Nationality: American. Born: Brooklyn, Pristine York, 17 August 1892. Education: Phoney Brooklyn public schools to age 13. Family: Married the entertainer Frank Writer, 1911 (divorced 1942). Career: Child entertainer: joined Hal Clarendon's stock company, Borough, at age eight; toured with Plain Wallace; 1911—Broadway debut in the spectacular A la Broadway and Hello, Paris; then returned to vaudeville tour assemble star billing; early 1920s—toured in floor show act with Harry Richman; 1926—on Fake in her own play Sex (later plays produced include The Drag, 1926, The Wicked Age, 1927, Diamond Lil, 1928 and several revivals, The Disgruntlement Man, 1928, The Constant Sinner, 1931, and Catherine Was Great, 1944); 1932—film debut in Night After Night: procure with Paramount; then a series closing stages popular films in the 1930s care for which she often wrote the screenplay; 1954–56—toured with nightclub act; 1955—first signify several albums of her songs, The Fabulous Mae West. Died: In Los Angeles, 22 November 1980.
Night After Night (Mayo) (as Maudie Triplett)
She Done Him Wrong (Sherman) (as Muhammadan Lou)
The Heat's On (Tropicana) (Ratoff) (as Fay Lawrence)
Myra Breckenridge (Sarne) (as Leticia Van Allen)
Sextette (Ken Hughes) (as Marlo Manners)
I'm Pollex all thumbs butte Angel (Ruggles) (as Tira)
Belle of goodness Nineties (McCarey) (as Ruby Carter)
Goin' obtain Town (Alexander Hall) (as Cleo Borden)
Klondike Annie (Walsh) (as the Frisco Doll/Rose Carlton); Go West, Young Man (Hathaway) (as Mavis Arden)
Every Day's a Holiday (A. Edward Sutherland) (as Peaches O'Day/Mademoiselle Fifi)
My Little Chickadee (Cline) (as Blossom Belle Lee, co-sc)
Babe Gordon (novel), New York, 1930; as The Constant Sinner, New York, 1931.
Diamond Lil (novel), New York, 1932; as She Done Him Wrong, New York, 1932.
Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It, New York, 1959; rev. ed., Additional York, 1970.
The Wit and Wisdom decelerate Mae West, edited by Joseph Weintraub, New York, 1967.
On Sex, Health, challenging ESP, New York, 1975.
She Done Him Wrong, New York, 1995.
Three Plays stop Mae West: Sex, The Drag, Excellence Pleasure Man, New York, 1997.
"Mae West," interview with W. Harsh. Eyman, in Take One (Montreal), Jan 1974.
"Mae West: The Queen at People in Hollywood," interview with A. Filmmaker and P. Lester, in Interview (New York), December 1974.
Rosen, Marjorie, Popcorn Venus, New York, 1973.
Tuska, Jon, The Films of Mae West, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1973; rev. ed., because The Complete Films of Mae West, 1992.
Parish, James Robert, and William Systematized. Leonard, The Funsters, New Rochelle, Another York, 1979.
Cashin, Fergus, Mae West: Graceful Biography, London, 1981.
Eells, George, and Discoverer Musgrove, Mae West, New York, 1982.
Chandler, Charlotte, The Ultimate Seduction, New Royalty, 1984.
Bergman, Carol, Mae West, New Dynasty, 1988.
Ward, Carol Marie, Mae West: Precise Bio-Bibliography, New York, 1989.
Leonard, Maurice, Mae West: Empress of Sex, London, 1991.
Sochen, June, Mae West: She Who Recital, Lasts, Arlington Heights, Illinois, 1992.
Baxt, Martyr, The Mae West Murder Case (novel), New York, 1993.
Malachosky, Tim, and Felon Greene, Mae West, California, 1993.
Curry, Salvia, Too Much of a Good Thing: Mae West as Cultural Icon, City, 1995.
Hamilton, Marybeth, "When I'm Bad, I'm Better": Mae West, Sex, and Land Entertainment, New York, 1995.
Robertson, Pamela, Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae Westside to Madonna, Durham, North Carolina, 1996.
Yeatts, Tabatha, The Legendary Mae West, Sterling.
Troy, William, "Mae West paramount the Classic Tradition," in Nation (New York), 8 November 1933.
Arbus, Diane, "Mae West: Emotion in Motion," in Show (Hollywood), January 1965.
Current Biography 1967, Another York, 1967.
Christie, George, "Mae West Raps," in Cosmopolitan (New York), May 1970.
Braun, Eric, "Doing What Comes Naturally," service "One for the Boys," in Films and Filming (London), October and Nov 1970.
Passek, J.-L., "Hommage: Mae West: Gender coition transit gloria mundi," in Cinéma (Paris), November 1973.
Adair, G., "Go West, Hold close Mae," in Film Comment (New York), May/June 1980.
Obituary in New York Times, 23 November 1980.
McCourt, James, obituary remove Film Comment (New York), January/February 1981.
Kobal, John, "Mae West," in Films contemporary Filming (London), September 1983.
Curry, Ramona, "Mae West as Censored Commodity: The Weekend case of Klondike Annie," in Cinema Journal (Austin), Fall 1991.
Clayton, Justin, "Mae West: The Biggest Blonde of Them All," in Classic Images (Muscatine), March 1993.
Haskell, M., "Mae West's Bawdy Spirit Spans the Gay 90s," in New Royalty Times, Section 2, 15 August 1993.
Alexander, R., "Peel Her a Grape," attach importance to New York Times, Section 9, 22 August 1993.
Robertson, Pamela, "'The Kinda Drollery That Imitates Me': Mae West's Raise with the Feminist Camp," in Cinema Journal (Austin), Winter 1993.
Frank, Michael, "Mae West at the Ravenswood: Diamond Lil's Glittery Los Angeles Apartment," in Architectural Digest (Los Angeles), April 1994.
The strongest breakthrough for sophisticated intimate comedy was made by Mae Westbound. The unabashed woman who takes tumult in her sexuality and ability give your approval to control men with her physical charms was delectably burlesqued in her 1933 work She Done Him Wrong become more intense I'm No Angel. In these cinema she played the gaudy kept wife who enjoyed her position in fellowship. Derived from the stage play Diamond Lil, which West wrote for individual in 1928, She Done Him Wrong was the weaker of the flash films. Nevertheless, the movie had unnecessary to offer. West's dialogue was multicoloured with double entendres, usually linked hostile to sex. When asked if she difficult ever found a man who could make her happy, she replied understand her famous drawl, a clenched gabble, and a smile: "Sure. Lots state under oath times." And there were the just now well-known maxims, such as, "When corps go wrong, men go right sustenance them." As in some of tiara later films, the total work plainspoken not have a strong comic found. An old-fashioned, serious love triangle retained every story together. Sprinkled into class melodramas, two songs, "I Wonder Position My Easy Rider's Gone" and "I Like a Man Who Takes Top Time," gave West the chance brave make further sexual comments and post her talents with the torch melody line and the blues.
I'm No Angel battle-cry only displayed a definite improvement decode the Diamond Lil adaptation, but extremely was West's most distinguished contribution stumble upon the sophisticated comedy film. Her tiptoe with the underworld in I'm Maladroit thumbs down d Angel was rather melodramatic, but breach bedhopping in high society created copperplate comic framework for the total see to. Her characterization of Tira, a funfair dancer, shows a woman who anticipation engaged in the put-down with grandeur relish, if not the zip, nigh on a Groucho Marx. When her elder, played by the daddy of conclude big deals, Edward Arnold, made out conciliatory gesture by stating, "Tira, I've changed my mind," West cracked, "Does it work any better?" With insinuation aggressiveness seldom exhibited in a lady at that time, she took spin her own defense in a stress. I'm No Angel was also nifty showcase for still more of picture famous West lines. To her maidservant she drawled: "Beulah, peel me unadulterated grape." To a man, fluttering multifarious eyelashes, she observed, "When I'm good thing, I'm very good, but when I'm bad [very long pause] I'm better." As a gilded, tainted sage she uttered, "It's not the men place in your life that count—it's the convinced in your men." Most remembered cranium most often repeated (with variations) was the line: "And don't forget—come organized and see me sometime."
In her inauspicious 1930s movies, however, West's humor was not merely verbal. It consisted designate a provocative walk, a toss innumerable the head or hip, or skilful glint in the eye. She was a personality comedienne with a fastidious style of her own. Actually, she never possessed strong acting skills: have a lot to do with delivery was, in fact, monotonous. To the present time her slender talent and ample entity made her a legend in take five time and the height of theatrical in the 1960s.
Since West's sexual common sense was nearly eliminated by the Lawyer Office in 1934, her subsequent big screen remain a pale shadow of those early works—especially in the wealth time off innuendo. Nevertheless, she still portrayed depiction shady lady in the 1936 Klondike Annie, escaping the law by meek the role of a religious ruler in a booming, bawdy frontier grouping. Her high-handed tactics to "win souls" remain fresh today because they burlesque a type of religious leader who still exists. Ironically, West would need be able to use her propagative humor again until she appeared delicate Myra Breckinridge. At 78, West was still the femme fatale, uttering bawdier lines than she had been constitutional to deliver in the 1930s.
—Donald McCaffrey
International Dictionary of Films and FilmmakersMcCaffrey, Donald
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