Trivia

She was one of the first women to consistently write the movies she starred in.

She was at one point Hollywood's highest paid star.

According to 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".

At one point, her chauffeur was Jerry Orbach (who is best known for playing Detective Lennie Briscoe on all four "Law & Order" television series).

Her films are credited with single-handedly saving failing and debt-ridden Paramount Pictures from bankruptcy in the early 1930s.

Appears on sleeve of The Beatles "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". West at first declined to be pictured on the cover ("What would I be doing in a lonely hearts club?!"), but reconsidered when The Beatles sent her a handwritten personal request.

One of her boyfriends and life long friends was the African American Boxer William Jones, nicknamed Gorilla Jones. When management at her Ravenswood apartment building barred him from entering, she solved the problem by purchasing the building and lifting the ban.

The Coca-Cola bottle was said to have been designed with Mae West's figure as inspiration.

Once when she was scheduled to play a theater in New Haven, Conneticut, the theater's management refused to let her go on because her act was too "risqué" and canceled the show. Disappointed, Yale University students rioted and wrecked the theater.

Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí created one of his most iconic works influenced by her: "Mae West's Lips Sofa" (1937).

After two years of denying that she had ever been married, West admitted in a reply to a legal interrogatory in 1937 that she and Frank Wallace had married in 1911. During her divorce trial in 1942, she testified that they had lived together only "several weeks".

During World War II, her name was applied to various pieces of military equipment, and was thus listed in Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition. The Royal Air Force named its inflatable life jackets "Mae Wests", and US soldiers referred to twin-turreted combat tanks as "Mae Wests".

Was not a smoker or a drinker.

When W.C. Fields called her "My little broodmare", she almost hit him.

In April 1927, she was convicted of "producing an immoral play", the title of which was "Sex". She was sentenced to ten days in jail in New York City's Welfare Island, but was given one day off for good behavior.

Made her Broadway debut on September 22, 1911, at the New York Folies Bergère, co-owned by Jesse L. Lasky. Twenty-one years later, West signed with Paramount Pictures, which was co-founded by Lasky.

Her frank, sexual innuendo-laced play "Sex" opened at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre on April 26, 1926. Ironically, that theatre had been built twelve years earlier by two Christian societies - the People's Pulpit and the International Bible Student's Association - that had intended it to be used for the presentation of biblical films and lectures.

She was with George Raft in both her first (Night After Night (1932)) and last (Sexteto (el sexo no tiene edad) (1977)) film.

Mae West died two days before her Night After Night (1932) and Sexteto (el sexo no tiene edad) (1977) co-star George Raft.

Playing opposite Ed Wynn in Arthur Hammerstein's "Sometime", with music by Rudolf Friml, she introduced the shimmy to the Broadway stage in 1918. The dance requires hardly any movement of the feet but continuous movement of the shoulders, torso and pelvis. She had seen the dance at black cafés in Chicago.

Although critics thought that she and W.C. Fields worked well together on camera in Curvas y balas (1940), off-screen they couldn't stand each other.

Critic George Jean Nathan once called her "The Statue of Libido".

She had a double thyroid. Her doctor wanted her to have one of her thyroids surgically removed, but she refused as the double thyroid was not affecting her health.

Was named #15 Actress on The American Film Institute's 50 Greatest Screen Legends.

Her father built a stage for her in the basement of their house in Brooklyn.

She was famous for her morning enemas, which she claimed made her skin like silk and left her "smelling sweet at both ends". On the set of her last film Sexteto (el sexo no tiene edad) (1977), co-star Tony Curtis claimed that she was given an enema after being made up, at approximately 11:00 in the morning, as the last step of her preparations before going before the camera.

She always wrote her own plays and also the script for her first film. Has published two novels, written the lyrics for several songs composed by Ralph Rainger for her film Nació para pecar (1933) and, in her spare time, did sketches and material for other performers.

Was banned from NBC Radio after a guest appearance in 1937 with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy that was loaded with flirtatious dialogue and double-entendres. She returned to the network as a guest on The Perry Como Show (1948) in 1949.

Former Beatle Ringo Starr appeared with West in Sexteto (el sexo no tiene edad) (1977). He was unpleasantly surprised at first, at all the attention given her on the set (usually reserved for pop stars like The Beatles), but came to admire West during the shoot, and praised her afterwards.

Ravenswood Apartments, West's longtime residence on Rossmore Avenue, is shown in Hollywood Mouth 3 (2018). Others who resided in Ravenswood over the years were Alice Faye, Clark Gable, Ida Lupino, Hedda Hopper, Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, and crime writer James Ellroy. West also owned a beachfront house at 514 Palisades Beach Road in Santa Monica.

Turned down a role in Roustabout (1964), which eventually went to Barbara Stanwyck.

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

Sources are divided as to whether she was born in 1887, 1888, 1892 or 1893. (West once claimed it was as late as 1900.) Most reputable sources list 1892.

The US Congress list of highest salaries for 1936 (published on January 7, 1937) had her as the highest Hollywood earner with £96,166 (GBP) ahead of Marlene Dietrich (second at £73,000) and Bing Crosby (third at £63,781). For context, newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst had the highest US salary in 1936 with £100,000.

She was considered for the role of Norma Desmond in El ocaso de una vida (1950) but Gloria Swanson, who went on to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, was cast instead.

Died apparently of natural causes in the wake of a mild stroke she suffered three months prior that left her speech impaired. Also suffered from diabetes the last 15 years of her life.

She has appeared in one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Nació para pecar (1933).

There is a photo in fundamentalist preacher Billy Sunday's autobiography (circa 1932) of him and West pouring out a bottle of beer into the river.

Is mentioned in Cole Porter's song "Anything Goes" from his musical of the same name.

Sister of singer Beverly Arden.

The comedy entitled "Sex" she wrote in 1926 revived off Broadway in New York. (diciembre de 1999)

During World War II, United States Navy and Army pilots and crewmen in the Pacific named their inflatable life vests after her, supposedly because of her well-endowed attributes. The term "Mae West" for a lifejacket continues to this day.

She was born Mary Jane West in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Mae's father, John Patrick "Jack" West, was a featherweight prizefighter called "Battling Jack" West, and later a stable master; he was of English and Irish descent (his own mother was an Irish immigrant). Mae's mother, a corset model, Matilda Decker Doelger, was an immigrant from Germany.

She had Jewish ancestry through her maternal side.

Attended and graduated from Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School (1911), as did silent film star Norma Talmadge.

Eldest of three children of John Patrick West, an occasional prizefighter and livery-stable owner, and Matilda Delker Doelger, a one-time corset and fashion model. A baby girl died before Mae was born and a girl and a boy were born after.

On January 25, 1948, she appeared in the stage revue "Diamond Lil" with British actress Noele Gordon in Manchester and the Prince of Wales in London, where it was a box-office smash.

Guido Deiro claims that West married his father, Guido Deiro, in 1914 under an assumed name, Catherine Mae Belle West, and on the condition of secrecy. West filed for divorce from Deiro on the grounds of adultery on July 14, 1920. The divorce was granted by the Supreme Court of the State of New York on November 9, 1920.

Made her first professional appearances at Neir's Tavern (which opened in 1829 and is currently extant) in Woodhaven, Queens, New York.

Mae's first starring role was in She Done Him Wrong, for which she wrote both the story and dialogue, while her screen debut had been in Night After Night, with George Raft.