“Mae West was once described as “an outrageous female impersonator”; certainly, the persona she evolved on stage and in the cinema must be considered as the ultimate sex satire: splendidly vulgar, ostentatiously overdressed and not so much licentious as laughable. She is one of the great screen comediennes and the object of her mockery is not sex at all, but our attitudes towards it. Her first stage play was called simply Sex and gained her a ten-day jail sentence for its naughtiness. She could be considered the Lenny Bruce of the 30s, daring to talk about the unmentionable.”
/ From The Illustrated Encyclopedia of The World’s Great Movie Stars (1979) by Ken Wlaschin /
“I speak two languages: body and English.” Mae West
Born on this day 130 years ago in Brooklyn, New York: incomparable high empress of sex, raunch queen, actress, playwright, chanteuse, camp icon, inspiration for legions of drag queens and ultimate “dirty blonde” – Miss Mae West (17 August 1893 – 22 November 1980)! Pictured: West photographed at The Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, 1954.
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