The Baby Vamp is coming home!
The Mae West Drag Bingo Birthday Bash is at Neir’s Tavern on Saturday, Aug. 17, at 7 pm.
Very Gerry Entertainment makes sure that the early 1900s entertainer will be there – in spirit and outfit – for a night of song, birthday cake, one-liners, bingo, prizes, and whatever else happens.
Plus, the Woodhaven tavern will serve a specialty cocktail, Mae West Punch, which mixes whiskey, rum, lemon juice, pineapple juice, and ginger ale.
Ticket prices start at $17.85, and advanced purchase is recommended. (Click here.)
Gerry Mastrolia is the force behind Very Gerry Entertainment. He’s a character actor who’s been performing since age three. He made his professional breakthrough at age 18, and he’s been appearing on television and stages ever since. The New Jersey native’s main love is cabaret, and he presents his Hollywood ladies impersonation show, Divas In My Mind, around the country.
And who’s a bigger diva than Mae West?
Born in 1893 to John Patrick, a boxer who became a private investigator, and Mathilde (née Doelger), a fashion model from Germany, she showed zero interest in school as a child in Woodhaven. Luckily, she found Neir’s Tavern, where she became a young sensation under the stage name “The Baby Vamp,” thanks to her sultry voice and serious acting chops — as well as a voluptuous body and flirty manners. Vaudeville followed. Then, Broadway. Then, Hollywood, where she starred in blockbuster films opposite Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, W.C. Fields, and Rock Hudson on the way to becoming the country’s highest paid woman in 1935. She got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
Although West lived in California after making it big, she is buried in her family mausoleum at Cypress Hills Cemetery about one mile from Neir’s.
So the Drag Bingo Birthday Bash is kind of a homecoming, kind of a nostalgia night, and kind of a historical re-enactment.
Founded in 1829, Neir’s is the oldest pub to operate continuously in the same location – 87-48 78th St. – in the entire United States. (Some establishments are older, but they moved, sustained fire damage, underwent major renovations or shut down during Prohibition.) The mahogany bar, where scenes from Goodfellas were shot, dates to the Grant Administration. And as to be expected, photos of West adorn the walls (below).
Top image: Gerry Mastrolia; bottom image: Rob MacKay