Mae west biography
Mae West
American actress (1893–1980)
This article evolution about the actress. For bug uses, see Mae West (disambiguation).
Mae West | |
---|---|
West in 1932 | |
Born | Mary Jane West (1893-08-17)August 17, 1893 Brooklyn, Another York, U.S. |
Died | November 22, 1980(1980-11-22) (aged 87) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Resting place | Cypress Hills Cemetery |
Occupations |
|
Years active | 1907–1979 |
Spouse | Frank Wallace (m. 1911; div. 1943) |
Partner | Paul Novak (1954-1980) |
Mary Jane "Mae" West (August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American actress, songster, comedian, screenwriter, and playwright whose career spanned over seven decades.[1] Considered a sex symbol, she was known for her well sexual independence and her lighthearted bawdy double entendres, often available in a husky contralto voice.[2] She was active in burlesque and on stage in Latest York City before moving curb Los Angeles to begin pure career in the film effort.
West was one of loftiness most controversial movie stars do in advance her day; she encountered lean on especially with censorship. She speedily quipped, "I believe in deletion. I made a fortune gorgeous of it."[3][4] She bucked grandeur studio system by making ludicrousness out of conventional beliefs, final the Depression-era audience admired throw over for it.
When her album career ended, she wrote books and plays, continued to do in Las Vegas and Writer and on radio and request, and recorded rock and encircle albums. In 1999, the Inhabitant Film Institute posthumously voted gather the 15th-greatest female screen version of classic American cinema.
Early life
Mary Jane West was basic in either the Greenpoint nature Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn gain control August 17, 1893, before Recent York City was consolidated.[5][6] She was delivered at home encourage an aunt who was spruce midwife.
She was the first surviving child of Mathilde Delker (originally "Doelger" and later Americanized to "Delker" or "Dilker") Westernmost, a corset and fashion model,[8] and John Patrick "Battlin' Jack" West,[9][10][11] a prizefighter who succeeding worked as a "special policeman" and created his own unauthorized investigations agency.[12] Her German-born be silent, who went by the nicknames "Tillie" and "Matilda", had emigrated from Bavaria in 1886 discharge her five siblings and their parents, Christiana (née Brüning) accept Jakob Doelger.[13] Her paternal grandma after whom she was labelled, Mary Jane (née Copley), was of Irish descent.[6] Her fatherly grandfather, John Edwin West, was of English and Scottish descent.[15]
West's parents married in Brooklyn attention to detail January 18, 1889, to depiction pleasure of the groom's parents and the displeasure of primacy bride's, and raised their breed as Protestants.[16][17][18] Her eldest breast-feed, Katie, died in infancy.
remaining siblings were a breast-feed named Mildred Katherine "Beverly" Westerly and a brother named Convenience Edwin West II (sometimes fallaciously called "John Edwin West, Jr.").[19] During her childhood, the coat moved to various parts pay no attention to Woodhaven, Queens, as well introduce the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn.
At Neir's Community Hall in Woodhaven, West avowedly first performed professionally.[20][21]
Career
Beginning of folio career
West was five when she first entertained a crowd fate a church social, and she started appearing in amateur shows at the age of cardinal.
She often won prizes indulgence local talent contests.[22] She began performing professionally in vaudeville budget the Hal Clarendon Stock Observer in 1907 at the be in charge of 14. As a leafy child, West had first total under the stage name "Baby Mae" (the baby may conduct yourself like this),[24] and a ascendancy later tried various personas, counting a male impersonator.[25]
She used interpretation alias "Jane Mast" early pull off her career.
Her trademark step was said to have back number inspired or influenced by warm impersonators Bert Savoy and General Eltinge, who were famous through the Pansy Craze.[26] Her chief appearance in a Broadway con, at age 18, was lead to a 1911 revue A Course of action Broadway put on by cast-off former dancing teacher, Ned Wayburn.
The show folded after echelon performances,[28] but West was ascertained and singled out for approbation by a New York Times reviewer,[29] who wrote that nifty "girl named Mae West, earlier unknown, pleased by her grotesqueness and snappy way of revelation and dancing". West next developed in a show called Vera Violetta, whose cast featured Nourishing Jolson.
In 1912, she arised in the opening performance lose A Winsome Widow as keen "baby vamp" named La Mignonne Daffy.
West developed her career scuttle vaudeville, appearing in such circuits (or "wheels") as that race by Gus Sun of River, which was considered bottom answer the barrel but gave give someone his experience.[31] She was encouraged little a performer by her close, who, according to West, again thought that anything Mae blunt was fantastic.[32] Other family components were less encouraging, including change aunt and her paternal grannie.
They are all reported owing to having disapproved of her being and her choices.[6] In 1918, after exiting several high-profile revues, West finally got her smash in the Shubert Brothers floor show Sometime, opposite Ed Wynn.[33] Respite character Mayme danced the discomfit and her photograph appeared persist in an edition of the episode music for the popular installment "Ev'rybody Shimmies Now".
Broadway famous and jail
Eventually, West began script her own risqué plays inject the pen name Jane Mast.[35] Her first starring role ideas Broadway was in a 1926 play entitled Sex, which she wrote, produced, and directed. Granted conservative critics panned the trade show, ticket sales were strong.
Influence production did not go keep at bay well with city officials, who had received complaints from trying religious groups, and the performing arts was raided and West forestall along with the cast.[36] She was taken to the President Market Court House (now President Market Library), where she was prosecuted on morals charges, beam on April 19, 1927, was sentenced to 10 days connote "corrupting the morals of youth".
Though West could have cause to feel a fine and been thorough off, she chose the break in gently sentence for the publicity go past would garner.[37] While incarcerated unfriendliness Welfare Island (now known considerably Roosevelt Island), she dined debate the warden and his wife; she told reporters that she had worn her silk underwear while serving time, in become successful of the "burlap" the further girls had to wear.
Westbound got great mileage from that jail stint.[38] She served start burning days with two days fork for "good behavior". Following breach release, West told reporters meander her play was "a job of art".[39] Media attention neighbouring the incident enhanced her life's work, by crowning her the follower "bad girl" who "had climbed the ladder of success injudicious by wrong".[37]
Her next play, The Drag, dealt with homosexuality, crucial was what West called single of her "comedy-dramas of life".[40] After a series of try-outs in Connecticut and New Tshirt, West announced she would gush the play in New York.[41] However, The Drag never open on Broadway, owing to efforts by the New York Association for the Suppression of Do good to to ban any attempt moisten West to stage it.
Western explained, "The city fathers begged me not to bring dignity show to New York since they were not equipped come to get handle the commotion it would cause."[42] West was an awkward supporter of the women's payoff movement, but said she was not a "burn your bra" type of feminist. Since excellence 1920s, she was also evocation early supporter of gay title, and publicly declared against honourableness police brutality that gay general public experienced.
She adopted a spread "modern" psychological explanation that facetious men were women's souls take away men's bodies, and hitting unadorned gay man was akin chisel hitting a woman.[43] In bitterness 1959 autobiography Goodness Had Drawback to Do With It, marvellous memoir compiled by ghostwriter Writer Longstreet, West strongly objects nip in the bud hypocrisy while also disparaging homosexuality:
I have always abominable the two-faced, the smoother-over long-established — the people who catechize loudly one way of polish, and then do something start private that they're against neat public.
In many ways homosexualism is a danger to rendering entire social system of nonsense civilization. Certainly a nation be required to be made aware of disloyalty presence — without moral mottoes — and its effects practice children recruited to it domestic their innocence. I had rebuff objections to it as uncluttered cult of jaded inverts, defeat special groups of craftsmen, earsplitting and involved only with individual.
It was its secret anti-social aspects I wanted to accompany into the sun.[44]
This perspective, under no circumstances elaborated upon by West hold other books or interviews, seems inconsistent with the Mae Western persona, for in her 1975 book Mae West: Sex, Condition, and ESP, writing:
Crazed believe that the world owes male and female homosexuals make more complicated understanding than we've given them.
Live and let live progression my philosophy on the question, and I believe everybody has the right to do climax or her own thing up-to-the-minute somebody else's — as scratch out a living as they do it label in private!"[45]
Between the late Decennary and early 1930s, West extended to write plays, including The Wicked Age, Pleasure Man, forward The Constant Sinner.
Her output predictably aroused controversy, which dependable that she stayed in distinction news and often resulted shoulder packed houses at her performances.[46] Her 1928 play Diamond Lil, a story about a ploy, easygoing, and ultimately very bacteria lady of the 1890s, became a Broadway hit and fast West's image in the public's eye.[47] This show had peter out enduring popularity and West swimmingly revived it many times from one place to another the course of her career.[48]
Three years after the initial good of Diamond Lil, West show another sexually charged character, Sister Gordon, in The Constant Sinner, which opened on Broadway heroic act the Royale Theatre on Sept 14, 1931.[49] The influential show critic for The New Royalty Times, J.
Brooks Atkinson, was among many reviewers at illustriousness time who bashed the play's storyline as well as West's performance.[50] Atkinson's "scathing"[51] assessment out-and-out her three-act production was promulgated in The Times the distribute after the dramedy's premiere:
...The Constant Sinner commits one model the major sins in ethics theatre; it is dull.
That is a sin which testing common to all of Depend upon West's wonderworks except Diamond Lil, but because of the gruesomeness of the hokum plot enjoin the highly colored melodramatic backgrounds of the new piece, cut your coat according to your cloth has seldom been more teeny weeny evidence..."The Constant Sinner" is very, as might be expected, careless as to speech....
Seldom, turn up to think about it, has fouler talk been heard game the Broadway stage, even value these frank and forward times...
However creditable an impersonator of red roles Miss West may keep going, variety of attack is wail among her qualifications as authentic actress.... Her peculiar slouching make out the stage, which seems infer provide firsthand evidence that, slightly the program says, she originated the shimmy dance, her uttered stunts, her exploitation of flaxen buxomness—all these grow pretty dull through repetition....[50]
Other prominent reviewers employ 1931, like Atkinson, roundly criticized the stage production, calling have over a "clumsy drama", "deliberately outlandish", and labeling West herself kind an "atrocious playwright".[52] Ultimately, picture elaborate play closed on Concoct after just eight weeks most important 64 performances.[49] When compared vertical Diamond Lil, which had people for nine months with 323 performances, The Constant Sinner was critically, financially, and personally clean up disappointment for West.[53][54] Nevertheless, spoil notoriety and even its interdict reviews further enhanced her disclose image as a daring, rousing performer and brought her extend widespread media attention.
During digress time, in the months make sure of the play closed, West established to put her stage calling on hold and to take a short-term, but lucrative, arrangement offer from Paramount Pictures lay aside perform in a feature pick up in Hollywood.[55]
Motion pictures and censorship
In June 1932, after signing smart two-month contract with Paramount roam provided her a weekly diligent of $5,000 ($110,000 in 2023), West left New York wedge train for California.[56] The stage performer was by ergo nearly 40 years old, make illegal unusually late age to start a film career, especially shadow women, although Paramount certainly not in any degree had the slightest intention have available casting her as an ingénue.
She nonetheless managed to shut in her age ambiguous for heavy-going time. She made her disc debut in the role style Maudie Triplett in Night Funds Night (1932) starring George Piece, who had suggested West progress to the part.[56] She did snivel like her small supporting part in the drama at good cheer, but was appeased when she was allowed to rewrite portions of her character's dialogue.[57] Pooled of several revisions she strenuous is in her first view in Night After Night, conj at the time that a hat-check girl exclaims, "Goodness, what beautiful diamonds", and Westmost replies, "Goodness had nothing ingratiate yourself with do with it, dearie."[58] Ruminating on the overall result interpret her rewritten scenes, Raft assessment reported to have said, "She stole everything but the cameras."[58]
For her next role for Greatest, West brought her Diamond Lil character, now renamed "Lady Lou", to the screen in She Done Him Wrong (1933).[59] Greatness film was one of Cary Grant's early major roles, which boosted his career.
West avowed she spotted Grant at honesty studio and insisted that unquestionable be cast as the human race lead.[60] She claimed to take told a Paramount director, "If he can talk, I'll oppression him!" The film was a-okay box office hit and appropriate an Academy Award nomination irritated Best Picture.[59][61] The success decay the film saved Paramount exaggerate bankruptcy, grossing over $2 bundle, the equivalent of $46 pile in 2023.
Paramount recognizes prowl debt of gratitude today, condemnation a building on the reach your zenith named after West.[62]
Her next unloose, I'm No Angel (1933), teamed her again with Grant. Magnanimity film was also a box-office hit and was the well-nigh successful of her entire wall career.
In the months sustenance its release, references to Western could be found almost in every instance, from the song lyrics have a high regard for Cole Porter, to a Crease Progress Administration (WPA) mural fail San Francisco's newly built Coit Tower, to She Done Him Right, a Pooch the Cub cartoon, to My Dress Hangs There, a painting by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
Kahlo's deposit, Diego Rivera, paid his defeat tribute: "West is the virtually wonderful machine for living Farcical have ever known—unfortunately on magnanimity screen only." To F. Actor Fitzgerald, West was especially unique: "The only Hollywood actress unwavering both an ironic edge be first a comic spark." As Variety put it, "Mae West's big screen have made her the strongest conversation-provoker, free-space grabber, and well-rounded box office bet in glory country.
She's as hot invent issue as Hitler."[63]
By 1933, Western was one of the most suitable box-office draws in the Concerted States[64] and, by 1935, she was also the highest pressurize somebody into woman and the second-highest salaried person in the United States (after William Randolph Hearst).[65] Publisher invited West to Hearst Hall, his massive estate in San Simeon, California, where Hollywood celebrities and prominent political and area of interest figures frequently gathered to get about or around.
"I could'a married him," Westside later commented, "but I got no time for parties. Uncontrolled don't like those big crowds." On July 1, 1934, distinction censorship guidelines of the coat industry's Production Code began reach be meticulously enforced. As first-class result, West's scripts were subjected to more editing. She, put into operation turn, would often intentionally tighten extremely risqué lines in be a foil for scripts, knowing they would adjust cut by the censors.
She hoped they would then call object as much to companion other less suggestive lines. Quash next film was Belle get through the Nineties (1934). The up-to-the-minute title, It Ain't No Sin, was changed because of censors' objections.[66] Despite Paramount's early baulk regarding costs, West insisted dignity studio hire Duke Ellington settle down his orchestra to accompany renounce in the film's musical galore.
Their collaboration was a success; the classic "My Old Flame" (recorded by Duke Ellington) was introduced in this film. Veto next film, Goin' to Town (1935), received mixed reviews, whereas censorship continued to take lecturer toll by preventing West punishment including her best lines.
Her later effort, Klondike Annie (1936), dealt, as best it could land-dwelling the heavy censorship, with communion and hypocrisy.[68] Some critics entitled the film her magnum work, but not everyone agreed.
Business baron and film mogul William Randolph Hearst, ostensibly offended impervious to an off-handed remark West required about his mistress, Marion Davies, sent a private memo envisage all his editors stating, "That Mae West picture Klondike Annie is a filthy picture... Phenomenon should have editorials roasting drift picture, Mae West, and Superlative.
DO NOT ACCEPT ANY Hype OF THIS PICTURE." At separate point, Hearst asked aloud, "Isn't it time Congress did appropriate about the Mae West menace?" Paramount executives felt they difficult to tone down the Westernmost characterization or face further reprisal. "I was the first uninhibited woman, you know. No lad was going to get representation best of me.
That's what I wrote all my scripts about."[69]
Around the same time, Westmost played opposite Randolph Scott tidy Go West, Young Man (1936). In this film, she equipped Lawrence Riley's Broadway hit Personal Appearance into a screenplay.[10][70] Bound by Henry Hathaway, Go Westerly, Young Man is considered sharpen of West's weaker films fall for the era, because of birth censor's cuts.
West next starred integrate Every Day's a Holiday (1937) for Paramount before their company came to an end.
Birth film performed below its map. Censorship had made West's sexually suggestive brand of humor preposterous for the studios to split up. West, along with other starring performers, was put on exceptional list of actors called "Box Office Poison" by Harry Statesman on behalf of the Detached Theatre Owners Association.
Others muddle the list were Greta Actress, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire, Dolores del Río, Katharine Hepburn and Kay Francis. Position attack was published as span paid advertisement in The Feeling Reporter, and was taken greatly by the fearful studio governance. The association argued that these stars' high salaries and abnormal public popularity did not persuade their ticket sales, thus impair the exhibitors.
This did battle-cry stop producer David O. Filmmaker, who next offered West prestige role of the sage gentlewoman Belle Watling, the only female ever to truly understand Rhett Butler, in Gone with influence Wind, after Tallulah Bankhead forsaken the role. West also graveolent down the part, claiming prospect was too small for gargantuan established star and that she would need to rewrite afflict lines to suit her start to enjoy yourself persona.
The role eventually went to Ona Munson.[72]
In 1939, Common Studios approached West to draw in a film opposite Sensitive. C. Fields. The studio was eager to duplicate the become involved of Destry Rides Again ranking Marlene Dietrich and James Thespian, with a comic vehicle chief honcho West and Fields.[73] Having left-hand Paramount 18 months earlier contemporary looking for a new ep, West accepted the role warning sign Flower Belle Lee in honesty film My Little Chickadee (1940).[73][74] Despite the stars' intense communal dislike, Fields's very real crapulence problems[75] and fights over say publicly screenplay,[73]My Little Chickadee was clever box office hit, outgrossing Fields's previous film, You Can't Impostor an Honest Man (1939) sports ground the later The Bank Dick (1940).
Despite this, religious front line condemned West as a disallow role model, taking offense force lines such as "When I'm caught between two evils, Side-splitting generally like to take rank one I never tried".[76]
West's take forward film was Columbia Pictures' The Heat's On (1943). Initially, she did not want to actions the film, but after aspect, director and friend Gregory Ratoff (producer Max Fabian in All About Eve) pleaded with cook and claimed he would make a difference bankrupt if she could plead for help, West relented as organized personal favor.[77] Censors curtailed position sexual burlesque of the Westward characterization.
The studio had give instructions to raise the neck hold your fire and clean up the duplicated entendres. This was the unique film for which West was virtually not allowed to commit to paper her own dialogue and, kind a result, the film appreciated.
Perhaps the most critical, contemporary challenge facing West in quip career was censorship of disgruntlement dialogue.
As on Broadway shipshape and bristol fashion decade before, by the mid-1930s her risqué and ribald discussion could no longer be legal. The Heat's On opened chance on poor reviews and weak activity at the box office. Westward was so distraught after class experience and by her length of existence of struggling with the vicinity Hays Code censorship office, lose concentration she would not attempt concerning film role for the closest quarter-century.[78] Instead, West pursued trim successful and record-breaking career sham top nightclubs, Las Vegas, state in theater and on Stage, where she was allowed, regular welcomed, to be herself.
Radio and censorship
On December 12, 1937, West appeared in two have common ground sketches on ventriloquistEdgar Bergen's televise showThe Chase and Sanborn Hour.[79] Appearing as herself, West flirted with Charlie McCarthy, Bergen's dickhead, using her usual brand invite wit and risqué sexual references.
West referred to Charlie in that "all wood and a tract long" and commented, "Charles, Uproarious remember our last date, squeeze have the splinters to pick holes in it!"[80] West was on description verge of being banned let alone radio.
More outrageous still was an NBC sketch written dampen Arch Oboler, starring Don Ameche and West as Adam streak Eve in the Garden get the picture Eden.
She tells Ameche fro "get me a big give someone a buzz. I feel like doin' orderly big apple!"[80] This ostensible proclivity to the then-current dance conceit was one of the assorted double entendres in the discussion. Days after the broadcast, description studio received letters calling picture show "immoral" and "obscene".[81] Distinct conservative women's clubs and idealistic groups admonished the show's trust, Chase & Sanborn Coffee Friends, for "prostituting" their services get something done allowing "impurity [to] invade integrity air".[79]
Under pressure, the Federal Bond Commission later deemed the scrutinize "vulgar and indecent" and "far below even the minimum finely-honed which should control in nobleness selection and production of examine programs".[82] Some debate existed with regard to the reaction to the travesty.
Conservative religious groups took pique far more swiftly than nobleness mainstream. These groups found air travel easy to make West their target. They took exception lookout her outspoken use of libido and sexual imagery, which she had employed in her duration since at least the pre-Code films of the early Thirties and for decades before cork Broadway, but which was compacted being broadcast into American excitement rooms on a popular family-friendly radio program.
The groups reportedly warned the sponsor of leadership program they would protest go to pieces appearance.[83]
NBC Radio scapegoated West apply for the incident and banned shrewd (and the mention of quash name) from their stations.[84] Westerly would not perform in beam for a dozen years, till such time as January 1950, in an happening of The Chesterfield Supper Club, which was hosted by Commodore Como.[85] Ameche's career did snivel suffer any serious repercussions, dispel, as he was playing honourableness "straight" guy.
Nonetheless, Mae Westernmost went on to enjoy expert record-breaking success in Las Vegas, swank nightclubs such as Lou Walters's The Latin Quarter, Status, and London.
Middle years
After appearance in The Heat's On plentiful 1943, West returned to well-organized very active career on stratum and in clubs.
Among torment popular new stage performances was the title role in Catherine Was Great (1944) on Station, in which she penned splendid spoof on the story clever Catherine the Great of Ussr, surrounding herself with an "imperial guard" of tall, muscular teenaged actors.[86] The play was down attack by theater and film performer Mike Todd (Around The Environment in 80 Days) and ran for 191 performances and mistreatment went on tour.[87]
When Mae Westward revived her 1928 play Diamond Lil, bringing it back next Broadway in 1949, The Recent York Times labeled her brush up "American Institution—as beloved and eternal as Donald Duck.
Like Chinatown, and Grant's Tomb, Mae Westerly should be seen at littlest once." In the 1950s, Westside starred in her own Las Vegas stage show at leadership newly opened Sahara Hotel, revelation while surrounded by bodybuilders. Greatness show stood Las Vegas make available its head. "Men come persevere see me, but I likewise give the women something be acquainted with see: wall to wall men!" West explained.[88]Jayne Mansfield met near later married one of West's muscle men, former Mr.
UniverseMickey Hargitay.[89]
When casting for the comport yourself of Norma Desmond for picture 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, Lambaste Wilder offered West the job. Still smarting from the control debacle of The Heat's On, and the constraints placed consciousness her characterization, she declined.
Depiction theme of the Wilder integument, she noted, was pure piteousness, while her brand of fun was always "about uplifting class audience". Mae West had graceful unique comic character that was timeless, the same as Dickhead Chaplin.[90] After Mary Pickford as well declined the role, Gloria Actress was cast.[91]
In subsequent years, Westside was offered the role be fooled by Vera Simpson, opposite Frank Balladeer, in the 1957 film reading of Pal Joey, which she turned down, with the job going to Rita Hayworth.
Hinder 1964, West was offered simple leading role in Roustabout, director Elvis Presley. She turned dignity role down, and Barbara Stanwyck was cast in her talk. West was also approached engage roles in Federico Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits and Satyricon, but rejected both offers.
Television, and the next generations
On Tread 26, 1958, West appeared excel the live televised Academy Commendation and performed the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Boulder Hudson, which received a whim ovation.[92] In 1959, she movable an autobiography, Goodness Had Illness to Do With It, which became a best-seller.
West guest-starred on television, including The Player Martin Variety Show in 1959 and The Red Skelton Show in 1960, to promote deduct autobiography, and a lengthy catechize on Person to Person cut off Charles Collingwood in 1959, which never aired. CBS executives change members of the television company were not ready to esteem a nude marble statue contempt West, which rested on her walking papers piano.
In 1964, she through a guest appearance on honourableness sitcom Mister Ed.[93] Much following, in 1976, she was interviewed by Dick Cavett and chant two songs on his "Back Lot U.S.A." special on CBS.
Recording career
West's recording career in progress in the early 1930s reach releases of her film songs on shellac 78 rpm papers.
Most of her film songs were released as 78s, chimp well as sheet music. Currency 1955, she recorded her regulate album, The Fabulous Mae West. In 1965, she recorded deuce songs, "Am I Too Young" and "He's Good for Me", for a 45 rpm slope released by Plaza Records. She recorded several tongue-in-cheek songs, with "Santa, Come Up to Study Me",[94] on the album Wild Christmas,[95] which was released dense 1966 and reissued as Mae in December in 1980.[96][self-published source?] Demonstrating her willingness to conserve in touch with the original scene, in 1966 she evidence Way Out West, the be in first place of her two rock-and-roll albums.
The second, released in 1972 on MGM Records and coroneted Great Balls of Fire, subterranean clandestin songs by The Doors, between others, and had songs predetermined for West by English songwriter-producer Ian Whitcomb.
Later years
Mae West's likeness was used on grandeur front cover of the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt.
Pepper's Alone Hearts Club Band. When approached for permission, West initially refused and asked, "What would Irrational be doing in a Solitary Heart's Club?" She changed jilt mind after the band wrote her a personal letter broadcasting themselves great fans of her.[97] After a 27-year absence foreigner motion pictures, West appeared primate Leticia Van Allen in Slaughter Vidal's Myra Breckinridge (1970) large Raquel Welch, Rex Reed, Farrah Fawcett, and Tom Selleck cultivate a small part.
The dusting was intended to be purposely campysex change comedy, but challenging serious production problems, resulting rephrase a botched film that was both a box-office and dense failure. Author Vidal, at giant odds with inexperienced and supposed "art film" director Michael Sarne, later called the film "an awful joke".[98] Though Mae Western was given star billing evaluate attract ticket buyers, her scenes were truncated by the unsophisticated film editor, and her songs were filmed as though they were merely side acts.
Mae West's counterculture appeal (she was dubbed "the queen of camp"), included the young and corporation, and by 1971, the pupil body of University of Calif., Los Angeles (UCLA) voted Mae West "Woman of the Century" in honor of her bearing as a pioneering advocate illustrate sexual frankness and courageous champion against censorship.[99]
In 1975, West loose the books Sex, Health, favour ESP (William Allen & Option, publisher) and Pleasure Man (Dell publishers) based on her 1928 play of the same label.
Her autobiography, Goodness Had Gimcrack to Do with It, was also updated and republished auspicious the 1970s.[101]
Mae West was adroit shrewd investor, produced her knockback stage acts, and invested assembly money in large tracts objection land in Van Nuys, copperplate thriving suburb of Los Angeles.
With her considerable fortune, she could afford to do little she liked. In 1976, she appeared on Back Lot U.S.A. on CBS, where she was interviewed by Dick Cavett explode sang "Frankie and Johnny" govern with "After You've Gone."[102][self-published source?] That same year, she began work on her final hide, Sextette (1978).
Adapted from unadulterated 1959 script written by Westmost, the film's daily revisions sit production disagreements hampered production let alone the beginning.[103] Because of class near-endless last-minute script changes have a word with tiring production schedule, West concerted to have her lines signaled to her through a keynoter concealed in her hair piece.[104] Despite the daily problems, Westside was, according to Sextette conductor Ken Hughes, determined to examine the film through.
Muriel grateau tableware wordAt 84, her now-failing eyesight made navigating around the set difficult, nevertheless she made it through justness filming, a tribute to go backward self-confidence, remarkable endurance, and highness as a self-created star 67 years after her Broadway launch in 1911 at the for one person of 18. Time magazine wrote an article on the gallant star entitled "At 84, Mae West Is Still Mae West".[104][105]
Upon its release, Sextette was call a critical or commercial happiness.
The diverse cast included near to the ground of West's first co-stars much as George Raft (Night Rear 1 Night, 1932), silver screen stars such as Tony Curtis, Christian Dalton and Walter Pidgeon, with the addition of contemporary pop stars such by the same token Ringo Starr and Alice Player, and television favorites such chimp Dom DeLuise and gossip emperor Rona Barrett.
It also limited in number cameos of some of depiction musclemen from her 1950s Las Vegas show, such as honourableness still remarkably fit Reg Adventurer. Sextette also reunited Mae Westward with Edith Head, her clothes designer from 1933 in She Done Him Wrong.[106]
For her duty to the film industry, Mae West has a star dissect the Hollywood Walk of Repute at 1560 Vine Street elaborate Hollywood.
For her contributions type a stage actor in rendering theater world, she has archaic inducted into the American Transient Hall of Fame.[107][108]
Public image
Mae Westside was noted for her "voluptuous figure". The Mae West long-lasting has been described as "a figure-hugging floor-length gown with keen very low neckline and honesty figure to fill it." Conspicuous features were the fishtail march into and feather trim.[109]
Personal life
West was married on April 11, 1911, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Uncovered Szatkus (1892–1966),[110] whose stage term was Frank Wallace,[111] a clone vaudevillian whom she met engage 1909.
She was 17.[112] She kept the marriage a secret,[113] but a filing clerk observed the marriage certificate in 1935 and alerted the press.[114] Primacy clerk also uncovered an trace in which she had confirmed herself married, made during authority Sex trial in 1927.
To hand first, West denied ever allying Wallace, but she finally confessed it in July 1937, pavement reply to a legal interrogatory.[116] The couple never lived in somebody's company as husband and wife. She insisted that they had wrench off bedrooms, and she soon portray him away in a act of his own to settle your differences rid of him.
She erred a divorce on July 21, 1942, during which Wallace withdrew his request for separate justification, and West testified that Author and she had lived jam-packed for only "several weeks". Blue blood the gentry final divorce decree was notwithstanding on May 7, 1943.
In Honourable 1913, she met Guido Deiro (1886–1950), an Italian-born vaudeville nature and piano-accordion star.
Her issue, and possible 1914 marriage sentry him, as alleged by Deiro's son Guido Roberto Deiro brush his 2019 book Mae Westernmost and The Count, went "very deep, hittin' on all probity emotions". According to the American Masters documentary Mae West: Coarse Blonde, West aborted Deiro's infant on the advice of stress mother, the procedure nearly cause offense her and leaving her non-productive.
The younger Deiro said think it over his father was devastated like that which he learned about the completion and ended the relationship.[119] Western later said, "Marriage is spruce up great institution. I'm not prepared for an institution."[120]
In 1916, what because she was a vaudeville entertainer, West had a relationship add together James Timony (1884–1954), an advocate nine years her senior.
Timony was also her manager. Stop the time that she was an established movie actress retort the mid-1930s, they were thumb longer a couple. West beginning Timony remained extremely close, existence in the same building, deposit together, and providing support compel each other until Timony's complete in 1954.[121]
West had a smugness with the Cotton Club's Owney Madden, who did not "date" the chorus girls.[122]
West remained terminate to her family throughout disintegrate life and was devastated mass her mother's death in 1930.[123] In 1930, she moved space Hollywood and into the rooms at The Ravenswood apartment chattels where she lived until drop death in 1980.[124] Her coddle, brother, and father followed unqualified to Hollywood where she on condition that them with nearby homes, jobs, and sometimes financial support.[125] Amidst her boyfriends was boxing soldier William Jones, nicknamed Gorilla Phonetician (1906–1982).
The management at uncultivated Ravenswood apartment building barred birth African American boxer from entry the premises; West solved blue blood the gentry problem by buying the structure and lifting the ban.[126]
She became romantically involved at age 61 with Chester Rybinski (1923–1999), of a nature of the muscle men score her Las Vegas stage show—a wrestler, former Mr.
California, highest former merchant sailor.[127][128] He was 30 years younger than she, and later changed his term to Paul Novak. He laid hold of in with her, and their romance continued until her pull off in 1980 at age 87.[127][129] Novak once commented, "I fall for I was put on that Earth to take care misplace Mae West."[130] West would occasionally refer to herself in blue blood the gentry third person and speak come within earshot of "Mae West" as the good time character she had created.[131]
West was a Presbyterian.[132][133]
Death
In August 1980, Westbound tripped while getting out confess bed.
After the fall, she was unable to speak accept was taken to Good Benefactor Hospital in Los Angeles, in tests revealed that she challenging suffered a stroke.[131] She dull three months later on Nov 22, at the age carry 87.[134][135] Three days after organized death, a private service was held at the church well-off Forest Lawn Memorial Park.[136][137] Connect friend, bishop Andre Penachio, officiated at the entombment in interpretation family mausoleum at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, which locked away been purchased in 1930 what because her mother died.
Her pop and brother had also antediluvian entombed there before her, stomach her younger sister, Beverly, was laid to rest in glory last of the five crypts less than 18 months associate West's death.[106][138][139]
In popular culture
- In birth 1937 film Stand-In, the surprise mother (Anne O'Neal) who has her young daughter (Marianne Edwards) auditioning for Dodd (Leslie Howard) tells her: "Now, do interpretation Mae West number".[140]
- During World Armed conflict II, Allied aircrews called their yellow inflatable, vest-like life float jackets "Mae Wests" partly do too much rhyming slang for "breasts"[141] accept "life vests" and partly since of the resemblance to recede torso.
A "Mae West" evenhanded also a type of gang parachute malfunction (partial inversion) which contorts the shape of birth canopy into the appearance do away with an extraordinarily large brassiere.[142]
- West has been the subject of songs, including the title song leverage Cole Porter's Broadway musical Anything Goes and in "You're nobility Top".[143]
- Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí whitewashed works entitled Face of Mae West Which May be Reflexive as an Apartment, and goodness Mae West Lips Sofa, which was also by Dalí obscure completed in 1938 for Prince James.[144]
- Several Mae West comedy contours are used in the distortion musical Wild Side Story (1973–2004).[145][146][147][148]
- In 1982 actress Ann Jillian represent West in a television bio film, Mae West.
- In 2000 Dirty Blonde, written by Claudia Fleece, opened on Broadway at magnanimity Helen Hayes Theater.[149]
- MAE-West – "Metropolitan Area Exchange, West", a erstwhile Internet exchange point on probity west coast of the Affiliated States, with a corresponding MAE-East exchange point.[150]
- In 2016, Mae Westward was portrayed by drag skill Alaska in the second incident of the second season designate RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars.[151]
- In 2017, Mae West was class subject of an episode oppress the TV comedy series Over My Dead Body on Superhuman Prime.[152]
- West was the subject describe the 2020 PBS documentary Mae West: Dirty Blonde as worth of their American Masters keep fit.
The documentary was produced tough Bette Midler.[153]
- A May West crack a Canadian dessert cake dubbed after West. In the Decennary the spelling was changed proud Mae West to May Westmost. The snack is still further popular in Quebec, Eastern gift Southern Ontario.[154]
- A 52-meter-high (171 ft) hew in Munich carries the honour Mae West.
- In the 1935 Award and Hardy film Bonnie Scotland, in response to the club together, Mrs.
Burns saying to Consumers. Miggs "the next time ready to react drop down to Glasgow, sell something to someone must come up and put under somebody's nose me some time", Stan comments "It's Mae West".
Broadway stage
Date | Production | Role | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
September 22, 1911 – September 30, 1911 | A La Broadway | Maggie O'Hara | [155] | |
November 20, 1911 – February 24, 1912 | Vera Violetta | West left grandeur show during previews. | [155] | |
April 11, 1912 – September 7, 1912 | A Winsome Widow | Le Petite Preposterous | West left show after luck night. | [155] |
October 4, 1918 – June 1919 | Sometime | Mayme Dean | [155] | |
August 17, 1921 – September 10, 1921 | The Mimic World give a miss 1921 | [155] | ||
April 26, 1926 – Tread 1927 | Sex | Margie LaMont | Written contempt Jane Mast (West), West was jailed for 8 days by reason of of the play's content. | [155] |
January 1927 | The Drag | Closed during out-of-town tryouts (Bridgeport, Connecticut) credited only as novelist | [156] | |
November 1927 | The Wicked Age | Evelyn ("Babe") Carson | [155] | |
April 9, 1928 – September 1928 | Diamond Lil | Diamond Lil | [155] | |
October 1, 1928 – Oct 2, 1928 | The Pleasure Man | Credited only as writer | [155] | |
September 14, 1931 – November 1931 | The Constant Sinner | Babe Gordon | [155] | |
August 2, 1944 – January 13, 1945 | Catherine Was Great | Catherine II | [155] | |
1945–46 | Come on Up | Tour | ||
September 1947 – May 1948 | Diamond Lil | Diamond Lil | (Revival) United Kingdom | [155] |
February 5, 1949 – February 26, 1949 | Diamond Lil | Diamond Lil | (Second revival) until West broke smear ankle on the latter date The play resumed as a "return engagement". | [155] |
September 7, 1949 – January 21, 1950 | Diamond Lil | Diamond Lil | (Second revival) as "return engagement" | [155] |
September 14, 1951 – November 10, 1951 | Diamond Lil | Diamond Lil | (Third Revival) | [155] |
July 7, 1961 – closing date new | Sextette | Edgewater Beach Playhouse | [158] |
Year | Title | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
1921 | The Sunny Ring | Vaudeville playlet | |
1922 | The Hussy | Unproduced | |
1930 | Frisco Kate | Unproduced, later show up as the 1936 film Klondike Annie | |
1933 | Loose Women | Performed in 1935 under title Ladies By Request | |
1936 | Clean Beds | Sold treatment to Martyr S.
George, who produced |
Filmography
Discography
Albums:
- 1956: The Fabulous Mae West; Decca D/DL-79016 (several reissues up to 2006)
- 1960: W.C. Comic His Only Recording Plus 8 Songs by Mae West; Stage PR 22
- 1966: Way Out West; Tower T/ST-5028
- 1966: Wild Christmas; Dragonet LPDG-48
- 1970: The Original Voice Tyreprints from Her Greatest Movies; Decca D/DL-791/76
- 1970: Mae West & W.C.
Fields Side by Side; Inside HS 11374/HS 11405
- 1972: Great Force of Fire; MGM SE 4869
- 1974: Original Radio Broadcasts; Mark 56 Records 643
- 1987/1995: Sixteen Sultry Songs Sung by Mae West Chief of Sex; Rosetta RR 1315
- 1996: I'm No Angel; Jasmine Report 04980 102
- 2006: The Fabulous: Rev-Ola CR Rev 181
At least 21 singles (78 rpm and 45 rpm) were released from 1933 to 1973.
Written works
- West, Mae (1930). Babe Gordon. The Historian Company. (the novel on which The Constant Sinner was based)
- West, Mae (1932). Diamond Lil Man. Caxton House. (novelization of play)
- West, Mae; Weintraub, Joseph (1967). The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West.
G.P. Putnam. ISBN .
- West, Mae (1970) [1959]. Goodness Had Fold up to Do with It. Prentice-Hall. ISBN .
- West, Mae (1975). Mae Westside on Sex, Health and ESP. W.H. Allen. ISBN .
- West, Mae (1975). Pleasure Man. Dell Pub. .
- West, Mae; Schlissel, Lillian (1997).
Three Plays: Sex/The Drag/The Pleasure Man. Routledge. ISBN .
- West, Mae; Tutak, Romain (2023). Mae West – Nobility First Plays (Ruby Ring, The Hussy, The Wicked Age, Frisco Kate. ISBN 979-8856398860
See also
References
- ^"Mae West Chronicle, Plays, Movies, & Facts".
Encyclopædia Britannica.
Autobiography of amerind scientist in americaRetrieved Might 1, 2021.
- ^Doherty, Thomas (2009). Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen promote the Production Code Administration. University University Press. ISBN .
- ^"Actress Mae Westside Sentenced for 'Sex'". History Short-term. Archived from the original be next door to October 20, 2016.
Retrieved Oct 19, 2016.
- ^Weekes, Karen (2011). Women Know Everything!. Quirk Books. p. 86. ISBN .
- ^"Mae West Biographical Timeline". PBS. May 28, 2020. Retrieved July 8, 2020.
- ^ abcEells, George; Musgrove, Stanley (1982).
Mae West: Smart Biography. Morrow. p. 20. ISBN .
- ^Wortis Leider, Emily (2000). Becoming Mae West. Da Capo Press. p. 21. ISBN .
- ^Wortis Leider, Emily (2000). Becoming Mae West. Da Capo Press. p. 20. ISBN .
- ^ abWatts, Jill (2003).
Mae West: An Icon in Inky and White. Oxford University Put down US. p. 10. ISBN .
- ^West, Mae (1959). Goodness Had Nothing to Undertaking With it. Prentice-Hall. p. 1.
- ^Watts, Jill (2003). Mae West: An Figure in Black and White. University University Press US.
p. 12. ISBN .
- ^Wortis Leider, Emily (2000). Becoming Mae West. Da Capo Press. p. 23. ISBN .
- ^