Mae West

Mary Jane “Mae” West was born on August 17, 1893, in Brooklyn, New York, in either Greenpoint or Bushwick, and grew up in parts of Queens and Brooklyn. She became one of the most recognizable American entertainers of the 20th century: an actress, singer, comedian, screenwriter, and playwright whose career lasted more than seven decades. West was known as a major sex symbol of her time, but her appeal was never only about glamour. She built a public voice around wit, control, and suggestion, often delivering double entendres in her distinctive contralto.

West came from a working family with a strong sense of performance and toughness. Her mother, Mathilde “Tillie” Delker West, was a German immigrant from Bavaria and had worked as a corset and fashion model. Her father, John Patrick “Battlin’ Jack” West, was a former prizefighter who later worked as a special policeman and founded a private investigation agency. Mae was the eldest surviving child, and she was entertaining early: at five she performed at a church social, at seven she appeared in amateur shows, and by 14 she was working professionally in vaudeville with the Hal Clarendon Stock Company.

Onstage she tried out names and personas, including “Baby Mae,” the alias “Jane Mast,” and even male impersonation. Her walk was said to have been influenced by female impersonators Bert Savoy and Julian Eltinge. In 1911, at 18, she appeared on Broadway in A La Broadway, a short-lived revue staged by her former dancing teacher, Ned Wayburn. A New York Times review singled her out for her “grotesquerie” and “snappy way of singing and dancing.” She went on to appear in Vera Violetta and A Winsome Widow, and in 1918 gained wide attention in the Shubert Brothers revue Sometime, opposite Ed Wynn.

West soon began writing her own risqué plays under the pen name Jane Mast. Her first starring role on Broadway was Sex, a 1926 play she wrote, produced, and directed. Conservative critics attacked it, but audiences bought tickets. After complaints from religious groups, the theater was raided, and West was arrested with the cast. In 1927 she was sentenced to 10 days for “corrupting the morals of youth.” She chose jail over simply paying a fine, knowing the publicity would help. She served eight days on Welfare Island, spoke to reporters, and came out with her career even larger.

Her next play, The Drag, dealt with homosexuality and never opened on Broadway after efforts to block it in New York. West described it as one of her “comedy-dramas of life.” She was an early supporter of the women’s liberation movement, though she said she was not a “burn your bra” kind of feminist, and from the 1920s she supported gay rights and spoke publicly against police brutality toward gay men. At the same time, her later writings show a more complicated record: in her 1959 autobiography Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It, she condemned hypocrisy while also voicing concerns about homosexuality.

West later moved into film in Los Angeles, and when her film career declined she kept working: writing books and plays, performing in Las Vegas and London, appearing on radio and television, and even releasing rock and roll recordings in later years. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her 15th among the greatest female screen legends of classic American cinema. Her line “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough” still fits the public Mae West: bold, comic, and fully aware of the power of a well-timed phrase.