Customer Reviews

She Always Knew How: Mae West, A Personal Biography

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the opening pages of Charlotte Chandler's new biography of Mae West, She Always Knew How, the author inadvertently tips off readers that they may be getting diluted goods. In regards to granting Ms Chandler's interview request West is quoted, "I'm saturated, I'm not promoting anything or selling anything, so I don't have any reason."

When excerpts of the interview were originally published in the February 1984 issue of MS magazine, the short article's snappy editing made for fascinating reading. Presented in this expanded form, the conversation seems to drag (no pun intended). That Chandler in fact conducted this interview is not in question. She has authored many acclaimed biographies of cinematic luminaries, but it's the exceedingly talkative nature of the material presented here that raises the question of what West actually said, and what Chandler interpreted as what she said, interwoven with comments made about West by other subjects the author interviewed over the years. Arranging this data into coherency may account for the large amount of elapsed time since the interview and the publication of this biography, some thirty years later. While it is improbable that Chandler has attempted to pull the wool over the eyes of readers, it appears West succeeded in pulling the wool over her eyes.

The fact that Chandler does not state a time frame, or how long a duration of time she interviewed West is troubling. Born Lyn Erhard, no personal facts about Chandler are available, and she appears to be somewhat of an enigma. Perhaps this is why she can relate to a personage such as West who had no problem rearranging the facts of her life to suit herself, or the listener at the time.

West certainly warms up talking about her favorite subject - herself, and it is wonderful to hear her voice throughout this book. However, to the informed Mae West fan, this voice is somewhat muted and self serving rather than being reflective. For example, when the subject of one of West's lovers is brought up, he is simply referred to a "D." Guido Deiro and West were in fact married and ample proof lies deposited in Envelope 7, Miscellaneous Letters, and Legal Documents in the collection at the Center for the Study of Free-Reed instruments at the City University of New York, Graduate Center. Years earlier, In 1911, West married Frank Wallace without obtaining a divorce. No mention is ever made of West being a bigamist.

Although West scored numerous successes in vaudeville and on Broadway, she suffered many setbacks as well, but these are conveniently overlooked and glossed over. Any biographer worth their salt having done background sleuthing would be aware of the ups and downs of West's long and varied career. As a result the uninitiated reader would believe that West's career was smooth sailing and everything was sunshine and roses. Far from being the truth, West was toughened by the assaults of critics and the resiliency she developed ultimately made her successful, yet little of that struggle is revealed or acknowledged on either part here.

In her search for validation and add credence to her angle on West, Chandler has hitched her wagon to Tim Malachosky, the last of a long line of "personal assistants" to Miss West. Malachosky spent eight years rendering unpaid secretarial services to West and his utter devotion to looking after her needs is beyond reproach. West in turn, was grateful to have him as part of her entourage. However, in a somewhat misguided effort, Malachosky has attempted to rewrite West's history in regards to diminishing the role of the other young men she befriended in the last two decades of her life, placing himself in a more prominent position than is his due. By sheer good luck of being the last fan having close contact with her at the time of her death, he came into possession of many of West's personal items. In his dogged determination to sanitize the importance of Mae West's contribution to the sexual revolution of the 20th century he has kept papers that he deems "Miss West would not like others to see" locked away in his personal archives, and Chandler's book suffers for it.

Sharp eyed readers familiar with Malachosky's 1993 self published pictorial to Mae West will notice that Chandler has devoted several pages in her new book reprinting whole passages directly from that publication. Malachosky's lavishly illustrated coffee table picture book is a lovingly assembled tribute to West, but was dogged by spelling mistakes and atrocious grammar which Chandler has cleaned up considerably for inclusion here. Revealing little new insights into West, Malachosky's comments reveal a lot about him and his attempts to act as a censor as to what fan letters and photographs West was exposed to.

West encouraged her young male fans to come up and see her and in fact Malachosky was present during one occasion when West hilariously conducted a verbal lesson on fellatio, much to his consternation. None of this is mentioned and Malachoksy is adamant that few visitors were ever invited to visit her Ravenswood lair. This flies in the face of a long list of guests that included Burt Reynolds, Elton John, John Phillips, Ian Whitcomb, Paul Williams, Van McCoy, along with an army of others.

West's lover and defacto common law husband, Chester Rybinsky, AKA Chuck Krauser AKA Paul Novak is dealt with in a very one dimensional manner. Novak unquestionably loved and adored West but had much more going for him as a well rounded individual with interests of his own than what Chandler presents here. As well, Mae's love/hate relationship with her sister Beverly is somewhat glossed over. According to Dolly Dempsey, long time West confident, the two sisters' tumultuous relationship harkens back to their early years living in a Brooklyn tenement when young Beverly broke her ankle and there was no money to have it set properly. The resulting club foot and guilt and anger over that incident, made for a lifelong bitter sweet bond between the two sisters.

Despite the score of other Mae West biographies that have been published over the years, Chandler's examination of West's life and career is refreshing and welcome in that we hear Mae West in her own voice. Sadly little of the famous West wit and sparkle surfaces in their conversation. The reader can't get over the feeling that what Chandler offers the reader is a lack luster and pale imitation, paste if you will, of what Diamond Lil stood for, and was about.

This book is nothing like other books written on Mae West (and I have read every single one, including West's own biography). How is it different? All previous books on Mae West had been written after extensive research. This one is written (more like transcribed) in complete blind faith, with no research for possible untruths, wrong facts or embellishments.

The book is 95% a transcription of Mae West's last interview. She was 86 at the time-and well known for boastful embellishing of her history. MANY of the famous and elderly do this. They change the facts at whim, make up new ones, leave out unpleasant ones etc. This whole book consists of that. In no way, shape or form, can anyone identify with Mae West as a human being upon reading this. If we are to go along with the book's contents, then we must believe that Mae West never had a single failure in her life, NEVER HAD TO DIET, never had a moment's insecurity or negative thought in her entire life.

Speaking to the infamous Tim Malachosky, does not help matters when it comes to facts. Malachosky, who met West well into his late 20's in 1973 via sitting for days-on-end in the lobby of the Ravenswood (not in 1969 as a "teenager" after West allegedly called HIM) sounds like Max from 'Sunset Boulevard' throughout. I know this because I lived at the Ravenswood from 1971 to 1977 and dated the desk clerk who finally asked Miss West if Malachosky could visit for a short while. She had a very close friend, a young latin fellow named Robert whom was her right hand man, besides Paul Novak. When West passed on, only a hired nurse and Paul Novak were present. None of these facts were researched to any degree for this book.

Candid recollections from those who knew West are few herein, thus the reader comes away feeling West was some kind of apparition, something immortal. She would have loved that- but it does little for anyone looking for facts or something new that might not have been revealed before. In fact, a massive portion of this book consists of mundane tid-bits, that would leave even the most ARDENT Mae West fan thinking "who cares?"

What will you remember once you have reached the final page? Probably nothing. There are several other great Mae West books available, written in a more realisitic light (and more fun!). It is my understandning that two more are in the works, one concentrating on her fascinating early career (pre-Hollywood) and another, with great detail, dealing with her later life. Let's hope those have a little more substance and research. Mae West was, indeed, fascinating. Chandler's book does not showcase this.

And I second the other reviewer's question: Did Chandler take notes or did she tape record all of this? Because a LOT of this book doesn't sound like Mae West at all.

Unfortunately, this book does not grab the reader, at any point. It is an 86 year old Mae West talking about anything and everything, yet saying nothing profound. It is breezy afternoon banter and minor recollections. And this is coming from a HUGE Mae West fan! I can safely say I have read every single book on Mae West, I even have her likeness tattooed on both arms! So you can take my word for it, when I say this book is almost unreadable.

For one--Charlotte Chandler did no reseach what-so-ever. There are endless factual errors, both in what Mae West says throughout and what others said in regards to her, but Chandler questions nothing. She just goes with the flow--so this becomes somewhat of a FICTIONAL book. You don't know, unless you have seriously studied Mae West, what is true and what is extreme "grande embellishment" (i.e. false recollection).

Tim Malachosky, despite popular belief, was not Mae West's "personal secretary for 10 years" and I have in my possesion a SIGNED letter by him acknowledging this. It was considerably less time, not to mention West had several guys tend to her mail, set up folding chairs for her guests, etc. The letter goes on to reveal that Malachosky was selling copies of West's 'Mae West on Sex, Health and ESP' book mere WEEKS after her death in 1980, at $10 a pop. And if we choose to believe all that he states in this latest book, combined with Chandler's slant--then Mae West was a normal elderly lady, innocent, pure, extremely ladylike and may well have had butter-scotch candies at the bottom of her purse, to hand out to crying babies! NOTHING could be further from the truth, and Chandler would have discovered this, had she talked to those much closer to Mae West (several of whom are still alive and only in their 50's and 60's).

The truth? Mae West was fascinated by sex and good looking men all her life. She adored a good lurid story by her younger friends and would sit with rapt attention as she listened (and then told a few of her own!). A detailed account of someone's trip to Beijing would have bored her to tears and she would have said so. She was, in fact, very much like her screen character, just a little more "subtle" in her delivery and body language. She was a PASTICHE/ a characature of a 'lady.' She was a New York 'broad' who knew how to put on the 'lady act' in certain company (non-intimates) and also knew when she could be herself (with true intimates). She made fun of this in 'Goin' To Town', as she was well aware of this transparent transformation, and how humorous it truly was.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I feel it's necessary. I am not entirely sure Mae West even said much of what is quoted in this book. In short--I feel Chandler may well have made a lot of it up because she quite possibly didn't have enough material for a book. As other reviewers have pointed out, "Why now? Why 30 YEARS later"? Chandler claims to have RECORDED these conversations. In this case--let's see a double CD set released to prove it. Now THAT would be a massive seller! The grammar does not sound like West, the weeping in front of Chandler is highly unbelievable, the endless chatter about Elvis and Marilyn Monroe is not customary of Mae West (who liked to keep the conversation centered around HERSELF) and...well...the list is endless.

In all other books about Mae West, one comes away with the 'feeling' of Mae West. When you finish this (which is no easy task) you may well feel nothing at all.

Mae West was one of the most interesting women of the early- to mid-twentieth century. She knew what she wanted, and in a world dominated by men, she knew how to get it. This biography, written by veteran biographer Lyn Erhard, under the pen name of Charlotte Chandler, is an interesting view of Ms. West, having more of the feel of an autobiography. The author crams the book full of quotes from the great lady, making you feel like you are hearing her tell her life story to you face-to-face.

So, as you can tell, I liked this biography. Like, I said, in many ways it is like an autobiography, in that it tells Mae's story from her (no doubt biased) viewpoint, rather than attempting to be an expose or hard-hitting investigation. I like Mae West, and I really liked the way the book truly feels like her. Is it the best biography of Mae West, no, not really. But, is it a great book on Mae West, a hard-to-put-down read? Oh yeah!

(Review of She Always Knew How: Mae West, a Personal Biography)

Charlotte Chandler's new book is a must for all you Mae West fans out there! It is the latest in her series of "personal" biographies in which she uses as her base material, the audio tapes she made of interviews she conducted over the years with Hollywood's royalty. Her style is not to question but rather to allow her subjects to tell their story in their own way and, most importantly, in their own words.

What is fascinating about this book is that it is based largely on the lengthy interview she conducted with Mae at her Ravenswood apartment in 1980, the year of Mae's death.

This is the second time Miss Chandler has utilised her source material, the first being in her 1984 interview anthology, "The Ultimate Seduction". This was a very tightly written piece and without doubt one of the best ever accounts of an interview with Mae West. The new book expands on the original piece thereby making the very most of the available material this time around.

We find Mae in good sorts and with a very clear mind. She is in unusually reflective mood and in several passages, demonstrates an ability to see her life and career in perspective and in the context of the times in which she lived. Mae made it her lifelong mission to edit and refine her own biography. It is no surprise therefore that she delivers to Miss Chandler a version of her life that is somewhat less than the whole truth. This is the beauty of the book and why it is referred to as a "personal" biography.

The main text is supported by the reminiscences of an array of supporting cast members, most notably Tim Malachosky, who was Mae's personal assistant during the last years of her life, and renowned film critic, Kevin Thomas, who both remember her fondly.

If you want an in-depth, carefully researched and detailed, biography of Mae West, then this book will not flick your switch. But if you never got the invitation to "come us and see" Mae West in person, this book is the next best thing. It provides a rare insight into the mind of the elderly Mae West and what was occupying her thoughts at the time, touchingly mainly how much she still missed her long dead mother. I loved the book. And given the existence of the source material, an audio version would be the icing on the cake! See more of Mae at the Mae West Color Site, [...]

Charlotte Chandler, the author of this book, does NOT write Biographies......
Why do I say that?
After having read her "biographies" of Mae West, Joan Crawford, and bits of her book on Bette Davis, you realize that these are basically TRANSCRIPTS-----and little more.....
If we place trust on the work of Ms. Chandler, and relax and leave aside the critique of how informative or revelatory her book will be, you will be left with (most surely (heavily?) edited) words of the person being quoted throughout. In a sense, these are "oral histories".....
Why Ms. Chandler waited THIRTY YEARS after the death of Miss West to publish this book, as well as the book on Crawford is a question that perplexes and makes you wonder.
HOWEVER......
For EVERYONE who has heard the "Come up and see me....." ad nauseum, these transcripts prove tremendously REVELATORY....
Interviewed (and perhaps that's not the word,since it appears that Miss West simply talks endlessly, with very little interruption from the author) perhaps a year before her death in 1980, I came across a woman that I never had known---and that most of the world DOES NOT KNOW either......
The person expressing herself in this book is PROFOUNDLY EMPATHETIC, enormously GENEROUS, devoted to her family in the most tender of ways, a deeply spiritual woman who is the antithesis of the rapacious, cartoonish buffoon that the world knows, and one who's heart was tender, forgiving, loving, gracious------in short, the very essence of a LADY that for so many she never could have been....
If you loved your mother greatly, Mae West's story on the relationship between her and her mother to the very moment of the old lady's death (just as Mae was reaching Hollywood) will bring you to tears.... The DEVOTION and profound love they had for each other was the most extraordinary of bonds, and to hear Mae talk about the loss brings ALL FACADES to an end....
This book illuminates (or should we say: Mae DOES!) this star's life like no other..... Her musings on Elvis, on black people, Homosexuals, her devotion for the two main "husbands" of her life expand on this to provide us a portrait of a woman exquisitely AHEAD of her time, greatly intelligent, but primarily the SHOCK upon realizing that all that self-absorption and narcissism had another side which was filled with love and devotion for many......
I thank Ms. Chandler for having brought all this unto the light and have us fans be able to completely HUMANIZE a figure as important to 20th. Century history as there ever was in Hollywood-----a complex individual, filled with BEAUTY, in great measure, WITHIN.

This by far is the most indept,insightful and well written biography I have read about Mae West. I've read practically every book written about this woman. This book gave a personal look into who she was an how she became 'Mae West'. This is a woman who was born into 'her time', 'place' and knew how to market her image without compromising her character...
Mae knew how to let you 'come up with the meaning' of the words she spoke....

I must admit up front, I'm not a huge fan of Charlotte Chandlers, but I keep giving her chance after chance because of her first-person access to many of her subjects.

There is no doubt Mae West was one of Hollywood's most colorful personalities, not only as the very definition of "movie star" in the 1930s, but also the well-documented fact that off-screen, she was a rather shy and not at all a Hollywood player, preferring to keep to herself and a small group of friends.

Excellent biographies have come out in the past few years of West, going into stunning detail on the first forty years of her life, all pre-Hollywood, when she wrote, starred, directed and produced plays. They have honed in on the vast intelligence this woman possessed, made even more remarkable by the fact that she knew exactly how to use it for maximum public exposure.

However, Chandler takes the easy way out. She interviewed Mae West extensively just prior to her death in 1980 and has taken almost 30 years to publish it in book form. I'm not sure why, since all "She Always Knew How" is basically the text of the interviews. Pages go by without so much as an interpolation by the author. Granted, West was still sizzling and a first-person account is always fun, but Mae West was also known for dragging out the same tall tales for interviewers. There's nothing here that gives us anything new, except some details about West's actual demise.

Brief plot summaries of West's movies are noticeably bad, making them seem unbearably stupid. Plot-wise the 30s movies were not brilliant, but it was the lines and the chances. That all goes by unnoticed. Instead, we get West waxing rhapsodic about everything (especially herself) and Chandler seeminly never asking a more probing question. Even West's well-documented feuding with W.C. Fields is made to seem like a love-fest here.

Mae West deserves (and has gotten) far better book treatment. Skip this one and go for the others!

Somewhere up there Miss Mae West is smiling. And our thanks go out to Charlotte Chandler - celebrity interviewer/author of eight previous books - for giving us this thoroughly enjoyable new look at one of America's most original and enduring icons of the stage and screen.

Built around interviews taped during the last year of West's life, this new publication offers us the opportunity to "hear" her words exactly as she spoke them, and at a time in her life from which no other such interviews exist. The value of this gift for West fans cannot be overestimated. If you want to hear the "Sin-sational" Miss Mae West tell the final version of her life story, as she would want you to know it - from birth in Brooklyn in 1893, to the heights of Hollywood fame and beyond - HERE SHE IS! And it just does not get any better than this, short of having been able to spend time in the Ravenswood with her!

Except for her mother and sister, women were not usually Miss West's first choice for company - and certainly not younger women doing interviews. The idea for Chandler's meetings, however, had been irresistibly suggested to West by director George Cukor, with whom she still hoped to make a film. It took a leap of faith for West to put her words into another woman's hands, but her trust has now been repaid ten fold. In this narrative, which reflects nearly the full 87 years of her life, Mae West's unaltered "voice" and personality, placed once again in her favorite place - "the spotlight", come through "alive" and brilliantly clear.

Additionally, Chandler's own personal gift for humor makes this book especially fun to read. Her interactions with Miss West, and descriptions of their time together, are bound to have the reader smiling, at the very least!

Did Miss West experience suffering in her life? Was she ever sad, frightened, lonely, or in doubt? Yes, I think we can be sure of that, but she did not believe in dwelling on the "negative". That was just not like "Mae West". And so, instead of stories of despair in this book, there are stories about Elvis Presley, Groucho Marx, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Beverly Sills, and many others - stories that West told about them, and stories they told about her. It's wonderful!

West, who neither smoked nor drank, LOVED men... and mirrors, limousines and diamonds, spiritualists and séances, "chop suey, sex, and my career", she said. She was kind, thoughtful, and often very generous to people, but above all else, she loved her "self" - her "creation" , which remained the unwavering focus of all her attention and lifetime of work. "I had to be prepared for the best that could happen.", she told Chandler. And she loved her fans, to whom she always - at least by mail - remained accessible, and for whom she personally signed each autograph requested. They were her "audience", and her love for them never diminished - yet she was also an intensely private person, carefully choosing her small circle of close friends. Mae West is a MYSTERY. That is the woman we learn about and meet here - unknowingly at the end of a very long life, but still positive and planning for more. How much of her story is her own "embroidery" is up to the reader to ponder. It is part of the puzzle, and part of her charm.

As you read this beautiful book, which I HIGHLY recommend, be prepared to fall in love with the eternal Miss West. Exposure to her makes that inevitable. "She Always Knew How - Mae West, a Personal Biography" is unlike any other window we have been given into the "world" of this legendary star. The subject was elusive, but the interviewer/author is "magic"! How fortunate for us.

As Mae West herself once proclaimed, "Some women know how to get what they want. Others don't. I've always known how." This epigram explains the title as well as the mindset of this very driven and singular woman. Charlotte Chandler, venerated biographer of Alfred Hitchcock, Groucho Marx and, most recently, Bette Davis, turns her keen eye to the life and career of one of the most iconic stars of Hollywood.

Born Mary Jane West in Brooklyn, New York, in 1893, she quickly found her calling, and it involved a stage, a spotlight and a receptive audience. Mae, who changed her name only slightly from the nickname of "May" for aesthetic reasons, was the first child of Matilda and Jack West. Jack was known throughout New York as "Battlin' Jack," a tough, no-nonsense neighborhood boxer who once laid a guy flat with one punch for merely looking at his young wife. Her parents wanted to give their talented daughter all they could and encouraged her to perform on the stage, which she did, with great success. She spent her formative years in variety shows, vaudeville tours and the burlesque circuit, literally growing up in front of her audience.

When she came of age, Mae decided that instead of fitting a rather voluptuous peg into a square hole, she would do far better if she wrote her own material. Thus, Mae West the playwright was born. Her first play, scandalously titled Sex, opened in 1926 and became something of a cause célèbre. Mae was convicted of obscenity and sentenced to 10 days in jail. She could have had her lawyer and soon-to-be lover persuade the powers-that-be to knock the sentence down to community service, but Mae felt it was more honorable to do her time --- and, of course, think of the publicity!

Years later, she commented, "They say censorship was my enemy, but I'm not so sure about that. Maybe censorship was my best friend. You can't get famous for breaking the rules unless you've got some rules to break. Where would censorship have been without me? Like I always say, I made censorship necessary." After that, there was no stopping her. Plays that tackled very tough, very modern issues continued until Hollywood came to call. There, as on Broadway, she called her own shots, never afraid to push the envelope.

Not only did her trademark sayings like "Come up and see me sometime" (which is actually a misquote from one of her early films) and that one-of-a-kind walk define her persona, Mae proved herself to be a rather acute arbiter of talent. She made sure that Cary Grant was cast alongside her in I'm No Angel, and she persuaded George Raft, a local tough she had known in New York, to come to Los Angeles to pursue acting, eventually becoming her leading man in Night After Night. She was always about the work and took it most seriously. If W.C. Fields turned up to the set of My Little Chickadee inebriated, West would promptly leave. "Sex and work have been the only two things in my life," she once said, "...but if I ever had to choose between sex and my work, it was always my work I'd choose."

But apart from the work and the men (amazingly, there were only a few really important men in her life), Chandler also divulges what a kind and generous woman Mae was --- always eager to sign an autograph (she kept extra photos in the car, just for this purpose), faithfully keeping up with her fan mail, answering most letters herself, and generously donating to local charities in need. Once, she donated her slightly used limousine to the local convent because she couldn't bear "to see a nun waiting for the bus" and decided they need a little luxury, too.

Most of the stories in this book were culled from conversations Chandler had with Mae at her Ravenswood apartment in Hollywood the year before her death. Her recall is astounding, and her desire to protect her image is unmistakable: "I made up my mind very early that I would never love another person as much as I loved myself. Maybe that sounds selfish to you. It is. But I saw what a mess a lot of people could make of their lives when they are smitten. Some of them go temporarily insane. They find a person who they think holds the key to their happiness --- the only key to their happiness that exists. They don't understand they're the ones who give the other person that power. It's like a fever. The person in that condition may ruin their own life, and the lives of others, as well."

Both reader and author find it difficult to ascertain if Mae is all about protecting the image she carefully created over so many years, or if she really believes it. But with her trademark wit, she retorts, "Some people thought I ought to see a psychiatrist, but why spoil a good thing?"

--- Reviewed by Bronwyn Miller