8834

A man has more character in his face at forty than at twenty--he has suffered longer.

Don't come crawlin' to a man for love--he likes to get a run for his money.

Don't cry for a man who's left you--the next one may fall for your smile.

Don't marry a man to reform him--that's what reform schools are for.

Don't keep a man guessing too long--he's sure to find the answer somewhere else.

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8835

Mae caught the attention of the Hollywood moguls and was given her first movie role with George Raft in 1932's NIGHT AFTER NIGHT. Although a small role, she was able to display a wit that was to make her world famous. Raft, himself, said of Mae, "She stole everything but the cameras." The movie-going public fell in love with the first woman to make racy comments on film. She became a box-office smash hit breaking all sorts of attendance records.

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8836

Her second film, SHE DONE HIM WRONG (1933), was based on her earlier and popular play that she had written herself. The film was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture. It also made Cary Grant a star.

Her third film later that year was I'M NO ANGEL. These two films resulted in the Motion Picture Production Code which regulated what content could be shown or said in pictures. As a result of these codes, Mae began to double talk so that a person could take a word or phrase anyway they wished. This was so she could get her material past the censors. It worked. She really felt she had a vested interest because it was her written work being scrutinized. She had already written and performed these for the stage with the very material now being filmed.

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8837

Her next film, BELLE OF THE NINETIES made in 1934 was an equal hit.

By 1936, with the films, KLONDIKE ANNIE and GO WEST YOUNG MAN, made her, at that time, the highest paid woman in the US.

After the 1937 film, EVERYDAY'S A HOLIDAY, she didn't make another film until 1940, when she co-starred with W.C. Fields in another Mae West written movie, MY LITTLE CHICKADEE. It was well known she had little use for Fields and his crude ways, even for her.

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8838

Don't ever make the same mistake twice, unless it pays.

How do you do, Miss West?
How do you do what?

I'd give half my life for just one kiss.
Then kiss me twice.

Oh, Miss West, I've heard so much about you.
Yeah, honey, but you can't prove a thing.

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8839

After THE HEAT'S ON in 1943, Mae took a respite from the film world. The reason was the censors were getting stricter. She decided she would be able to have greater expression in her work if she went back to the stage.

Mae continued to be a success there. When censors began to let up, she returned to film work in 1970 in MYRA BRECKINRIDGE. Her last film was in 1978 called SEXTETTE.

Mae suffered a series of strokes which finally resulted in her death on November 22, 1980 in Hollywood, California. She was buried in New York. She was 87. The actress, who only appeared in 12 films in 46 years, had a powerful impact on us. There was no doubt she was way ahead of her time with her sexual innuendoes and how she made fun of a puritanical society. She did a lot to bring it out of the closet and perhaps we should be grateful for that.

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8840

"It's not the man in your life that counts. It's the life in your man."

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8841

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

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8842

What kind of man is most satisfactory?
Personally, I like two types of men--domestic and foreign.

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8843

It isn't what I do, but how I do it. It isn't what I say, but how I say it, and how I look when I do it and say it.

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8844

And of course... the one quote most remembered...........

"Come up and see me sometime."

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8845

From the movies ~

Myra Breckinridge (a film supposedly so awful it made the Medved Brother's notorious and completely incorrect List of the 50 Worst Films of All Time). West plays sex-mad casting agent Letitia Van Allen - she was 77 at the time. With a bed in her office (because she likes to work nights), Letitia interviews and seduces a bevvy of 1970s men (including Tom Selleck in an early role), with lines like "forget about the 6 feet, let's talk about the 7 inches." In the highlight of the film, she is carried onto a stage in a huge box, from which she emerges to sing "You've gotta taste all the fruit!" Although her singing voice is a little reedy, and you worry that she might fall over in her Edith-Head designed furs and picture-hat, she manages to pull it off with aplomb, even rapping out a few verses of "Baby I'm To Hot To Handle" as an encore.

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8846

West was a ground-breaker, and someone who understood people all too well - the plays she wrote "The Drag" (with an all-gay cast) and "Sex", were named specifically because she knew the adverse publicity and right-wing outrage would be better than a million dollars of advertising - and she was right. Prepared to suffer for what she believed in - West went to prison more than once for refusing to back down to censorship laws. Indeed, when she first started out, censorship was a different matter completely, and she took advantage of this - making films in the early 1930s such as "She Did Him Wrong" and "I'm No Angel". These pictures are refreshing to watch - and a little strange too. You don't expect people in black and white films to behave like Mae West. But she does.

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8847

With a penchant for burly muscular working-class men, prize-fighters and the like, Mae was reticient about her off-screen romances, preferring to keep them as private as possible. Contrary to public opinion, she was shockable too - and liked to keep "gutter language" out of her films, and her earshot. While her sympathetic view of gay men as "men in women's bodies" can be viewed as quaintly wrong nowadays, it was at least progressive by the standards of her time.

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.

8848

Wonder if she would have liked Pixies???

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.