Mae West: 7 Sexy Facts About The Ultimate Femme Fatale

Lori Acken 2 minutes ago

GO WEST YOUNG MAN, Mae West, 1936 colorized image — Everett Collection

Long before Madonna became entertainment’s It-girl for being a bawdy, bad-girl blonde who was also smart as a whip, Hollywood had Mae West. A master at reinventing herself and her career, Brooklyn-born Mary Jane “Baby Mae” West was a star of the vaudeville stage by the time she turned seven, and made it to Broadway by age 18. And she never played by the rules, milking her vampy personality, business smarts and razor-sharp wit for all they were worth.

Though Mae West was a veritable walking fun fact, here are 7 of our favorites to celebrate this fearless femme fatale.

1 She Wrote Her Own Stage Scripts

Everett Collection

Despite her bombshell appearance — which she played up to the hilt — West was also a smart and gutsy writer. She penned more than a dozen plays (sometimes under the pseudonym Jane Mast, when the content was daring). West’s most famous play was the raw and innuendo-filled Sex, which she wrote (and starred in) in her early 30s. Critics and city officials clothed their collective pearls, but audiences loved it. Still, West and her cast were all arrested for “corrupting the morals of youth” and sentenced to jail for 10 days.

West was undeterred. She followed up Sex with The Drag, which focused on the lives of the young gay males she palled around with. That one never made it to the Broadway stage, but West used the commotion to launch her career as an entertainment bad girl.

2 She was in her 40s by the time she became a bona fide movie star

West was the utter opposite of an ingenue in Hollywood’s golden age — and she could not have cared less. Knowing full well that traditional leading lady roles would never come her way, West capitalized on her lucrative and racy “Diamond Lil” stage persona and wrote or co-wrote ten of her own films, earning Photoplay awards for Goin’ to Town, Belle of the Nineties, She Done Him Wrong and I’m No Angel and turning her into a show business legend.

3 She once made more money than FDR … and (almost) anyone else in America

1936: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882 - 1945) the 32nd President of the United States from 1933-45. A Democrat, he led his country through the depression of the 1930's and World War II, and was elected for an unprecedented fourth term of office in 1944.

Keystone Features/Getty Images

In 1935, at the height of the Great Depression, West raked in more money than then-president Franklin Roosevelt, any other Hollywood actor, and anyone else in America, except for publisher William Randolph Heart. Hearst welcomed West for a visit at his sprawling home, but she scoffed at his role in Hollywood censorship, famously quipping “I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.”

4 Her va-va-voom figure inspired a life vest … and the Coca-Cola bottle

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

During World War II, the United States Army Air Force Pneumatic Life Vest helped save the lives of thousands of fighter pilots and crew. But it is best known for its affectionate nickname, the MaeWest vest, given to the preserver by amused soldiers who noticed it mimicked West’s ample bustline when inflated.And even the Coco-Cola Company acknowledges that its famed curvy bottle is sometimes known as a “Mae West bottle.” Another popular nickname for the vessel at the time was the “hobble skirt bottle” for its resemblance to a kind of dress West and other well-dressed ladies favored, even though its constrictive skirt design forced them to take tiny, awkward steps.

5 She got married in Milwaukee

Though West famously penned the line “Marriage is a great institution — but I’m not ready for an institution” in her 1933 movie I’m No Angel, she took a stab at it once. At age 17, West was on tour with a vaudeville troop when she let her costar Frank Wallace talk her into a trek to the Milwaukee courthouse to get hitched. Though she bolted the marriage a few weeks later, West spent three decades denying that it even happened. Thus, divorce papers weren’t filed until 1942.

6 Det. Lennie Briscoe was once her chauffeur

LAW AND ORDER, Jerry Orbach, Season 9, 1998. 1990-2010.

NBC/Courtesy: Everett Collection

Jerry Orbach, Law & Order‘s own Det. Lennie Briscoe, was a new high school graduate doing summer stock theater when he landed a bit role in a show starring West and Vincent Price. The Dirty Dancing dad earned a little extra cash serving as West’s chauffeur. Nobody put Mae West in an actual driver’s seat.

7 She made an album of pop and Motown tunes

Ever the chameleon, West entered the recording studio in 1966 and emerged with Way Out West. Released by Tower Records, the LP featured the then 72-year-old West warbling such hits as “When a Man Loves a Woman,” Day Tripper” and “Twist and Shout” — plus original tunes like “Mae Dae.” Way out, indeed!

You can see some of her movies on Sunday nights throughout the month of May on Turner Classic Movies starting at 8pm ET.