Mae West: How She Got Away With It

Mae West

Mae West had quite a way with words, yet most people nowadays have probably never heard of her. So just to provide a little background information, she was born Mary Jane West on August 17, 1893 and died on November 22, 1980. 

Her career spanned seven decades and she was an actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian and sex symbol.

She’s best known for her lighthearted use of, shall we say, suggestiveness.

I watched a documentary about her recently and it mentioned that if she’d been slimmer and more glamorous, like Marlene Dietrich for instance, she probably could not have gotten away with the lines that made her famous.

She wasn’t particularly beautiful and her figure was rather matronly, but she certainly had a way with words that kept bringing audiences into the movie theaters of the Depression era 1930s.

When presented with a script, she’d re-write all her lines which certainly seemed to pay off at the box office. 

Marlene Dietrich

Up until 1934, movies were not censored.  But even after they were, Mae West still continued to write provocative dialogue (curtailing it only slightly) to the delight of her audiences. However, in the late 1930’s the Censorship Office cracked down on Mae West’s unique use of words. And after that, the magic of her movie performances disappeared. 

When her cinematic career ended, she wrote books and plays and went on to perform in Las Vegas, the United Kingdom, and on radio and television. 

As far as her opinion on censorship, she said, “I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it."  

Here are some of Mae West’s most memorable lines:

"Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before."

"Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly."

“Don’t ever let a man put anything over on you except an umbrella.”

"He’s the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of."

"I believe that it’s better to be looked over than it is to be overlooked."

"Opportunity knocks for every man, but you have to give a woman a ring."

"A dame that knows the ropes isn’t likely to get tied up."

"Give a man a free hand and he’ll run it all over you."

"A woman in love can’t be reasonable – or she probably wouldn’t be in love."

"When women go wrong, men go right after them."

I've only seen one Mae West movie, 1933's She Done Him Wrong. All I can say is that there will never be another Mae West! Have you seen any of her films? Thanks for visiting and have a great week!