West stole her first film, Night After Night from leads George Raft and Constance Cummings, and uttered the first of many quotable lines when a hatcheck girl admired her jewels, saying, "Goodness, what lovely diamonds." Mae primped and replied, "Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie." Paramount responded by giving her the star treament for her second picture, She Done Him Wrong (1933), based on her play "Diamond Lil." The film was credited with pulling Paramount out of bankruptcy, and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. It was marked with the same insouciant flippancy that made Mae's stage shows so popular (typified by her saucy invitation to Cary Grant, "Come up some time an' see me"), although bluenoses noted the frequency and outrageousness of her blatantly sexual double entendres. I'm No Angel (1933), West's second starring vehicle, was equally popular, and was said to have fanned the flames of protest that led to adoption of the restrictive Motion Picture Production Code. In fact, though, her appeal (and her threat) was that she portrayed a woman who genuinely enjoyed sex and who could survive a "fate worse than death" without suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Protests from the Catholic Legion of Decency only increased her popularity.
In 1935 she was the highest-paid woman in America, but she was hampered in writing new stories and scripts by the Production Code. While films like Belle of the Nineties (1934), Goin' to Town (1935), Klondike Annie, Go West, Young Man (both 1936) and Every Day's a Holiday (1937) were still fun, there was no question they lacked some of the pizzazz-and rawness-of her two pre-Code starring movies; those remain her best. In 1940 she teamed with W. C. Fields, but that momentous match-up didn't yield the comic sparks that fans hoped for. My Little Chickadee (1940), which West cowrote, was only a mildly funny misfire. The Heat's On (1943) was also a dud, and West left the screen to return to nightclubs, where she was a smash.
A 24-carat character in real life, West still thought herself as a star (and sexpot) in the 1970s. She costarred in the dreadful Myra Breckinridge (1970), whose failure was not her fault, and the even grimmer Sextette (1978, which she cowrote). She remained a newsworthy personality to the very end. Her 1959 autobiography was titled "Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It."
Personal Quotes:
"A hard man is good to find."
"Men are my life, diamonds are my career!"
"When women go wrong, men go right after them!"
"When caught between two evils I generally pick the one I've never tried before."
"When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better."
"Marriage is a great institution. I'm not ready for an institution."
"It's not the man in your life that counts. It's the life in your man."
"Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?"
"I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it."
"I only like two kinds of men: domestic and foreign."
"Don't marry a man to reform him that's what reform schools are for."
"It's hard to be funny when you have to be clean."
"Good girls go to heaven; Bad girls go everywhere else".
Trivia
According to actor Tony Curtis, her famous walk originated while beginning her career as a stage actress. Special six-inch platforms were attached to her shoes to increase the height of her stage presence. Her walk literally was "one foot at a time."
During World War II, Navy and Army pilots and crewman in the Pacific, named their inflatable life vests after Mae West supposedly because of her well-endowed attributes. The term "Mae West" for a life-vest continues to this day.
Was banned from radio, after a guest appearance with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy loaded with flirtation and double-entendres.
At one point, her chauffeur was Jerry Orbach (who is best known for playing Detective Lennie Briscoe on all four "Law & Order" series and "Homicide: Life on the Street" (1993)).
Later,
Kenaz
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