Mae West Biography

Mary Jane West (August 17, 1893 " November 22, 1980), known as Mae West, was an American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades.

Known for her bawdy double entendres, West made a name for herself in vaudeville and on the stage in New York before moving to Hollywood to become a comedienne, actress and writer in the motion picture industry. In consideration of her contributions to American cinema, the American Film Institute named West 15th among the greatest female stars of all time. One of the more controversial movie stars of her day, West encountered many problems, including censorship. When her cinematic career ended, she continued to perform on stage, in Las Vegas, in the United Kingdom, on radio and television, and recorded rock and roll albums.

Asked about the various efforts to impede her career, West said, "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it."

Early life and career

West was born Mary Jane West in Bushwick, Brooklyn, delivered at home by an aunt who was a midwife. She was the eldest surviving child of John Patrick West and Matilda "Tillie" Doelger (also known as Matilda Delker Doelger), who had emigrated with her family from Bavaria to the United States in 1886. West's parents married on January 18, 1889, in Brooklyn and reared their children as Protestant. Some accounts claim Matilda Delker Doelger was of partial Jewish descent.

Her father was a prizefighter known as "Battlin' Jack West" who later worked as a "special policeman", and later had his own private investigations agency. Her mother was a former corset and fashion model. Her paternal grandmother was an Irish Catholic, and West's paternal grandfather, John Edwin West, was of English-Scots descent and a ship's rigger.

Her eldest sibling, Katie, died in infancy. The other siblings were Mildred Katherine West (December 8, 1898 " March 12, 1982), known as Beverly; and John Edwin West, II (sometimes inaccurately referred to as "John Edwin West, Jr."; February 11, 1900 " October 12, 1964). During her childhood, West's family moved to various parts of Woodhaven, Queens, as well as Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn. It was in Woodhaven, at Neir's Tavern (87-48 78th Street), which opened in the 1830s and is still extant, that West first performed in a bar.

West was five when she first entertained a crowd at a church social, and she started appearing in amateur shows at the age of seven. She often won prizes at local talent contests. She began performing professionally in vaudeville in the Hal Clarendon Stock Company in 1907 at the age of fourteen. West first performed under the stage name Baby Mae, and tried various personas including a male impersonator, Sis Hopkins, and a blackface coon shouter. She used the alias "Jane Mast" early in her career. Her trademark walk was said to have been inspired or influenced by female impersonators Bert Savoy and Julian Eltinge, who were famous during the Pansy Craze. Her first appearance in a Broadway show was in a 1911 revue A La Broadway put on by her former dancing teacher, Ned Wayburn. The show folded after eight performances, but at age 18, West was singled out and discovered by the New York Times. The Times reviewer wrote that a "girl named Mae West, hitherto unknown, pleased by her grotesquerie and snappy way of singing and dancing." West next appeared in a show called Vera Violetta, whose cast featured Al Jolson. In 1912 she also appeared in the opening performance of A Winsome Widow as a 'baby vamp' named La Petite Daffy.

She was encouraged as a performer by her mother, who, according to West, always thought that whatever her daughter did was fantastic. Other family members were less encouraging, including an aunt and her paternal grandmother. They are all reported as having disapproved of her career and her choices. In 1918, after exiting several high-profile revues, West finally got her break in the Shubert Brothers revue Sometime, opposite Ed Wynn. Her character Mayme danced the shimmy, and her photograph appeared on an edition of the sheet music for the popular number "Ev'rybody Shimmies Now."

Eventually, she began writing her own risqué plays using the pen name Jane Mast. Her first starring role on Broadway was in a 1926 play she entitled Sex, which she wrote, produced, and directed. Though critics panned the show, ticket sales were good. The notorious production did not go over well with city officials, and the theater was raided, with West arrested along with the cast. She was prosecuted on morals charges and, on April 19, 1927, was sentenced to ten days for "corrupting the morals of youth." While incarcerated on Welfare Island (now known as Roosevelt Island), she dined with the warden and his wife; she told reporters that she had worn her silk panties while serving time. She served eight days with two days off for good behavior. Media attention surrounding the incident enhanced her career.

Her next play, The Drag, dealt with homosexuality and was what West called one of her "comedy-dramas of life". After a series of try-outs in Connecticut and New Jersey, West announced she would open the play in New York. However, The Drag never opened on Broadway due to the Society for the Prevention of Vice vows to ban it if West attempted to stage it. West was an early supporter of the women's liberation movement, but said she was not a feminist. She was also a supporter of gay rights.

West continued to write plays, including The Wicked Age, Pleasure Man and The Constant Sinner. Her productions were plagued by controversy and other problems, although the controversy ensured that West stayed in the news and most of the time this resulted in packed performances. Her 1928 play, Diamond Lil, about a racy, easygoing lady of the 1890s, became a Broadway hit. This show enjoyed an enduring popularity and West would successfully revive it many times throughout the course of her career.

Motion pictures

In 1932, West was offered a motion picture contract by Paramount Pictures despite being close to 40. This was an unusually high age to begin a movie career, especially for women, but she nonetheless managed to keep this fact ambiguous for some years. She made her film debut in Night After Night starring George Raft. At first, she did not like her small role in Night After Night, but was appeased when she was allowed to rewrite her scenes. In West's first scene, a hat check girl exclaims, "Goodness, what beautiful diamonds." West replies, "Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie." Reflecting on the overall result of her rewritten scenes, Raft is said to have remarked, "She stole everything but the cameras."

She brought her Diamond Lil character, now renamed Lady Lou, to the screen in She Done Him Wrong (1933). The film is also notable as one of Cary Grant's first major roles, which boosted his career. West claimed she spotted Grant at the studio and insisted that he be cast as the male lead. She claimed to have told a Paramount director "If he can talk, I'll take him!" The film was a box office hit and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. The success of the film most likely saved Paramount from bankruptcy.

Her next release, I'm No Angel (1933), paired her with Grant again. I'm No Angel was also a financial success, a film that proved to be her most successful film of her entire movie career. By 1933, West was the eighth-largest U.S. box office draw in the United States and, by 1935, the second-highest paid person in the United States (after William Randolph Hearst). On July 1, 1934, the censorship of the Production Code began to be seriously and meticulously enforced, and her screenplays were heavily edited.

West's next film was Belle of the Nineties (1934). Originally titled It Ain't No Sin, the title was changed due to the censors' objections. Despite Paramount's early objections regarding costs, she insisted that the studio hire Duke Ellington and his orchestra to accompany her in the film's musical numbers. Their collaboration was a success; the classic "My Old Flame" was introduced in this picture. Her next film, Goin' to Town (1934), received mixed reviews.

Her following effort, Klondike Annie (1935) dealt, as best it could given the heavy censorship, with religion and hypocrisy. Some critics called the film her screen masterpiece. That same year, West played opposite Randolph Scott in Go West, Young Man. In this film, she adapted Lawrence Riley's Broadway hit Personal Appearance into a screenplay. Directed by Henry Hathaway, Go West, Young Man is considered one of West's weaker films of the era.

West next starred in Every Day's a Holiday (1937) for Paramount before their association came to an end. After the film failed at the box office, West was put on a list of actors called "Box Office Poison" by Harry Brandt on behalf of the Independent Theatre Owners Association. Others on the list were Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire, Dolores del Río, Katharine Hepburn, and James Cagney. The attack was published as a paid advertisement in the Hollywood Reporter and was taken seriously by studio executives. The association argued that these stars' high salaries and extreme public popularity didn't affect their ticket sales and thus hurt the exhibitors.

In 1939, Universal Pictures approached West to star in a film opposite W. C. Fields. The studio was eager to duplicate the success of Destry Rides Again starring Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart with a vehicle starring West and Fields. Having left Paramount eighteen months earlier and looking for a comeback film, West accepted the role of Flower Belle Lee in the film My Little Chickadee (1940). Despite their intense mutual dislike, and fights over the screenplay, My Little Chickadee was a moderate box office success, but the film outgrossed Fields's previous film, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939), and the later The Bank Dick (1940).

West's next film was The Heat's On (1943) for Columbia Pictures. She initially didn't want to do the film but after producer and director Gregory Ratoff pleaded with her and claimed he would go bankrupt if she didn't, West relented. The movie opened to bad reviews and failed at the box office. West was so chastened by the experience that she would not attempt another film role for the next quarter-century.

Radio

On December 12, 1937, West appeared in two separate sketches on ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's radio show The Chase and Sanborn Hour. By the second half of the 1930s, West's popularity was dwindling and she went on the show eager to promote her latest movie, Every Day's a Holiday. Appearing as herself, West flirted with Charlie McCarthy, Bergen's dummy, using her usual brand of wit and risqué sexual references. West referred to Charlie as "all wood and a yard long" and commented that his kisses gave her splinters.

More outrageous still was a sketch written by Arch Oboler, starring West and Don Ameche as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden on NBC. She told Ameche in the show to "get me a big one... I feel like doin' a big apple!" This ostensible reference to the then-current dance craze was one of the many double entendres in the dialogue. Days after the broadcast, the studio received letters calling the show "immoral" and "obscene". Women's clubs and Catholic groups admonished the show's sponsor, Chase & Sanborn Coffee Company, for "prostituting" their services for allowing "impurity [to] invade the air". The Federal Communications Commission later deemed the broadcast "vulgar and indecent" and "far below even the minimum standard which should control in the selection and production of broadcast programs". There is some debate regarding the reaction to the skit, however. Catholic groups took umbrage far more swiftly than the mainstream. These groups already had it in for West, whom they despised, for her outspoken use of sexuality and sexual imagery, which she had employed in her career since at least the Pre-Code films she had made in the early 1930s. The groups reportedly warned the sponsor of the program that they would be protesting her appearance.

NBC personally blamed West for the incident and banned her (and the mention of her name) from their stations. They claimed it was not the content of the skit, but West's tonal inflections that gave it the controversial context. West would not perform in radio for a dozen years, until January 1950, in an episode of The Chesterfield Supper Club, which was hosted by Perry Como. Ameche did not suffer any serious repercussions, however.

Middle years

After appearing in The Heat's On in 1943, West remained active during the ensuing years. Among her stage performances was the title role in Catherine Was Great (1944) on Broadway, in which she spoofed the story of Catherine the Great of Russia, surrounding herself with an "imperial guard" of tall, muscular young actors. The play was produced by Mike Todd and ran for 191 performances. In the 1950s, she also starred in her own Las Vegas stage show, singing while surrounded by bodybuilders. Jayne Mansfield met and later married one of West's muscle men, a former Mr. Universe, Mickey Hargitay.

When casting the role of Norma Desmond for the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder offered the 57-year old West the role. Still smarting from the failure of The Heat's On, she declined, claiming to be offended at the notion. Wilder later said, "The idea of [casting] Mae West was idiotic because we only had to talk to her to find out that she thought she was as great, as desirable, as sexy as she had ever been." After Mary Pickford also declined the role, Gloria Swanson was cast.

In 1958, West appeared at the Academy Awards and performed the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Rock Hudson. In 1959, she released an autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It, which became a best seller.

Later career and final years

West made occasional appearances on television, including The Red Skelton Show in 1960. In 1964, she guest-starred on the sitcom Mister Ed. Demonstrating her willingness to keep in touch with the contemporary scene, she recorded a pair of rock-and-roll albums, Way Out West and Wild Christmas (later re-issued as "Mae in December") in the late 1960s. In 1965 she recorded two songs, "Am I Too Young," and "He's Good For Me" for a 45 rpm record released by Plaza Records. She also made several parody songs including "Santa, Come Up to See Me" on the album Wild Christmas. The April 18, 1969 issue of Life magazine featured Mae at age 75. The article detailed her views on homosexuals, her generosity to Roman Catholic nuns, her vast real estate holdings and her desire to continue an active career in the upcoming decade.

After a 27-year absence from motion pictures, West appeared as Leticia Van Allen in Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge (1970) with Raquel Welch, Rex Reed, Farrah Fawcett, and Tom Selleck in a small part. The movie was a deliberately campy sex change comedy that was both a box office and critical failure. Vidal later called the film "an awful joke". Despite Myra Breckinridge's mainstream failure, it did find an audience on the cult film circuit where West's films were regularly screened and West herself was dubbed "the queen of camp".

West recorded another rock album in 1968 (released in 1972) on MGM Records titled Great Balls of Fire, which covered songs by The Doors among others. Her autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It, was also updated and republished.

In 1976, she appeared on The Dick Cavett Show and that same year began work on her final film, Sextette (1978). Adapted from a script written by West, daily revisions and disagreements hampered production from the beginning. Due to the numerous changes, West agreed to have her lines fed to her through a speaker concealed in her wig. Despite the daily problems, West was, according to Sextette director Ken Hughes, determined to see the film through. In spite of her determination, Hughes noted that West sometimes appeared disoriented and forgetful and found it difficult to follow his directions. Her now-failing eyesight also made navigating around the set difficult. Hughes eventually began shooting her from the waist up to hide the out-of-shot production assistant crawling on the floor, guiding her around the set. Upon its release, Sextette was a critical and commercial failure.

In August 1980, West tripped while getting out of bed. After the fall, West was unable to speak and was taken to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles where tests revealed that she had suffered a stroke. She remained in the hospital where, seven days later, she had a diabetic reaction to the formula in her feeding tube. On September 18, she suffered a second stroke which left her right side paralyzed and developed pneumonia. By November, her condition had improved, but the prognosis was poor and she was sent home. She died there on November 22, 1980, at age 87.

A private service was held in the Old North Church replica, in Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills, on November 25, 1980. Bishop Andre Penachio, who was also a friend, officiated at the entombment in the family grave at Cypress Hills Abbey, Brooklyn, purchased in 1930 when her mother died. Her father and brother were also entombed there before her, and her younger sister was laid to rest in the last of the five crypts less than 18 months after West's death.

For her contribution to the film industry, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street in Hollywood.

Personal life

West was married on April 11, 1911, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Frank Szatkus, whose stage name was Frank Wallace, a fellow vaudevillian whom she first met in 1909. She was 17, he was 21. West kept the marriage a secret. But in 1935, after West had made several hit movies, a filing clerk discovered West's marriage certificate and alerted the press. An affidavit in which she had declared herself married, which she made during the Sex trial in 1927, was also uncovered. At first, West denied ever marrying Wallace but finally admitted in July 1937, in reply to a legal interrogatory, that they had been married. Although legally wed, the couple never lived together as husband and wife. She insisted they have separate bedrooms and she soon sent him away in a show of his own in order to get rid of him. She obtained a legal divorce on July 21, 1942, during which Wallace withdrew his request for separate maintenance, and West testified that she and Wallace had lived together for only "several weeks". The final divorce decree was granted on May 7, 1943.

In August 1913, she met an Italian-born vaudeville headliner and star of the piano-accordion, Guido Deiro. Her affair went "[v]ery deep, hittin' on all the emotions. You can't get too hot over anybody unless there's somethin' that goes along with the sex act, can you?" Deiro fell in love with her and arranged his bookings so the two could travel together. Some sources claimed the pair were married. During a 1935 radio broadcast Walter Winchell incorrectly reported that Mae West had been married to Guido's brother, Pietro. Walter Wincher, a writer for Accordion News magazine, corrected the error: "In a recent radio broadcast, Walter Winchell conveyed the information that Pietro Deiro had been married to Mae West for four years. As one Walter to another, I must set him right. Pietro was never married to the 'come up and see me sometime' girl. Guido Deiro, his brother, was supposed to be the fortunate accordionist."

West made no public statements indicating that she had been married to Deiro. She referred to him simply as "D" in her autobiography. West's biographers state that the two never married. West and Deiro split in 1916.

Deiro's son claimed that years later West privately revealed that she had become pregnant by Guido, and had an abortion without his knowledge, resulting in complications which left her sick for nearly a year and reportedly unable to bear children.

According to Deiro's biographer, West filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery on July 14, 1920. The divorce was granted by the Supreme Court of the State of New York on November 9 of that year. West later said, "Marriage is a great institution. I'm not ready for an institution yet."

West remained close to her family throughout her life and was devastated by her mother's death in 1930. In 1930, she moved to Hollywood and into the penthouse at the new Ravenswood apartment building, where she would live until her death in 1980.

After she began her movie career, her sister, brother and father followed her there. West provided them with nearby homes and also jobs and sometimes financial support. Among West's other boyfriends was boxing champion William Jones, nicknamed Gorilla Jones. When the management at her Ravenswood apartment building barred the African-American boxer from entering the premises, West solved the problem by buying the building and lifting the ban.

West had a relationship with James Timony, an attorney 15 years her senior, in 1916 when she was a vaudeville actress. Timony was also her manager. By the time West was an established movie actress in the mid-1930s, they were no longer a couple. However, West and Timony remained extremely close, living in the same building, working together, and providing support for each other, until Timony's death in 1954.

At 61, West became romantically involved with one of the musclemen in her Las Vegas stage show, wrestler, former Mr. California and former merchant marine Chester Rybinski (1923"1999). He was 30 years younger than West, and later changed his name to Paul Novak. He soon moved in with her and their romance continued until West's death in 1980 at age 87. Novak once commented, "I believe I was put on this Earth to take care of Mae West."

In popular culture

• During World War II, Allied aircrew called their yellow inflatable, vest-like life preserver jackets "Mae Wests" partly from rhyming slang for "breasts" and "life vest" and partly because of the resemblance to her torso. A "Mae West" is also a type of round parachute malfunction (partial inversion) which contorts the shape of the canopy into the appearance of an extraordinarily large brassiere.

• West has been the subject of songs, such as in the title song of Cole Porter's Broadway musical Anything Goes and in "You're the Top", from the same show.

• One of the most popular objects of the surrealist movement was the Mae West Lips Sofa, which was completed by artist Salvador Dalí in 1938 for Edward James

• When approached for permission to allow her likeness on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, West initially refused stating that she would never be in a "Lonely Heart's Club". The Beatles wrote her a personal letter declaring themselves great admirers of the star and persuaded her to change her mind.

• Mae West has a statue at Hollywood-La Brea Boulevard in Los Angeles, designed by Catherine Hardwicke built in honour of multi-ethnic leading ladies of the cinema, together with Dolores del Rio, Dorothy Dandridge and Anna May Wong.

• An image of West appears in Frida Kahlo's painting My Dress Hangs There.

• West is pornographically referenced in Stephen King's novel The Green Mile and Frank Darabont's movie of the same name.

Broadway stage

Broadway stage

Date	Production	Role	Notes
" September 30, 1911	A La Broadway	Maggie O'Hara
" February 24, 1912	Vera Violetta		West left show during previews
" September 7, 1912	'	Le Petite Daffy	West left show after opening night
" June 1919	Sometime
" September 10, 1921	'
" March 1927	Sex	Margie LaMont	Written by Jane Mast (West)
	'		closed during out-of-town tryouts (Bridgeport, Connecticut) credited only as writer
	'	Evelyn ("Babe") Carson
" September 1928	Diamond Lil	Diamond Lil
"October 2, 1928	'		credited only as writer
" November 1931	'	Babe Gordon
" January 13, 1945	Catherine Was Great	Catherine II
"1946	Come On Up		Tour
" May 1948	Diamond Lil	Diamond Lil	(Revival) United Kingdom
" February 26, 1949	Diamond Lil	Diamond Lil	(2nd Revival) until West broke her ankle on the latter date. The play resumed as a "return engagement"
" January 21, 1950	Diamond Lil	Diamond Lil	(2nd Revival) as "return engagement"
" November 10, 1951	Diamond Lil	Diamond Lil	(3rd Revival)
" closing date unknown	Sextette		Edgewater Beach Playhouse

Other plays as writer

Other plays as writer

Year	Title	Notes
1921	'	Vaudeville playlet
1922	'	Unproduced
1930	Frisco Kate	Unproduced, later produced as the 1936 film Klondike Annie
1933	Loose Women	Performed in 1935 under title Ladies By Request
1936	Clean Beds	Sold treatment to George S. George, who produced an unsuccessful Broadway play of West's treatment

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Co-stars	Director	Studio
1932	Night After Night	Maudie Triplett	George Raft, Constance Cummings, and Wynne Gibson	Archie Mayo	Paramount Pictures
1933	She Done Him Wrong	Lady Lou	Cary Grant, Owen Moore, and Gilbert Roland	Lowell Sherman
	I'm No Angel	Tira	Cary Grant, Gregory Ratoff and Edward Arnold	Wesley Ruggles
1934	Belle of the Nineties	Ruby Carter	Roger Pryor, Johnny Mack Brown, and Katherine DeMille	Leo McCarey
1935	Goin' to Town	Cleo Borden	Paul Cavanagh, Gilbert Emery, and Marjorie Gateson	Alexander Hall
1936	Klondike Annie	The Frisco Doll/Rose Carlton/Sister Annie Alden	Victor McLaglen, Phillip Reed, and Helen Jerome Eddy	Raoul Walsh
	Go West, Young Man	Mavis Arden	Warren William, Randolph Scott, and Alice Brady	Henry Hathaway
1937	Every Day's a Holiday	Peaches O'Day	Edmund Lowe, Charles Butterworth, and Charles Winninger	A. Edward Sutherland
1940	My Little Chickadee	Flower Belle Lee	W.C. Fields, Joseph Calleia, and Dick Foran	Edward F. Cline	Universal Pictures
1943	The Heat's On	Fay Lawrence	Victor Moore, William Gaxton, and Lester Allen	Gregory Ratoff	Columbia Pictures
1970	Myra Breckinridge	Leticia Van Allen	Raquel Welch, John Huston, and Farrah Fawcett	Michael Sarne	20th Century Fox
1978	Sextette	Marlo Manners/Lady Barrington	Timothy Dalton, Dom DeLuise, and Tony Curtis	Ken Hughes	Crown International Pictures

Discography

Albums:

• 1956: The Fabulous Mae West; Decca D/DL-79016 (several reissues up to 2006)
• 1960: W.C. Fields His Only Recording Plus 8 Songs by Mae West; Proscenium PR 22
• 1966: Way Out West; Tower T/ST-5028
• 1966: Wild Christmas; Dragonet LPDG-48
• 1970: The Original Voice Tracks from Her Greatest Movies; Decca D/DL-791/76
• 1970: Mae West & W.C. Fields Side by Side; Harmony HS 11374/HS 11405
• 1972: Great Balls of Fire; MGM SE 4869
• 1974: Original Radio Broadcasts; Mark 56 Records 643
• 1987/1995: Sixteen Sultry Songs Sung by Mae West Queen of Sex; Rosetta RR 1315
• 1996: I'm No Angel; Jasmine CD 04980 102
• 2006: The Fabulous: Rev-Ola CR Rev 181

At least 21 singles (78 rpm and 45 rpm) also were released from 1933 to 1973.

Bibliography

• (the novel on which The Constant Sinner was based)
• (novelization of play)

See also