Homage to Mae West: America’s first iconoclast femme fatale

By default, I’ve been a movie buff most of my life…and I still love the movies. As a little girl – before there was a television in every pot, or was that a TV in every garage?

Back in the 1950s, movies were our primetime entertainment. Indoor movies were the best because they all were airconditioned, even before some churches in our town became air-cooled, and on Saturday mornings, when they played twice more cartoons than usual, there were 10 times as many kids in theaters than adults.

Can you spell B-A-B-Y-S-I-T-T-E-R? Two hours for a quarter and that included a box of theater candy – what a deal!

My mom also had grown up, going to the movies, so whenever my dad was out of town, we always had “girls’ night at the movies, some of which I didn’t quite understand -- like “Quo Vadis,” “Harvey” (in black-and-white) and “The Silver Chalice (1954), but that was about the time technicolor came along, so seeing the spectacular costumes and sets in living color of the popular epic movies captured my very young attention…and in this magical world, every actor and actress became larger than life – my idols.

(A note: In 1991, when I had the privilege of interviewing Virginia Mayo, she recalled the handsome young actor – Paul Newman – the silversmith in the film, commissioned by the Apostle Luke to fashion the chalice for the Last Supper. Miss Mayo was astounded I had seen the movie, but said she knew Paul Newman had that certain something!). Other “unknowns” in that movie were Natalie Wood, Jack Palance and Lorne Greene.)

When TVs were plentiful, I – of course – was drawn to the movie reruns and expanded my list of favorites with titles from the ‘30s and ‘40s. That’s where I learned about the gangster movies with Jimmy Cagney and Edgar G. Robinson. That’s when I added words like Ziegfeld and vaudeville to my vocabulary – and got to know many of the cowboys of the silver screen, plus names like Jane Powell, Xavier Cugat, Bette Davis, Shirley Temple, Greta Garbo, Johnny Weissmuller and, of course, Clark Gable.

But, the most unusual star I ever saw on the small screen was Mae West, in the movie with W.C. Fields, “My Little Chickadee.” Now, looking back, I can assume she was her own woman, and her biographies bear this out.

She was less than happy to be starring opposite to W.C. Fields. Aside from their personality clashes, he was a drinker and she was a teetotaler. So, during her negotiations with the studio, she agreed to do the movie only if she was given total creative control. With this control, she was able to rewrite all her lines to better her longestablished ’Diamond Lu.’ (Only true fans knew she was a talented playwright… and a woman ahead of her time, except she didn’t get the memo from the suffragist movement about wardrobe and make-up… oh yes, and the swaggering walk, which emphasized her physical assets, right down to the rhythmic side-to-side movement of her derriere.

Mae’s last two movies were destined to become cult favorites despite the utterly horrible reviews… and except for Mae and her vampish characterization (at this late date, shot through lenses so gauzed or Vasolined, she was slightly blurred on screen), these two movies were Hollywood embarrassments. But, as I said, they’re now cults.

So, for the woman who wrote the book, “Goodness Had Nothing to do With It” and became a Hollywood legend with the words, “Why don’t you come up and see me?” this column pays tribute to Mae West and her impact on what we now refer to as the “femme fatale.”

And don’t forget her contribution to the Allied Forces during WWII – for it was Mae who loaned her name to Allied aircrews, who called their yellow inflatable, vest-like life preserver jackets "Mae Wests," partly from rhyming slang for "breasts" and "life vests" and partly because of the resemblance of her curvaceous torso.

During her last movie, “Sextette,” Mae West was unable to keep up with the constant changes in the script. After all, she was 88 years old. So, director Ken Hughes decided to conceal a small radio in her wig an assistant could relay her lines to her.

By some radiophonic mischance a local TV traffic reporter in a helicopter tuned into the wig wavelength. The entire cast was brought to a standstill when, during a passionate love scene, Mae delivered the line, in her usual sultry voice, 'Traffic on the Hollywood Freeway is bogged down.’”

Here’s to Mae. Long may she wave!