Mae West

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American stage and film actress with regal postures, delightful wit and insinuation and whose sexy quips have remained as a humorous part of our language. Actually, she never disrobed or used any profanity in her 15 plays and 11 movies. She wrote, produced and starred in her own shows featuring a frank, ironic view of sexuality and became an American icon. She usually portrayed women of dubious virtue with flippant humor. Writing her own material, she created one-liners that became part of the American lexicon, such as "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you glad to see me?" This was during a time when the word "pregnant" could not be used in public and books we now regard as classics were banned as obscene, such as Leaves of Grass, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Gone With the Wind and even Jimmy Stewart’s kiss was left on the cutting-room floor of "It’s a Wonderful Life." Mae West was born in Brooklyn, New York to a onetime prizefighter and his wife, a former corset and fashion model who had come to the U.S. from Bavaria. She has a younger sister and a younger brother. West’s earliest memory was of "her mother massaging her with baby oil." Her mother pushed her onto the stage at the age of six as the Baby Vamp, and she began her career singing in lodge halls. She made her stage debut with a Brooklyn stock company about 1901. By 1907 she was performing on the national vaudeville circuit with Frank Wallace. Her first Broadway appearance was in the revue "A la Broadway and Hello, Paris" on 09/22/1911. She continued to alternate between Broadway and vaudeville, with an occasional nightclub act, for the next 15 years. Married briefly to Wallace in 1910, she promptly left him to appear in Follies Bergere, moving on to Hollywood and films. She never allowed herself to be dependent on a man, financially or otherwise. Mae West was born for fur coats, diamonds and long gowns to flatter her five-foot height. She had flawless skin and intense blue eyes with dagger-length false lashes and highly sensual lips. Her exquisitely shaped and youthful hands were her most remarkable feature. In 1926 she began to write, produce and star in her own plays on Broadway. Her first, "Sex," opened on 4/26/1926 and featured West as a prostitute. The play created a sensation and earned her an eight-day jail sentence for "corrupting the morals of youth." She emerged as a national figure. "Diamond Lil," 1928 and "The Constant Sinner." 1931 were also successful. West moved to Hollywood in 1932. Her first film there, "Night After Night," 1932, showed her characteristic light-hearted approach. "She Done Him Wrong," 1933, as screen adaptation of "Diamond Lil," contains the memorable, suggestive line, "Come up and see me sometime." She wrote and costarred in "I’m No Angel," 1933, in which she fulfilled a lifelong fantasy of being a lion trainer. "Belle of the Nineties," 1934 and "Klondike Annie," 1936 brought her heightened popularity. After two more films, she co-authored and co-starred with W.C. Fields in the comic western "My Little Chickadee," 1940. Allied soldiers during World War II called their inflatable life jackets "Mae Wests" in honor or her hourglass figure. Her films were revived in the 1960s, and she appeared in "Myra Breckenridge" in 1970 and "Sextette" in 1979. The title of her autobiography, "Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It," written in 1929, shows her own appreciation for her lovely figure, provocative language, and unique style: it was a retort one of her characters made to the comment, "Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!" A gracious hostess, she asked that her guests not smoke, but offered drinks, even though she was a lifelong tea-totaler. West loved many a prize-fighter and had a major affair and lifelong friendship with English-born gangster Owney Madden. For the last 27 years of her life her devoted companion was Paul Novak, who had been part of her muscleman chorus in her nightclub act. He was a selfless, gentle man who catered after her needs. She was so concerned about her image of not belonging to any one man, that she only acknowledged her love for him toward the end of her life. Before Novak, the most important man in her life was her mother’s attorney, James Timony, who was her lover briefly and then her longtime manager until his death in 1954. Her secret marriage to Frank Wallace on 04/11/1911 was the only serious mistake in her love life. The conjugal relationship didn’t last long, but she didn’t legally divorce him until 40 years later amid much unwanted publicity. West had a large beach house in Santa Monica, California that was decorated like her apartment. She frequently held ESP demonstrations with her favorite psychic, Richard Ireland, which attracted a wide array of people. She was a kind person, signing all her own autographs, and as discreet in her countless acts of charity as she was in her love life. West’s final years were spent as a recluse. Her secretary for the last ten years of her life, Tim Malachosky, and longtime fan Dolly Dempsey helped Novak nurse her when she fell ill. She died on 11/22/1980, after a series of strokes, in the sixth-floor apartment in the Ravenswood apartment building on Rossmore Avenue where she had lived for 48 years. It was the perfect final setting for her. Everything was a soft white; the fancy Louis XV furniture was accented in gold; the baby grand was decorated with a nude statue of West; above a couch hung a nude painting of her. "They must’ve painted that when I wasn’t looking," she quipped once. She remains, after death, as an icon of witty sexuality. Link to Wikipedia biography