Mae West

In 1925, a young vaudeville jazz singer, Mildred Mae Westerly, had a nearly tragic run-in with the Firemen’s mascot monkey in a place called Ponca City, Oklahoma. The train carrying the show arrived at the depot and following tradition of vaudeville shows--the cast had a parade down Grand Ave. to announce the show and drum up interest. Mildred was a jazz singer who had 10 little Spitz dogs on leashes with doggie coats to herald her act.  As they turned into the firehouse adjacent the Ponca City Theatre, the dogs encountered a caged monkey the firemen had been given by the 101 Ranch.  The monkey and dogs went wild.  In the ensuing melee, the monkey got hold of Westerly’s hair. It tore out a patch and bruised her face.  As the firemen were putting on some bandages, Mildred took it in stride.  “You know everything crazy happens to me.  I should change my act and do comedy.”  She went home to New York for recovery thinking about what she had said, and she did just that.  Already a Shakespearian actress, she wrote comedy vaudeville skits and changed her stage name back to her real name, Mary Jane Mae West.

            Mae’s dad was Bavarian Catholic and his mother was Irish Catholic-Jewish. But they joined a Presbyterian church at Greenpoint (part of New York City today).  Mae had done stage since the age of 5. In 1926, at 34 she wrote, produced and directed a broadway play, Sex. She wrote scenes about the male-female chase, full of absurdity of what characters really thought.  Men were obsessed with women’s looks and women were half-smart in manipulating. The production did not go over well with city officials, who had received complaints from some religious groups and the theater was raided, with West arrested along with the cast. Her skits were so filled with sexual innuendo it scandalized the Eastern audiences.  She was banned in Boston (that is where we get the term) and run out of New York.  Dejected, she wrote her brother that she hadn’t meant to offend people’s faith, just poke fun of the battle of the sexes and sex of the battle. He told her to hang tough.  So when sentenced to 10 days in jail or pay a fine for “corrupting the morals of youth” she chose jail and played it to the hilt for publicity. West emerged more popular than ever. She wrote Diamond Lil in 1928. And then a funny thing happened. The shows were sellouts in the Midwest. Farm couples, trying to raise large families and used to seeing animal sex all day long, thought her plays, full of double entendres and breezy flirtation a hoot, not a scandal. She went to Hollywood and by 1932 was the best paid actress in film—making dull lines memorable by being outrageously suggestive.

            What Mae really disliked was hypocrisy.  Introduced to William Randolph Hearst and his mistress, she made a comment over their relationship that got her in trouble. Hearst went on the warpath. At one point, he asked aloud, "Isn't it time Congress did something about the Mae West menace?" Paramount executives felt they had to tone down the West characterization, or face further recrimination. This may be surprising by today's standards, as West's films contained no nudity, no profanity and very little violence. Though raised in an era when women held second-place roles in society, West portrayed confident women who were not afraid to use their wiles to get what they wanted. "I was the first liberated woman, you know. No guy was going to get the best of me. That's what I wrote all my scripts about." In 1940 her double entendres got her into trouble amazingly enough with Edgar Bergen’s ventriloquist dummy, Charlie McCarthy, on the radio, no less. Her career began to languish in the backlash. 

            But raised a Presbyterian, Mae attended church often, took care of her mother, brother and many others for years. She tithed and picked up Scot investment savvy.  “I need God more than anyone else,” she is to have said.  As her career waned, her wealth grew and she spent a long retirement as a philantropist.  Which I suppose proves that Christians aren’t perfect, we are redeemed.