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Vaudeville
Performer, Playwright, Broadway Sensation,
Movie Star, Sex Goddess…Mae West was
each of these things,
but first and foremost she was an independent woman who
became an icon simply by being herself.
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Hello Blogland!!! Today's post will be a celebration of one of the greatest "Broads" in entertainment-the Fabulous MAE WEST!!!! Mae would've been 120 years old on August 17th. Mae definitely was a true example of being VISIBLE at any age!!
Biography of Mae West (courtesy of Wikipedia)
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 just
eight performances, but at age 18, West was singled
out and discovered by the New York Times. She 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 about the case 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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
Even more outrageous was a sketch written by Arch Oboler that starred West and Don Ameche as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. 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, NBC
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 (FCC) 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. Mainstream reaction was not as swift as that
of Catholics. Some claim that Catholic groups already had it in for Mae West;
they despised her sexual image and warned the sponsor of the program they were
planning to protest. Nevertheless, the incident is
known as one of the first cases where radio programming faced claims of
indecency from the FCC.
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 another twelve years until January 1950, in an episode of The
Chesterfield Supper Club hosted by Perry Como.
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. 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." Gloria Swanson was eventually cast in the
role.
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.
Some Pop Culture tidbits about Mae:
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.
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.
Here are some links to Youtubes showing Mae in action:
I can remember as a kid watching her movies on TV. I always loved her smart, sassy independence. She was truly ahead of her times!! This lady was SEXY--because it started in her brain not in her cleavage!! She was confident and powerful and unafraid to show who she was.
And now that we've all ogled Mae in all her glory, onto something a little less exciting. Here I am in my OOTD.
I had some on-site design meetings today so COMFORT was the key!! My skirt and tshirt are thrifted, sandals by Amerimark, earrings and bracelets are DIY, and the pendant is retail/sale.
BUSY weekend ahead!! Tomorrow our son-in-law graduates from Federal Law Enforcement Training and Sunday the family is getting together for steamed crabs ( a Maryland delicacy!!!) I also need to make a fruit salad for our Senior Appreciation Breakfast at church(I play hostess) WHEW!! Here's a bit of doggie cuteness!!
Everyone have a faboo weekend and I'll be back on Sunday!!
TTFN
Tamera
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