Old Hollywood Glamour at the Brown Derby with Mae West and WC Fields. Excerpt from the Maybelline Story

By Sharriewilliams

Tom Lyle and his custom Packard Victoria

My 16 year father, Bill Williams along with his uncle Tom Lyle Williams and Emery Shaver, pulled up to the valet at the famous Brown Derby in Beverly Hills in TL's new 1940 Packard Victoria,

 just as Mae West and W.C. Fields pulled up in a flashy white Rolls Royce. 

West and Fields, dressed in full regalia for publicity shots, posed for photographers before entering the restaurant, while Tom Lyle and Bill turned in time to see Starstruck Emery slam into a pole and land flat on his rear.

To embarrassed to go back, they sauntered into the Derby, trying not to laugh and waited for Emery to pull himself together and meet them at  the booth.  It was a true W.C. Fields pratfall and one they never let 
Emery forget.

Tom Lyle and Emery at The Villa Valentino
Read more about Tom Lyle and Emery, during Old Hollywood's Glamorous Heyday, in The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty Behind It.  


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