MAE WEST

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20284, 28 August 1937, Page 17 (Supplement)

MAE WEST

NOT AN “UNKISSED WIFE” DANCER’S REPLY TO ASSERTION HOLLYWOOD, July 23. In reply to Mae West’s assertion that she is his “unkissed wife,” Frank Wallace, a 47-year-old musio-hall dancer, declared at Los Angeles that he can prove the contrary. He has now given notice to the Superior Court of an application to attack the film star's estate, estimated at £300,000, and to appoint a receiver pending the deciding of his claim to half the estate, to which he says he Is entitled according to the law of California. Wallace ridicules Mae's defence that for 26 years since the marriage she has been “virtually a spinster.” He alleges that he refused £6,000 offered by Mae’s lawyers “to forget the marriage ceremony.” He added:

Mae’s money does not interest me so much as vindication of my honour as a man and husband.” Admission In Court. Miss West admitted In the Superior Court that she had been Mrs Frank Wallace for 26 years, but denied that they had ever lived together as man and wife. At the time of the marriage she was 18 and Wallace 21. She declares that Wallace was married again in 1916 to Miss Ray Blakesly “without the formality of a divorce from her,” and that when obtaining the license for the ceremony Wallace declared he had not been married before. Miss West further alleged that Miss Blakesly secured a divorce in 1935, and announced that she herself was going to sue Wallace for divorce. • Last year the Courts in New York refused Wallace’s request to have his marriage recognised. He stated that the marriage took place in Milwaukee, and that he “renounced” Mae so. as not to hamper her career.