Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

:This article is about the actress. For the WWII
life preserver nicknamed for her, see Mae West
(life preserver).

Mae West (August 17, 1893 – November 22,
1980) was an United States|American actor|actress
and playwright.

She was born Mary Jane West in Brooklyn, New
York|Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of John
Patrick West and Matilda Delker Doelger. Her
younger sister and brother were Mildred West,
called Beverly, and John Edwin West.


Mae West started performing in vaudeville at the
age of five. By the time she was twelve she was
doing burlesque under the name "The Baby Vamp."
Though she had not yet grown into her generous
curves, the slinky, dark-haired Mae was already
raising eyebrows with a lascivious "shimmy" dance.

Eventually, she started writing her own risqué
plays using the pen name Jane Mast. Her first
starring role on Broadway theatre|Broadway was in
a play she titled Sex, which was written, produced
and directed by West. Though critics hated the
show, ticket sales were good. The notorious
production did not go over well with city
officials, however. The theatre was raided and
West was arrested along with everyone else in the
cast.

She was prosecuted on morals charges and, on April
19, 1927, was sentenced to ten days in jail for
public obscenity. While incarcerated on Roosevelt
Island|Welfare Island, she was allowed to wear her
silk panties instead of the scratchy prison issue.
She served eight days, with two days off for good
behavior.

West regarded talking about sex as a basic human
rights issue. She was also an early advocate of
gay rights, pleading against police brutality
against homosexuals by saying, "A homosexual is a
woman's soul in a man's body. You're hitting a
woman." 

After being released from jail, she set to work on
her next creative effort. Her second play was
about homosexuality and was titled The Drag. It
was a success, but audiences had to go to New
Jersey to see it because it was banned from
Broadway. She continued to write plays, including
The Wicked Age, Pleasure Man, and The Constant
Sinner. Her productions were plagued by
controversy and other problems, however. If they
did not get shut down for indecency, they closed
because of slow ticket sales.

For her next adventure into theatre she had a
Broadway hit, Diamond Lil (1928), about a racy,
easygoing lady of the 1890s. The show struck
box-office gold and heralded the brazen,
wisecracking blonde to new heights of fame. It
enjoyed an enduring popularity and West would
successfully revive it many times through the
course of her career.

In 1932 in film|1932, she was offered a
film|motion picture contract by Paramount
Pictures|Paramount. She signed and went to
Hollywood, California|Hollywood to appear in Night
After Night starring George Raft. Upon her
arrival, she moved into an apartment in the
Ravenswood at 570 North Rossmore Avenue, not far
from the movie studio|studio on Melrose Avenue.
She maintained a residence there for the rest of
her life.

At first, she did not like her small role in Night
After Night, but was appeased when she was allowed
to rewrite her lines. In her first scene, a coat
check girl exclaimed, "Goodness, what lovely
diamonds." West became an instant sensation when
she replied, "Goodness had nothing to do with it,
dearie."

She brought Diamond Lil, now Lady Lou, to the
screen in She Done Him Wrong (1933 in film|1933),
personally selecting Cary Grant for the male lead,
a role that made him a movie star|star. The movie
was a huge success and earned an Academy Award
nomination for Academy Award for Best Picture|Best
Picture.

In 1934, the Hays Office emerged to enforce
censorship of movies and her scripts began to be
heavily edited. Her answer was to increase the
double-entendre, saying phrases with risqué
connotations that could also be taken to mean
something else.

West starred in eight movies for Paramount before
their association came to an end. Two years later,
she starred opposite W. C. Fields|W.C. Fields in
My Little Chickadee (1940 in film|1940) at
Universal Studios|Universal.

During World War II, allied soldiers called their
inflatable life preserver|life jackets "Mae West
jacket|Mae Wests" because of its resemblance to
her curvaceous torso.

She was apparently married April 11, 1911 in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Frank Wallace, a fellow
vaudevillian, who in 1942 showed up in Hollywood
with a marriage certificate. She denied ever
marrying him, and records showed she had never
lived with him, but she still found it necessary
to seek a legal divorce.

West appeared in her last movie during the studio
age with The Heat's On (1943 in film|1943) for
Columbia Pictures|Columbia. She remained active
during the ensuing years, however. Among her stage
performances was the title role in Catherine Was
Great on Broadway. She also starred in her own Las
Vegas, Nevada|Las Vegas stage show surrounded by
bodybuilders and singing to delighted crowds,
which included a large number of gay men. Many
celebrities attended West's show, including Judy
Garland, Ethel Merman, Louis Armstrong, Liberace
and Jayne Mansfield (who met and married West's
muscle man Mickey Hargitay, getting him fired).

On radio programming|radio, West appeared on
Ventriloquism|ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's show
and did a sexy sketch with Bergen's dummy, Charlie
McCarthy, based on Adam and Eve, that shocked the
listening audience. She was banned from the
airwaves for several years.

In 1958 in literature|1958, she wrote her
autobiography titled Goodness Had Nothing To Do
With It.

In order to keep her appeal fresh with younger
generations, she recorded a Rock and Roll album
titled "Great Balls of Fire," which covered songs
by Elvis Presley and The Beatles, among others.
She also recorded a number of parody songs,
including "Santa, Come Up and See Me Sometime."


West also appeared on television
program|television talk shows and, in the early
1960s, she guest starred as herself on the popular
television series Mister Ed.

After an absence of almost thirty years from the
silver screen, she appeared in Gore Vidal's Myra
Breckinridge (1970 in film|1970) with John Huston,
Raquel Welch, Rex Reed, Farrah Fawcett and Tom
Selleck in a small part. It failed.

At the age of eighty-five, West returned in her
last movie, Sextette (1978 in film|1978) with
Timothy Dalton, Dom DeLuise, Tony Curtis, Ringo
Starr and George Hamilton (actor)|George Hamilton,
with Rona Barrett, Walter Pidgeon and George Raft.
It was also amusingly terrible and failed at the
box-office, despite the fact that before its
release large photographs of her reclining on a
chaise longue went up on billboards all over
Hollywood proclaiming, "Mae West Is Coming."

In November 1980, she suffered a stroke and was
rushed to the hospital, but the prognosis was not
good and she was sent home. She died at home in
the Ravenswood apartment building on Rossmore
Avenue. She is entombed in the Cypress Hills
Cemetery at 833 Jamaica Avenue in Brooklyn, New
York.

Mae West has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 1560 Vine Street in Hollywood,
California|Hollywood.

==Filmography==
*Night After Night (1932 in film|1932) (Paramount)
... Maudie Triplett
*She Done Him Wrong (1933 in film|1933)
(Paramount) ... Lady Lou
*I'm No Angel (1933 in film|1933) (Paramount) ...
Tira
*Belle Of The Nineties (1934 in film|1934)
(Paramount) ... Ruby Carter
*Goin' To Town (1935 in film|1935) (Paramount) ...
Cleo Bordon
*Klondike Annie (1936 in film|1936) (Paramount)
... The Frisco Doll (Rose Carlton)
*Go West, Young Man (1936 in film|1936)
(Paramount) ... Mavis Arden
*Every Day's A Holiday (1938 in film|1938)
(Paramount) ... Peaches O'Day
*My Little Chickadee (1940 in film|1940)
(Universal) ... Flower Belle Lee
*The Heat's On (1943 in film|1943) (Columbia) ...
Fay Lawrence
*Myra Breckinridge (1970 in film|1970) (20th
Century Fox) ... Leticia Van Allen
*Sextette (1978 in film|1978) (Crown International
Pictures) ... Marlo Manners

==External links==

*ibdb name|id=7476|name=Mae West
*imdb name|id=0922213|name=Mae West
*http://www.mindspring.com/~hsstern/maewest/photos
.htm Mae West Photo Gallery
*http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/quotes/maew
est.html Mae West Quotes