . . .
• • Source:  The Pittsburgh Courier (Pittsburgh, PA); published on Saturday, 4 June 1932.
• • But a fortnight later, the Racket-Dears heard a door slam.  Robinson, the African-American clarinetist with Broadway cred, high-tailed it back to Harlem after Guinan got cheap with his cast.
• • "Clarence Robinson's Revue Quits La Casa Guinan" • •
• • Texas Guinan's new revue with her "Racket-Dears," which was staged by Clarence Robinson and opening at the La Casa Guinan roadhouse, Valley Stream, Long Island, two weeks ago, walked out Saturday . . .
• • The trouble started when the management tried to cheapen the revue by firing two of Texas's girls, Gretchen Kimmel and Texas Rayne . . . Texas Guinan plans a new a review . .  .

• • Source: The Pittsburgh Courier (Pittsburgh, PA); published on Saturday, 18 June 1932.
• • Clarence Robinson • •
• • The versatile song-and-dance man Clarence Robinson created dances for his wife Hyacinth Curtis, who appeared at The Cotton Club and the Apollo.  Robinson choreographed the 1943 film “Stormy Weather.”  Film buffs will recall the joyful finale with Harold and Fayard Nicholas dancing to Calloway’s “Jumpin’ Jive” that will never fail to leave you breathless.
• • Penniless at the end of his life and residing on the top floor of a decrepit Harlem rooming house, Clarence Robinson was interviewed by author Jim Haskins. "As I was leaving, he called me back to his bed. He said, 'There's three scrapbooks in the closet. You take 'em. But if you use 'em, tell the truth."
• • Jim Haskins recalled, "Clarence Robinson gave me a marvelous archive, without which my book and the movie 'The Cotton Club,' never would have happened."
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • news from 1932 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Harry Tammen

TEXAS GUINAN was a witty and savvy businesswoman. She was also smart enough to recognize a snappy phrase and claim it for her own. So let's follow her footsteps from Waco, Texas to the Rockies.
• • In 1900, the Guinan clan moved to Denver, Colorado and 16-year-old Texas occupied herself with the local amateur stage productions and she also played the organ in church.
• • When she was 20 years old, Texas Guinan married John Moynahan, a cartoonist for the Rocky Mountain News, on December 2, 1904.
• • No doubt she was familiar with the widely circulated Denver Post, a newspaper co-owned by Harry Heye Tammen [1856 — 1924], the wealthy philanthropist, well known for his cheery salutation.
• • "Hello, Sucker!" • •

• • In 1895 Harry Tammen formed a partnership with Frederick G. Bonfils (whom he had met at the Chicago World's Fair), whose nickname was "The Napoleon of the Cornfields." These two took a struggling local paper, renamed it Denver Post, and became the co-owners as well as co-editors. Their publishing enterprise flourished and brought many opportunities their way. Harry Tammen's business successes made him very rich indeed.
• • "I figured the luckiest words I ever uttered in my life were those two — — 'Hello, Sucker!' — —  to my pal, my partner, my buddy Fred Bonfils. And if they were good enough for him, they were good enough for anybody," he explained a reporter from Variety in 1924.

• • Texas decided to bring the catch phrase to the East Coast and it soon became her personal greeting.
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • Harry Tammen, whose greeting was "Hello, Sucker!" • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Gypsyland

Oh those days when TEXAS GUINAN offered world-class whoopee at "Gypsyland" at this address: 133 West 45th Street, New York, NY.  If you wanted a bowl of Hungarian goulash to fortify you for unlimited merriment, it was 35 cents.
• • "New Place for Show Stars!" • •
• • "Gypsyland," successor to the famous institution on 81st Street, which was the most popular place in New York while it lasted, has opened at 133 West 45th street. There isn't any place like it in New York for comfort, homelike surroundings, entertainment, and good food at reasonable prices. It opened but a short time ago, yet it has already been "discovered" by New York's show folks, who flock there nightly.
• • It's a little place, yet so arranged that it's homelike, different from the usual cafe. It seems that everybody knows everybody else, and it's always "one big party."
• • The place was opened two weeks ago with a party given by Texas Guinan for a bevy of political and theatrical friends. Another party was given in honor of Belle Bennett and another for Doraldina. These parties were held in the main restaurant.
• • In addition, there are private rooms for dinner or supper parties up to 20 people.
• • Source:  Broadway Brevities; issue dated for November 1922

• • A 1922 advertisement placed in Broadway Brevities went like this:
• • SOMETHING NEW FOR NEW YORK'S SHOW FOLKS!
• • GYPSYLAND
• • 133 WEST 45th STREET
• • A Real Hungarian Restaurant
• • "A Bit of Bohemia n the Heart of New York"
• • The New Mecca for Show Folks, Where Theatrical People Are Always Welcome, and Made to Feel at Home. Where the Stars Always Go.  
• • SO COZY, COMFORTABLE, HOMELIKE — — LUNCHEON, DINNER, SUPPER
• • Splendid Hungarian Orchestra, Great for Dancing, Unique Entertainment, including RIGO, the Famous Gypsy Violinist — — BARONESS OLGA BAKLANOFF, Sensation of Vienna
• • Unfortunately, the original structure at 133 West 45th Street was razed and is now a hideous looking modern something-or-other.
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • 133 West 45th Street ad in 1922 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Hotel Harding

Oh those days when TEXAS GUINAN offered world-class whoopee at the Hotel Harding (203 West 54th Street) — — a  speakeasy on the lower level — — until the padlocks arrived.
• • New York's Whoopee Center • •
• • From an ad in a NYC magazine on December 29, 1928 — —  Early Bird Catches the New Year's Eve Table at New York's Whoopee Center — —  Phone now: Circle 2500 — —  Texas Guinan (With Sound and how!) — — Texas at her Showplace, Hotel Harding, 203 West 54th Street — — A BIG SHOW.
• • Note: Mae West was living at this hotel when "Diamond Lil" was onstage and when Tex had her speakeasy in the cellar. Pay attention to that iron handrail going down to the lower level.

• • "Harding Changes Hands" • •
• • The Harding Hotel, frequently in print, has changed hands again. The new owner, said to be headed by Morris Sweetwood, will conduct it with a night club as an adjunct.  Because it comes within the law, the latter will be open all night.
• • Last year [i.e., 1929] it had Texas Guinan as the feature.
• • When Ed Arlington took over the Harding Hotel several years ago, he made it highly profitable. He sold his lease for $75,000. The new owners secured that lease, which has 10 years to go, for $45,000.
• • Source: Variety; published on Wednesday, 6 February 1930
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • 203 West 54th Street today • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan: Beaux Arts Cafe

Oh those days when TEXAS GUINAN offered world-class whoopee at Café des Beaux Arts  (80 West 40th Street) — — a Greek-themed speakeasy on the second floor — — until she built up a following and a better offer came her way.
• • The Beaux Arts • •
• • Completed in 1901, the apartments in this 12-story structure were designed as residential and working space specifically for artists.  There were two dozen double-height studios on the West 40th Street side, generously windowed.   Architect Charles A. Rich worked with pink brick along with terra cotta and stone trim to create a unique Beaux Arts-style blend of residential and industrial elements that still engages the eye.
• • A famous French eatery, the Café des Beaux Arts, was established there by the Bustanoby brothers Andre, Jacques, Pierre, and Louis. 
• • As Louise Berliner explained in her book, "Texas Guinan: Queen of the Nightclubs," one evening, Texas showed up at a party at the Beaux Arts Café on West 40th Street, a high-class haunt for affluent swells and theatrical grand eminences. But, alas, the party was desperately dull. Then a person asked Texas to step up to the microphone.  "I didn't need much coaxing, so I sang. . . . First thing you know we were all doing things. Everybody had a great time."
• • The new owners Emile Gervasini and John Levi, realizing they had been losing money but this Waco native was a hit, hired Texas Guinan as Mistress of Ceremonies.  This change of vocation for Tex, from acting in silent films to making whoopee in noisy nightspots, occurred in the autumn of 1923, according to an item in The New York Clipper, dated 9 November 1923.

• • Lovely Lina Basquette was one of the showgirls who worked with Tex there.
• • However, other club owners were observing her success and her following.  In due course, Joe Pani, owner of the King Cole Room at the Knickerbocker Hotel (West 42nd Street), invited Texas to liven up his show and she accepted.

• • With minor alterations (such as the obliteration of the street level facade details along Sixth Avenue), the Beaux Arts Studios has been left intact. 
• • Happily, this intriguing structure was designated a New York City landmark in 1988.
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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.
_________________________________________________________
Source:http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan • • news from 1923 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.

Texas Guinan Fans and Mae-Mavens

Many publications announced the Texas Guinan and Mae West walking tour and also saluted the August 17th birthday of Mae.
• • Playbill, marking "this date in theatre history," has managed to get her birth year wrong (again) and also tripped up on the stage plays in which she appeared. No, Mr. Playbill, Mae West wrote The Drag but did not star in this 1927 production since she was still appearing in her play Sex at the time.
• • Other news outlets recognized the writer and comedienne as "an actress from the 1930s," erasing her long career in vaudeville and on Broadway, which preceded her 1932 Paramount debut when Mae was an "overnight sensation" at 39 years old.
• • A more faithful close-up was offered on Sunday in the Brooklyn blonde's hometown when a group of Mae-mavens gathered along Shubert Alley to learn how she forged her dreams of deliverance in Times Square along with her diamond-draped colleague Texas Guinan.
• • Attendees posed for pictures in the same spot where the graceful, well-groomed Bucephala, Texas Guinan's horse, was mounted 82 years ago — — that magnificent creature who carried the queen of the night scene up the center aisle of the Shubert Theatre and deposited her onstage as the red velvet curtain was raised for Padlocks of 1927.
• • Ah, Longacre Square, the legitimate theatres, those expensive playhouses built to look like a palazzo, a Tuscan hillside hideaway, a marble mansion, a Venetian villa, a Georgian fantasy — — where little Mae held her mother's hand as they waited for an usher to seat them, lavishly spending each moment of a matinee, drinking in the illusion of the drama in which the mountain of self might have no top, and each encounter might be a reckoning with fleet-footed fate.
• • On Sunday August 16th, the patient assemblage viewed vintage news clippings that decorated the disappointments of another century — — front page humiliations, the raids, the padlocks, the prison sentences, and the losses of a $200,000 advance for Pleasure Man after the purity police shuttered the show on 1 October 1928. They genuflected and strolled down the aisle of St. Malachy's, the church where Texas Guinan and Mae West examined Rudolph Valentino's coffin in August 1926 and mutually agreed the hardy 31-year-old must have been poisoned.
• • On West 54th Street, thanks to a gracious doorman, the tour takers paused in the same vestibule where Mae West entered and exited in 1927 as she was writing Diamond Lil and getting better acquainted with Owney Madden and others who bulleted the headlines.• • Perhaps West 54th recalls the roll calls of absent names, first kisses, the confetti victory parades in an era when Mae West's latest show was billed as "hotter than the Armistice."• • • • Prizes • • • •• • And the group has something else to remember as well — — a handful of raffle prizes. A number of individuals each won a colorful Mae West magnet, a few screened with film posters, stage plays, or her one-liners. Two lovely ladies — — Denise from Manhattan and Karen from Pittsburgh — — each won a "Gaudy Girls" CD, courtesy of Maggie Worsdale and Anne Marie Finnie, who perform live as Sophie Tucker and Mae West. Everyone received a "Gaudy Girls" flyer announcing their next racy performance at Monticello Raceway and Casino on 21 October 2009. And two lucky lasses won a treasured set of Texas Guinan's silent films — — fashion model Gwen Bucci from Manhattan and art curator Frédérique Joseph-Lowery from Fairlawn, New Jersey — — courtesy of an avid Texas Guinan archivist.
• • Exciting news is on the horizon. More anon.
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Texas Guinan
• • Photo: Texas Guinan fans • • tour group on 16 August 2009 • •
NYC
Texas Guinan.