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Mae West Photo

Stage Name

Birth Name

Mae West Mae Jane West
Baby Vamp (as a child)  
"When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better"
.... Mae West


    "The Lady with the Famous Walk" started her career in Vaudeville at a very young age. Studied dance as a child with Ned Wayburn and would be billed as the "Baby Vamp." Would later star in movies, and made her big screen debut in 1932 in the movie entitled "Night after Night." Her last film before censorship forced her out of Hollywood was "The Heat Is On" in 1943. It would be over twenty years before she made another film.

    She would later appear on television and write her own plays / manuscripts, such as "Sex" (1926) for which she would be arrested. It is said she created the "Shimmy Sha Wabble" dance (aka the Shimmy.) However Gilda Gray is the more popular theory due thru her use of Advertising. Mae West would later challenge Gray and Bee Palmer's claim by stating it was her who first did the Shimmy and Palmer and Gray copied her and capitalized on it. West goes on to say "she didn't care as she wanted to be known as an actress not a dancer". However the Bulfrog Hop song written in 1908 pre dates Gray's, Palmer and Wests stories by 10 years.

Birth Place

Birth Date

Spouse

Offspring

Brooklyn, NY

8/17/1893 - 11/22/1980

Frank Wallace

n/a
                       
 

Dance Types

Dance Partners

Music Titles

Ballroom

George Raft n/a

Ballet

           

Black Bottom

           

Jazz

           

Shimmy Sha Wabble

           
 

Night Clubs

Theaters

Stage

Vaudeville, Burlesque, Broadway

n/a

1928 - Diamond Lil

                 
 

Films

Television

Publications

$1932 - Night after Night

    n/a

4/1934 - Picture Play Magazine

$1933 - She Done Him Wrong

     

9/1934 - Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune (West Interview)

$1933 - I'm No Angel

     

1941 - Radio Stars Magazine (Cover)

$1934 - Belle of the Nineties

     

$ 3 Plays by Mae west ... Sex, the

$1935 - Goin to Town

     

$ When I'm Bad I'm Better

$1936 - Go West Young Man

     

$ The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West

$1936 - Klondike Anne

     

$ Mae West ... A Bio

$1937 - Everyday's a Holiday

           

$1940 - My Little Chickadee

           

$1943 - The Heats On

           

1970 - Myra Breckinridge

           

$1978 - Sexttet

           

$ Mae West and the Men Who

           

$1998 - Intimate Portrait ...Mae

           
NOTE:
August 14, 2007
http://www.Streetswing.com/histmain/d5index.htm

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