Courting Mae West

The play "COURTING MAE WEST: Sex, Censorship & Secrets" is based on true events during the 1920s when actress MAE WEST was arrested and jailed in New York City for trying to stage two gay plays on Broadway. Maybe she broke the law - - but the LAW couldn't break HER!

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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Beverly's divorce after the raid

Taking advantage of the legal woes of his sister-in-law MAE WEST, Beverly's husband Sergei Treshatny went to court to obtain a divorce on 15 April 1927 after a decade of marriage. Their divorce became final on 30 September 1927.
• • On 29 January 1917 Beverly West [1898 —1982] wed her first Russian husband Sergei Treshatny. An inventor, Treshatny had arrived in the United States in 1916. Vaudevillians Beverly and Mae West were both busy working in Paterson, New Jersey during January 1917 when Beverly took some time off to become a "missus" at Brooklyn City Hall on Joralemon Street. It had been a brief courtship.
On 8 December 1916, the bride-to-be had celebrated her 18th birthday.
• • A decade later, when Mae and Beverly were arrested in Bridgeport, Connecticut on 2 February 1927, Sergei took advantage of the scandal, using the trial testimony as his grounds for divorce.
• • The union between the unhappy couple was dissolved by Supreme Court Justice George H. Taylor, Jr. in Newburgh, New York. The divorce action was based on a police raid on a room in the Arcade Hotel (Bridgeport) at 5:00 AM when Beverly West and Edward Elsner were charged with a "breach of the peace" [i.e., being drunk].
• • The arrest at the Arcade Hotel — 1001 Main St, Bridgeport, CT 06604 — is dramatized in the play "Courting Mae West." This scene can be viewed on YouTube.com.
• • Though the case against Edward Elsner and Beverly West was dropped the next day in the Bridgeport City Court, a stenographer took a transcript of the testimony for Mr. Treshatny the policeman who made the February 2nd arrests testified before Judge Taylor.
• • Sergei Treshatny, who was living in Stamford in 1927, had invented an air-cooled motor.
• • Beverly had tried to divorce him in Brooklyn in 1924 but dropped it after her plea for alimony and counsel fees pending a trial had been denied.
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• • Photo: Mae West's family
• • 1934 • •

Mae West.

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