In Klondike Annie (1936) directed by Raoul Walsh, via YouTube

Her career started in 1907 and her last public appearance was in 1978; that’s a long run.

Gay Icon Mae West (1893 – 1980) worked in vaudeville, radio, on stage, on Broadway, in Las Vegas, and, of course, in films. In 1927, her Broadway play Sex opened to bad reviews and boffo box office, and was ultimately closed down by the police. West was charged with, and served time for, “corrupting the morals of the youth”. While incarcerated, she took her meals with the prison warden and his wife while entertaining them with her shtick. She told the press that she wore her silk panties under her prison uniform.

Early in her Broadway career, West was already aware of her sweet spot as a Gay Icon. The gays had been her most ardent fans from the very start. As the march towards equality moved forward, West’s popularity only continued to soar. Her witty, bodacious, blunt expressions of sexuality were celebrated by queer people for more than half a century and beyond. In the early part of the 20th century, West cultivated a strong following from the female impersonators of the era. Before drag queens impersonated Joan Crawford, Cher, or Diana Ross, they were doing Mae West.

Her play The Drag (1927) had a theme of gay male’s place in modern society. Sex launched her notoriety and her stardom on Broadway, but with The Drag, West did not even write a role for herself. The Drag was her contribution to a period in the 1920s when female impersonators appeared in mainstream stage shows while rues and flappers slummed at gay bars and drag balls. When the casting notice for The Drag was posted, hundreds of pansies, fairies and queens showed up to read for it. The play featured a parade of queer characters of all types, and it ended with a 20-minute sparkling, spectacular drag show.

West was one of the very earliest public advocates for sexual equality in all its forms. A personal hero for me, and for forward thinking people, West spent her lifetime fighting censorship.

“I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.”

West didn’t just write about the roles of women and gays in our society, she also took on racism. She included black and Latin characters in her plays and in her nightclub act. Among West’s many boyfriends was boxing champion Gorilla Jones. When the management at her apartment building barred the African-American boxer from entering the premises, West simply bought the building and then lifted the ban.

With Cary Grant in I’m No Angel (1933) via YouTube

She appeared in ten films from 1933-1943; a rather small body of work considering that during the same era Mickey Rooney appeared in more than 50 movies. But, West’s films were anticipated as major cultural events. Yet, by the end of the middle of the 1940s, a new puritanism was on the rise in the USA. The Hays Production Code began severely limiting her career in film. After making The Heat Is On (1943), West retired from films and went back to Broadway.

In the early 1940s, West was the guest on ventriloquist Edgar Bergen‘s radio show. The dialogue between West and the show’s hosts, Bergen and the dummy Charlie McCarthy, contained West’s usual risqué wit. Days after the broadcast, NBC received letters calling the show “immoral” and “obscene”. Conservative groups went after the show’s sponsors. The FCC called the broadcast “vulgar and indecent”. NBC banned West from ever appearing on their broadcasts.

In 1954, when she was 62 years old, West began a stage act in which she was surrounded by hot musclemen as her chorus boys. It ran for three years and it was a surprise success.

I think that West is extraordinarily neglected as a writer. Read her collected plays and you will be surprised at the skill, originality and wit in her daring theatre pieces, and they are still rather shocking today. She is also the author of a highly readable memoir Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It (1959). You can borrow my well read, dog-eared copy. West wrote:

I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.

77-years-old West appeared in the demented film version of Gore Vidal‘s satiric bestselling novel Myra Breckinridge (1970) along with Farrah Fawcett, Tom Selleck and Raquel Welch.

Sextette (1978) opposite future James Bond Timothy Dalton, via YouTube

At 85 years old, she made Sextette (1978) with a screenplay written by West, starring Timothy Dalton, Dom DeLuise, Ringo Starr and Tony Curtis as her love interests. Sextette reunited West with Edith Head, her costume designer from She Done Him Wrong (1933).

In her long career, West came out with 12 albums, including a collection of Christmas songs, and she had 12 Top Ten singles. She released an album of rock ‘n’ roll covers, Great Balls Of Fire in 1972 when she was 80 years old.

In the summer of 1980, West was still working on her stage act when she suffered a series of strokes. At the time, her boyfriend was one of the musclemen from the act and 30 years younger than West. His name was Paul Novak and they had been a couple for her last 27 years. Novak stated:

I believe I was put on this Earth to take care of Mae West.

West’s private memorial service was in Hollywood, but she is buried in her native Brooklyn.