COMING UP... SOME PEOPLE BLAMED THIS OTHER WOMAN FOR A LITERARY STAR'S SUICIDE

Was getting involved with married poets really worth the devastation to her own spirit?

HOW DOES A KEPT PERSON GAIN A SECURE RETIREMENT?

We hear of Mistresses who started out working for a boss.  Some stay with the company and get their own Social Security and Retirement - come what may of the company itself, retirements, the relationship.  We hear of Mistresses who have their own business and the start up capital came from their man.  They work it and some of them have very successful and profitable businesses and can pay personal loans back or provide money when his business sinks.  We hear of Mistresses who are entirely Kept.  I hear that is rare these days and only the very rich can do so, but it still happens.


If you are Kept, how do you manage to save and invest for retirement?


Personally, if a person can afford it, I think it's very decent to be bought a house that is put into your name so that you have at least that.  Houses usually appreciate so that maybe when you are very old you will have to sell it to finance your last years.  So to me a house is a great investment and prevents you from having to cope with constant rent increases that use your money.

DORIS DUKE KEPT MEN (BUT BERNARD WAS AN EMPLOYEE)

DORIS DUKE was an heiress who became one of the richest women in the world.  She owned properties around the world and traveled extensively.  She never found fulfillment in marriage and gave birth to a daughter who soon died.  She never had another child.  Doris had men and she wasn't especially conventional about men.  You could say she was a free spirit.  In the Film BERNARD and DORIS,  Ralph Fiennes acts as an increasingly feminine butler with a drinking problem, and Susan Sarandon acts as Doris.


 
No doubt Doris kept some men, perhaps only for sex, of the Boytoy variety. As depicted in this film, which I enjoy, she is a woman who knows what she wants exactly and when she wants it. She sees a new gardener, she might want to try him in bed as Lady of the Manor. What of the handsome and fit model of a much younger man who also knows how to play the piano.  She gives him envelopes of cash but tells him she's leaving town and he must go.  He reasons that the house is big enough to stay and wait.  She tells him no.

Butler Bernard stays with her until her death, though he does get into the wine and end up in a rehab program that she pays for.  After all he admitted he had a wee bit of a problem with alcohol from the start. Based on real life (Bernard worked for Elizabeth Taylor previously).  They become playful friends and perhaps he is her only real confidant as she ages. Having traveled all over the world and had so many experiences, it is he who is there for her as she dies.

C 2017 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot Film Review

STRONGEST MAN ON EARTH

Louis Cyr, strongest man on earth, 1898

MAE WEST loved the ultra masculinity of weight lifters

from her early womanhood when she was just

starting out as an entertainer, one who emphasized

the differences between men and women.

A MAN IN THE HOUSE IS WORTH TWO IN THE STREET : A PAUL NOVAK OBIT

INDEPENDENT UK - OBITUARY PAUL NOVAK

EXCERPT from a long tale by Tom Vallance  

                
Chester Ribonsky (Paul Novak), sailor, bodybuilder and bodyguard: born Baltimore, Maryland 1923; died Santa Monica, California 14 July 1999

HOLLWOOD POSTCARD 1940 : THE RAVENSWOOD and OTHER SITES

This postcard, originally from 1940, has landmarks in

each letter.  I think the H has the Ravenswood Apartments.

The Griffith Observatory is in the second O and

Graumann's Chinese Theater is in the third O.

LA DAILY MIRROR - OLD ARTICLE ON THE RAVENSWOOD APARTMENTS


Reading around United States President Donald Trump and his wife Melania, such a big deal is being made about them (probably) not sleeping in the same bed or having separate bedrooms.  Well, Paul Novak and Mae West never shared a bed or bedroom either, at least that's the claim.


Maybe it's more civilized to have your own room and your own bed.  My suspicion this isn't so much about sexual activity, but about being able to sleep, or to snore, or to simply not be seen not looking one's best for one's lover!  Don't you feel sometimes like you need to burrow in your own cave for a while, though you do love your partner?

IN HER 50's... ALWAYS KNOWN FOR HER SEXY QUIPS

Mae West's sense of humor and sexiness defied censors.


She joked:
"Look your best.  Who said love is blind?"
"Between two evils I always like to try the one I've never tried before."
"Marriage is a great institution but I'm not ready for an institution."

ARE YOU A MAN WHO WANTS TO BE KEPT? MISSY SPEAKS

I'll never forget when a friend of mine graduated from a good college with a difficult to achieve degree and right out of school was hired by a Fortune 500 company.  She was making double what most people do right out of college and she was proud, but also just a little showy about it. Her new income was impressive but far more is offered today by those women who are graduating with PHD's in the sciences.

She began to attract men who wanted to be Kept. In their youth, they wanted to marry her but they wanted to be Kept.

One of them was her hairdresser. He pledged that he would be willing to quit his business, transfer with her wherever the company might send her, and give her children if she wanted them and take care of them too.  At the time people called this a "role reversal."  It was rare to find a man who would consider it. When she came home from work, not only did he run a bath for her but he had dinner ready.  Every morning he did her hair.  She looked terrific.

My friend did not marry this man or Keep him, though while they were together she had her wallet open, and he was very comfortable letting her pay.  She transferred to another city where she never seemed to meet anyone to date.  Another transfer and the purchase of a little castle of a home on her own brought her another man who wanted to marry her but wanted to be Kept.  This one started sending his dry cleaning out with hers right away.  He did not want to give her children.  He intended to have a business that latched onto her career. He drove but he put his hand out for the gas money.  When his first business wasn't a go, she said, "That's OK."  Then she financed his second business.

She was no heiress.  She didn't have an impressive stock portfolio (not yet) and her family was just average. But so it went for a young woman with just a bit more than most.
Today many women are Keeping men who are like her.  It doesn't matter that they have just a little more because the man gets used to that little more being spent on them.
 
ARE YOU A WOMAN WHO IS KEEPING A MAN, or WANTS TO?

Does a man have to do your hair, run your bath water, drive you places?  Does he have to admire you and cater to your needs, anticipating whatever it might be that pleases you in the moment,  as our Mantress of the Month, Paul Novak, did Mae West?

Let me ask the women out there, Do you treat the men in your life that way?

If you are a man who wants to be Kept, showing off your expertise is the way to go, providing your expertise falls into the "help wanted" ad.  Stereotypically this means providing sexually satisfaction for your woman, and hopefully yourself, within reason.  But sex is not always necessary or even a priority.  So if your woman is perhaps not too interested in sex anymore, you need to make an agreement with her.  Do you get to have a lover too?  If she's an heiress, she might just want you to play tennis, go sailing, or travel with her.  If she's in business, she might just want to come home to a beautiful home setting and have dinner on the table, and maybe you get to meet her in another city but maybe not her business colleagues.  If she's married, you may also get to do these things, but in different locations and with a different group of friends.

HOW IS the KEPT MAN lifestyle DIFFERENT THAN BEING A HUSBAND? 

Sometimes hardly at all.

I have a young neighbor who is Kept.  Yes, he's working every money making opportunity there is out there, via Uber, Lyft, AirBnB (when she is out of town.)  He's a high school drop out and very good musician, and yet, he's he doesn't actually hustle work.  He lets it find him.

She's got a Master's Degree in Marketing.  She pays the rent on a house and there are two new Tesla's in the driveway, one for him, one for her.

This woman will not marry him, something his parents, who are conservative, have pointed out.  When she's gone on business, she calls.  She does not say where exactly she is and who with and he doesn't ask. 

All week he takes care of her dog.  His parents also point out that he always wanted children and she has decided not to have any.  He's in his early thirties now.  Will he regret the years he has put in being Kept if and when she breaks with him?  (Seems to me most women are told they will regret it.)

There are those who are betting that she will break with him, the moment she meets her equal  or better in the business world.  Truly, I know he loves her and when she says things to him like "I'm not sure this is going to work out" and he becomes very depressed, I try not to give advice!

Being Kept does not require committing adultery!  With fewer couples actually marrying, the question is often, "Is it adultery?"

C 2017 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot   All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights.

EDITH HEAD FASHION DESIGNS - LINK TO MAE WEST

PINTEREST - EDITH HEAD DESIGNS FOR MAE WEST

PALMERS MAY BLOOM

MAE WEST's JEWELRY

DAILY CAMERA - LIFESTYLE - MAE WEST'S JEWELRY  By Aimee Heckel


Dolly Parton, the country singer, now owns half of Mae West's jewelry.  Other pieces are for sale that prove that "Diamond Lil" as she was known, could have a heart of gold and trade the diamonds for glass.

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL

PAUL NOVAK : 27 YEARS AS MAE WEST'S MUCH YOUNGER LIVE IN KEPT COMPANION - PROTECTIVE AND ADORING HER TILL THE DAY SHE DIED

This image is from WIKICOMMONS

MAE WEST making a speech after the film premier of Sextette, which she wrote.

The handsome man in the tuxedo to her left is PAUL NOVAK. 
(1923 - 14 July 1999)

PAUL NOVAK, was born Chester Ribonsky, changed his name when he became a body builder to the more German sounding Chuck Krauser, and then, after he beat up Mr. Universe, Mickey Hargitay, some say over Mae, his name changed again; a new start with Mae, a new name.  He was 33 and she was 63 when they began. Novak knew he was meeting a woman with a long career as an entertainer on stage, a woman who wrote novels and plays for stage, a superstar at the Paramount Studios, and a Sex Goddess.  Not as well known to those of you reading Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot today is that Mae had a large African American following having asked Duke Ellington and a number of other African Americans to perform with her.

Paul Novak looked macho in his youth.  He had done military service, been in the merchant marines, and a gunner in World War II, and then in the Korean War. It's said that he was so much in love with the much older Mae, love at first sight for him, that he gave up on his dreams of sailing the world to meet her every need.

When she came to Hollywood, she moved into the Ravenswood Apartments in Hollywood and forever more considered her two bedroom apartment to be home. They kept separate bedrooms but it wasn't that big a place. Mae also had a 22 room beach house in Santa Monica where they spent much of their time.

He always called her "Miss West."  He was respectful and, well, servile, but there was much more to their relationship.  Volatile at first before they settled in, Mae said they were sexual and there too he met her needs.

He played chauffer and went into the store when they went to grocery shop while she stayed in the car incognito. He drove her to her beach house for the day where they played. He drove her in a limo to the San Francisco premier of a play she wrote. 

When she was diagnosed with diabetes, Paul kept Mae on an exercise and diet program, making sure she didn't load up on chocolates.  One to fib about her age, (officially Born Aug. 17, 1893 in Brooklyn and Died Nov. 22, 1890 in Hollywood) West may have thought that the truth about her age or marrying would effect her sex symbol status.  Paul watched over her protectively when a Playboy photographer came calling, never leaving the room.  He kept false friends away, spun the PR when she had a stroke, and ultimately buried the childless Mae when she died. 

Then he went to live at the marina on a small boat, then he took a cruise around the world on a big ship, then he disappeared from the people they once knew and the old haunts. 

He had no regrets, saying he had lived a wonderful life.  (But he did sue her estate.)

Novak had a brief time as a public person when he was a weight lifter.  He'd won Mr. Baltimore  - a weight lifting title. In 1954 he was one of the muscle men that West chose to be sex symbols for her Vegas stage show. Their relationship began about then.  Other than his weightlifting and stint as an entertainer with Mae, not much, besides what I've mentioned above, is known about him.  They were that private.  He was that quiet.  Or was it that he was that hidden?

Paul's role in Mae's life was not on stage but in the home.  He was there to keep her happy. 

He was easy going, quiet, intuitively knowing, anticipating her every want and need. Mae kept him, and a small number of people she employed, around that apartment in Hollywood. 

Mae had not been socially accepted by main-stream Hollywood until her later years.  Only Marlene Dietrich tried to be her friend. (They did not become lovers.) She became rich not only from being exceedingly well paid at points in her career, but also, like Bob Hope*, Gene Autry, and others who came to Los Angeles early, in land and property real estate. Yet, she never got around to changing her will.  Had he gently suggested to her that she should. Yes he did.   In 1962 Mae West became the first woman admitted to the Hollywood Friar's club, the club known for roasting members with jokes.

It crossed my mind, as I began researching Paul Novak and Mae West, that perhaps he was homosexual, for among body builders there are some, who saw Mae as an icon of femininity.  As for her sexually provocative humor, maybe she had her own issues, for she managed to keep men attracted but away. When she died, it was even rumored that she was a man who had lived his life in drag. We have her word for it, and his, that they were sexual, yet such rumors existed.  She was openly for gay rights.

These two books are the prime reference for this month's

MANTRESS OF THE MONTH, PAUL NOVAK

Mae West's relationship with Paul Novak can be confusing because she can be.  For instance she claimed she was not a feminist, considering femininity to be power, but she did want to liberate women.  She treated men, her bodybuilder stage props, as objects.  She herself was a sex object and apparently wanted to be. She wanted to be in charge so her heart would not be broken, and denied an early and brief marriage.  She wanted to seem available as a woman forever, but maybe that was her act.  Prior to Paul she had many affairs, adoring wrestlers and prize fighters especially.  Did she stop because she fell in love with him, or did Mae really have as many affairs as attributed to her?

This is an excerpt of what Mae had to say about Paul that Charlotte Chandler wrote in her book "Mae West - She Always Knew How."

"Pauls' the great man in my life.  It's pretty well-known that every man, well, just about every man I ever met fell in love with me.....  So it doesn't raise any eyebrows that Paul is madly in love with me, though we try to be discreet.  ...  What we don't want people to know is that ours is a genuine love story.  It's both sides of the street, not a one-way relationship... I don't like the word to get out too much because it isn't my image for my audience, but, honey, I love Paul as much as he loves me., and that's a whole lot..."

Paul said he had fallen in love with her at first sight. She said sex with him only got better and that their relationship never faded. (286)  He accepted that she would always look at other men but told her he never had eyes for any other woman but her. (287)

Paul said, "This (ie. tending to Mae's needs) is why I'm here.  My purpose in life is to protect Miss West.  I was just a roustabout, and she chose me.,  I've been blessed."  He said she gave meaning to his life and before he met her he felt lost and depressed.  He said he hoped he would die first. (290)

SO WHAT ALL DID PAUL DO TO TEND TO MAE's NEEDS? 

Paul provided Mae with personal protection by carrying a gun, in particular to prevent her from being robbed of her diamonds.  He's credited with persuading her to wear fakes.

When she developed diabetes in old age, he watched her diet, and would try to tame people offering her sweets by giving them the eye.

For the lady who had everything she wanted or needed, he gave her beautifully wrapped presents (contents unknown) on her birthdays.

He cared for her reputation. He covered her first stroke at age 87 with the story that she had fallen out of bed while dreaming of Burt Reynolds.  (A second stroke is what she died of.)

He wanted to create a huge Hollywood funeral for her fitting a big star, but did as she wanted and protected her privacy.  (297)

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Some Notes from Missy

Research for this post included reading around the internet, including obituaries, fan pages, and so on.  Some of the information was repetitive. If interested in Stars from the Golden Era of Hollywood, check out my posts on Bob Hope and his women, and the Silent Star Clara Bow!  Or run the word Hollywood in the search feature embedded in this BlogSpot.