Mae West: 1930 Interview

Mae West [1893 - 1980] Met the Press in 1930

(Article was originally written and published in 1930.)

Mae West was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 17, 1900, according to her life insurance policy and the record on the police blotter at Blackwell's Island. Several acquaintances claim to have known her for seven or eight years before that date.
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She has a younger brother and a younger sister. Her father was a prize fighter. Later he was a bouncer at Fox's Folly Theater.
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Besides English, Mae West can speak German, French, and Jewish.
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She always wears a pendant in the shape of a champagne bottle.
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She uses a floral perfume in the morning. In the evening she changes to a heavy Oriental perfume.
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As a kid she was dressed in Little Lord Fauntleroy clothing.
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Her favorite dish is kippered herring.
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In vaudeville she also worked in an acrobatic act. She can lift a 500-pound weight. She can support three men each weighing 150 pounds.
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Years ago she played the Palace in "Songs, Dances and Witty Sayings." She is the originator of the shimmy. Discarded it before Gilda Gray and Bee Palmer took up the sway.
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All her leading men have been six footers. She prefers the "he-man" type.
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Doesn't smoke. The cigarettes she smokes on the stage are denicotinized.
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Her conversation bubbles with slang. Mae West will often invent certain phrases and expressions all her own. Also will render an original pronunciation of a word. When talking she covers a world of territory by continually saying: "Know what I mean."
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Her ears are really beautiful.
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Her first big role was with Ed Wynn in Some-time. Later she appeared in Ziegfeld and Shubert revues. In one of these she was Cleopatra and shimmied in a number called "Shakespeare's Garden of Love."
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She has the same mannerisms offstage as on. When acting, however, her voice is three times lower than usual.
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In writing a play she needs only an idea. After making a few rough notes, she calls a rehearsal. A script is not essential. She writes the dialogue and works out the situations during rehearsals to fit the cast she has hired. Will often ask the actors if they like a certain line. If they don't she will change it. Reading a part, she believes, makes an actor self-conscious. Before she wrote plays for herself she learned her roles by having them read to her.
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She likes everything massive. Her furniture, bed, even her car is larger than the average. The swan bed used in Diamond Lil was taken from her home. Formerly it belonged to Diamond Jim Brady.
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She has never tried to reduce.
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Seldom reads. When a public event like the Ruth Snyder case interests her, she has it read to her. When she does read, it is an ancient history book.
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Is of the opinion that Sex will become a classic. That in time it will be revived like Ghosts or Hamlet.
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She sleeps in a black lace nightgown. Lying flat on her back with her right arm over her eyes.
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Some day she hopes to own a leopard for a pet.
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Her ambition is to write a Pulitzer Prize Play.
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She receives at least four proposals of marriage a week. And from some of the town's best blue blood.
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When dressing she first puts on her shoes and stockings. Then combs her hair and puts on her hat. Then she puts on her dress. All her dresses are made to order with special slits to enable her to do this. They are all cut very low about the neck.
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She kisses on the stage with all the fervor that she does off. During an intense love scene in the play her pulse will jump twenty-eight beats.
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Her pet aversion is a man who wears white socks.
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She has a colored maid who is a dead ringer for her. She will hand-color her own photograph to show a visitor the likeness.
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She believes virtue always triumphs over vice.
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(Author unknown. This article was originally written and published in 1930.)