Mae West
Mae West, (1892-1980). US stage and screen actress, noted for her buxom figure and bawdy wisecracking style. West was born in Brooklyn, the daughter of a boxer. Having appeared in burlesque and revue from an early age, she staged her first play, Sex, in 1926; the production led to her arrest on charges of obscenity. After further stage work, including the Broadway triumph Diamond Lii (1928), she made her film debut in 1932, when she was 40. Her best-known movies include She Done Him Wrong (1933), with Cary Grant, and My Little Chickadee (1940), with W. C. Fields. After World War II she returned to Broadway, later making a camp comeback (at the age of 78) in Myra Breckenridge (1970). Most of West’s famous double entendres (“Why don’t you come up sometime and see me” “I was Snow White, but I drifted”) were scripted by the actress herself.
