Diamond Lil

Diamond Lil (1928), a play by Mae West. [Royale Theatre, 171 perf.] Lil (West) is the mistress of Gus Jordon ( J. Merrill Holmes), who runs a Bowery saloon and dance joint known as Suicide Hall and who trafficks in white slavery on the side. Gus is not especially loyal to Lil, but then when he is not around Lil is delighted to entertain any number of men friends. She even falls for Captain Cummings ( Curtis Cooksey), a Salvation Army evangelist. When Cummings breaks up the white slave trade and discloses that he is really a police officer, Lil is not too shocked. She has grown tired of Gus and, well, just might even reform. Although more straitlaced critics assailed the show as “lurid,” more liberal reviewers took a line not unlike that of Charles Brackett in The New Yorker, who wrote, “Pure trash, or rather impure trash though it is, I wouldn't miss Diamond Lil if I were you.” A nearly year‐long run in London during the 1947–48 season prompted a New York revival in 1949. By then the play was perceived as harmless hokum, but with West again as star it ran 181 performances and might have run longer had she not broken her ankle.