American Masters (1985–…): Season 34, Episode 2 - Mae West: Dirty Blonde - full transcript

♪♪

West: I came from the theater,
from the stage,

you know, as a Broadway star,
big box office.

And they wanted me
to come to Hollywood.

So I says, I'll make a picture

and millions of people
will see me.

Train Conductor: All aboard!

[ Whistle blows ]

Leider: It's sort of a miracle
that Mae West

ever went to Hollywood.

She was notorious.



She had spent time in jail,

her plays had been censored,

and she was known as a bad girl.

♪♪

Doherty: People really
hadn't seen

anything like Mae West before.

People hadn't heard
anything like Mae West.

West: Yeah you'd better come up
and see me.

A little bit spicy but not
too raw, you know what I mean?

Well, when I'm good
I'm very good,

but when I'm bad,

I'm better.

Von Teese: Mae West crafted
this image.

She was a sexual gangster.



Starr: She had that walk in --

"Well, I'm here, you know, lads.

Take me or take me."

West: You ain't seen
my better side.

Man: You're a dangerous woman.

Talley: Mae West was a pioneer
for all those wonderful women

who dared to be sexy.

Cher, Madonna, Rihanna, Beyonce.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

♪♪

Lyonne: She arrives to this town

fully constructed
and her own boss.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

Reporter: Will we see you soon
as a bad girl?

West: Yes, a bad woman
with a good heart!

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

West: Oh, why don't you guys
be good

and go home to your wives.
-Man: Who is it?

West: The fairy princess,
ya mug!

Man: Maudie!

West: Hey don't let those guys
in. They'll wreck the joint.

Hey, gorilla!

Basinger: She was 40 years old

before she ever appeared
in a movie.

In her first film,
they put her in a small role.

West: Hello, honey.
How's business?

-Woman: Fine.
-West: You been insulted lately?

Woman: Goodness, what
beautiful diamonds!

West: Goodness had nothing to do
with it, dearie.

Hamilton: West had taken a look
at the script,

seen that her role
was completely banal,

and rewritten her lines.

West: Joey, Joey, well, well,
come here and kiss me, ya dog.

Let's take a look at you.

Well, you're looking great.

Who's your tailor now?

Basinger: George Raft,
the star of that film,

said, "Well, she came in
and she stole

everything but the cameras."

West: Sit down, dearie,
don't let me keep you up.

Oh, waiter, waiter!

-Man: Yes, madame!
-West: A chair, ya mug!

Doherty: You see her on screen
and you realize immediately that

she's the most electric thing
about this tepid melodrama.

West: Oh, Joe,
it's just life to see ya!

Come here, crawl to me, baby,
crawl to me.

Doherty: And Mae West
is not the kind of girl

that is going to be
a second banana for long.

Newsreader: In the fabled land
of California,

in a city named Hollywood,

there is a gate beneath an arch
beneath a famous sign:

Paramount Pictures.

Call it the gateway
of the stars,

or the doorway
to the world of glamour.

♪♪

Hallett: This is the 1930s.

Hollywood thinks it's going
to be Depression-proof,

unlike every other business
in America.

♪♪

But by 1932,

their box office
starts to decline.

Watts: Paramount is teetering
on bankruptcy.

Mae West is box office,
and Paramount knows it.

Basinger: Mae West was able
to come to Hollywood

because she had
something to give.

She had had success on Broadway.

She had generated buckets
of publicity

and that, for Hollywood, meant,
okay, she can make money for us.

But they were
a little bit worried.

Doherty: Mae West had
a huge censorship brouhaha

with her sensational
and scandalous Broadway plays.

So, with Mae West,
there's always risk,

but it's also this great
financial opportunity.

Malachosky: Adolph Zukor
from Paramount said,

"What can we do to sign you
to a contract?"

And she said, "Well, I would
want writing my own scripts,

my own costume designs,
and money."

And he said,
"Well, how much money?"

And she said,
"Well, how much do you make?"

And he told her and she said,
"Well, I want a dollar more."

So she got it.

♪♪

Doherty: In 1933, she gets
her motion picture debut

where she's center stage in
"She Done Him Wrong."

♪♪

Hallett: "She Done Him Wrong"
was shot in, like, 18 days.

They turn it out
very, very quickly in part

because they don't want censors
poking around a lot.

West: Oh, hello, Mickey.

Woman: Ah, Lady Lou,
you're a fine gal, a fine woman.

West: One of the finest women
ever walked the streets.

Hallett: This is a film
they make for like $200,000,

half of it went to Mae West.

Right, that's a sign
of how powerful she was.

Malachosky: I don't even think
today anybody

has the control that she had.

She had approval
for everything --

leading men,
anybody in the background,

she knew lighting,

she was so specific

and she knew exactly
what she wanted.

Schlatter: Mae West had that
kind of vision about herself.

She also had that kind of vision
about others.

Cary Grant -- I mean, you know,
can you imagine

Mae West looking at Cary Grant?

She just spotted him and said,
you know,

"Young man, over here."

West: I see this guy
come walking along

a half a block away

on the street
inside the studio.

So I said,

"This looks like the best
looking thing in Hollywood,

who is he?"

So they looked and they said,
"Oh, that's Cary Grant."

They said, "We haven't had him
in a picture yet,

we just use him for tests."

I said, "Well, if this guy
can talk, I'll take him!"

They said, "What part?"
I said, "The lead, of course!"

I could see it right away!

Hamilton: When you watch
Cary Grant and Mae West

in this film,
it's not the Cary Grant

we know -- the suave,
you know, whatever.

He's nervous!
[ Laughs ]

he's not very comfortable
in this film at all.

But she is in control...
-Grant: Thanks.

Hamilton: Both as a performer
and as a character.

-West: Ain't have much luck.
-Cary: I'd have a great deal

more if Doheny
and the others would cooperate.

West: Ain't none of them
worth saving.

If you hang around them
long enough

you'll get that way yourself.

Cary: Well, thanks
for the kind interest.

West: You know, I...

I always did
like a man in a uniform,

and that one fits you grand.

Why don't you come up sometime
and see me?

I'm home every evening.

Von Teese:
She was like, "Mm-hmm."

She got whatever she wanted,

and she was slow
and, like, not predatory

but very, like,
"You want to be part of this?

Show me what you got."

West: You know, I met
your kind before.

Why don't you come up
sometime, huh?

Cary: Well, I...

West: Don't be afraid,
I won't tell.

Cary: But, uh...

West: Come up,
I'll tell your fortune.

Oh, you can be had.

Haskell: She's a parody of,
sort of,

unbridled male sexuality.

She's, like, standing sexism
on its head.

Cary: Guess I'm taking
your time.

West: What do you suppose
my time's for?

Sit down.

Barreca: Cary Grant
does this so straight.

He's the ingénue there.

West: That's it.
Loosen up.

Unbend -- you'll feel better.

Barreca: He is a sexually
vulnerable young man

playing to Mae West's older,
authoritative woman.

-West: Cigarette?

-Cary: No, thanks,
I don't smoke.

Pierpont: She was not
a particularly beautiful woman.

She wasn't Garbo, she wasn't
Dietrich, and she knew it.

It was all for laughs.

Cary: So all this is your famous
collection, eh?

West: No, this is just
my summer jewelry.

You oughta see my winter stuff.

-Cary: I see.
-West: You know it was a toss-up

whether I go in for diamonds
or sing in the choir.

The choir lost.

Nussbaum: That presentation of
a preternatural confidence

in her own looks,

in her own skills,

in her ability to get her way,

is itself a kind of
powerful image for women.

Cary: Well, good night.

♪♪

Good night.

Watts: She gave women permission

to be bold and be strong.

Women saw that character
on screen,

maneuvering and manipulating.

West: Come up again, anytime.

Cary: Thanks, I will.

Watts: She was both the epitome
of a sex siren

but also
the parody of a sex siren.

West: Well,
it won't be long now.

Pierpont: One of the lines
I love,

she's comforting some woman
who has been undone

by a married man and she says...

West: Men's all alike,
married or single.

It's their game.

I happen to be smart enough
to play it their way.

Pierpont: That is
a stunning thing to say in 1933.

She's not only an actress,
she's writing the parts.

If you're listening,

if you're not just laughing
along at the jokes

and the hand on the hip,
she's got a message for you,

and I think it was very
revolutionary, and still is.

Cary: Well, surely you don't
mind my holding your hand.

West: They ain't heavy,
I can hold it myself.

Pierpont: Latter-day feminists
might complain,

well, it's all about sex.

It's all about men.

Well, it had to be.

Remember, she was born in 1893.

This is the first door
that has to be opened.

Cary: You bad girl.

West: Mm, you find out.

♪♪

♪♪

Haskell: What she became
was really in her DNA.

Her father was a prize fighter.

Her mother was a model
who modeled corsets.

Pierpont: Her mother was
a German immigrant woman

who married
and moved to Brooklyn,

had this daughter and did the
most American thing of the time,

she fell in love with
show business,

especially vaudeville

and she wanted her daughter
to be a star.

She was the ultimate
stage mother.

Watts: Her mother lost a baby
two years before.

I think when Mae West
comes along she becomes

this kind of prized treasure
that her mother has to protect.

There are two children
subsequently.

Mae West's mother
doesn't pay near

as much attention to those two.

She was the favorite child.

And she didn't have to obey
by the rules.

Even from an early age,
she gets her way.

West: My first time
on the stage,

it was on an amateur night.

I wanted a spotlight.

And I want to make sure that
I would get a spotlight

because I kind of
like myself you know.

Cavett: How old were you
at that time?

West: Oh, about eight years old.

And I went out,

and the spotlight was on
the opposite side of the stage.

And that upset me,
and I stamped my foot.

And the audience start laughing.

So then finally the spotlight
came over on me,

and I was very pleased
and went into my song.

Hamilton: She did a little bit

of what would become
a kind of muscle dance.

And, you know, that was it,
she was hooked.

♪♪

Watts: I think that her mother
encouraged

these kind of early
sexualized performances.

She takes Mae to see the very
controversial Eva Tanguay.

♪♪

That's pretty
adult entertainment

that she's exposing her to.

♪♪

Watts: Turn of the century
New York and Brooklyn in 1900

when she's a child coming up,
you can go to vaudeville,

you can go to burlesque.

♪♪

There's all kinds of
ethnic theaters,

there's street performers.

It's everywhere.

So she's exposed to all these
varieties of popular culture.

[ Applause ]

♪♪

Hamilton: West left school
basically as soon

as she'd gotten a taste

for what it was like
to be under the spotlight.

But she had street smarts.

Girls in her neighborhood
grew up very fast.

♪♪

♪♪

There was this
kind of culture

of what were called
"tough girls" --

girls who were very vocal
about sex.

♪♪

They weren't prostitutes,

but they traded on
their sexual desirability

to get favors out of men.

♪♪

They were Mae West's neighbors,
they were her friends.

That was the roots
of West's persona.

♪♪

Watts: As a teenager,
the skits you find her doing,

she's making kind
of class commentary

but also commentary on gender.

In one of her earliest acts
you see her with a male partner

and really flip the act
where she's the powerful one

and he's the weaker one.

And so you see
that early beginning

of the Mae West character

that's not going
to be dominated by men.

Desrochers: She develops
this dance called the shimmy,

she got it from
black jazz clubs.

Essentially she's just
gyrating her torso and her hips.

♪♪

It was pretty raw and raunchy.

This is what drove people crazy.

♪♪

West: I was the first one
to do shimmy dancing.

And it was really
a show-stopper.

It was a sensation.

So everybody start imitating it,
start trying to do it, you know.

They start writing songs,
everybody shimmies now,

and it was a big hit.

World famous,
you know what I mean, see.

Lyonne: But she is not
just a shimmy girl.

And she says,
"I got to be around

longer than this dance
is going to last," right?

She's trying to make it
on the vaudeville circuit.

And it's not happening.

Desrochers: The reviews called
her a freak performer,

a P.T. Barnum freak show,
essentially.

Hamilton: Critics say it
all the time,

you know, "She belongs
on the burlesque stage."

She couldn't really stop
moving her body.

Von Teese: Burlesque was
vaudeville's dirty cousin.

It was kind of a place
where vaudevillians

didn't really want to end up.

They saw it as
a step down,

because burlesque
was more about sex.

♪♪

Lady Bunny: You know this was
pre-prohibition, wasn't it?

So, you know, it was
definitely naughty

and she definitely was
a sexual creature.

She was never an ingénue.

♪♪

Chauncey: In the late '20s
and early '30s,

the prohibition era clubs

were cultivating much
more salacious entertainment.

Hamilton: Prohibition pushes
respectable people

who want drinks underground.

They're rubbing shoulders
with prostitutes,

with fairy impersonators,
with all kinds of people

that they
wouldn't otherwise know,

and there is this fascination
with what was called

at the time
the sort of seamy underbelly.

♪♪

Chauncey: There was a lot
of sexual experimentation

in the 1920s,

and Mae West was a master
at pushing the envelope

as far as she could,
and then a little bit further.

♪♪

Pierpont: And there was nobody
who could write

what she wanted to be
unless she wrote it herself,

this completely
independent, sexy woman

who didn't want to get married,

who wasn't going to die
in the last act,

who wasn't going to follow
some man into the desert.

Mae West had to create
the material

in which she would shine --

and she did.

♪♪

West: I'm on the waterfront
and I saw this blonde

and she had two sailors.

In those days, sailors were
rough, terrible characters.

She had two big blotches
of red paint on her face,

and they must've been
telling her dirty stories

because she'd laugh,
you know what I mean, see?

It made such an impression on me
that when I went home

I start thinking about it,
and I said,

"What on Earth
am I thinking about

this two dollar tramp for?"

And then it start to dawn on me.

I said, "Gee, is it possible?

Is this a play
that I'm gonna write?"

♪♪

Watts: Mae West needs something
as outrageous as she is.

But there's talk about
censorship on Broadway,

that the stage in New York
needs to be cleaned up.

So she enters right into
the controversy full bore.

West: So I said to my lawyer,
I says,

"I'm gonna call it 'Sex'."

He said, "Oh, my God,
if we only dare."

I says, "Well, I'll dare."

'Mae West in Sex.'

Pierpont: But what she created
was not a comedy.

It was actually a play
about an angry prostitute.

And it had serious issues
about men and women and power.

Desrochers: The play itself,
"Sex," is not about sex.

It's about lust.

That everybody has
a sense of desire.

But women are going to be
labeled as unrespectable

and the men are, of course,
actually gonna be given credit

for being lusty.

Basinger: You'll never know
to what level Mae West

really was thinking
in feminist terms.

But she does show women
some truth.

This is a world
in which, you know,

men are telling you the rules.

There is a double standard.

Hamilton: "Sex" got excoriating
reviews from critics

who basically saw it as

pretty much
unvarnished pornography.

"'Sex'...an offensive play,

monstrosity plucked from
garbage can,

destined to sewer."

I think what rattled
the critics most,

not just that she was performing
a prostitute,

but that she seemed to be
getting actual sexual pleasure

out of the performance.

♪♪

Cho: If you're casting yourself
as a sex worker

and the narrative of the play
doesn't take you to hell,

then people are going to have
a problem with it.

You know, it's like,
fine if you're a sex worker,

but as long as you get killed.

Pierpont: This is outrageous.
This is so horrible...

Of course people
flocked to see it.

There were lines
outside the theater

every time somebody condemned it
for being too dirty.

♪♪

Hamilton: West had her own sense
of why crowds were flooding in,

which wasn't about
intellectual stimulation

but something
much more voyeuristic.

She saw herself as

a sort of entrepreneur
of the underworld.

Why wouldn't homosexuality have
the same voyeuristic appeal?

♪♪

West: I met so many chorus boys

and people of different
walks of life,

you know, that were gay,

and they were nice people.

They were interesting.

They all had great
personalities, witty.

So I start writing
a play about it.

Pierpont: She had grown up
watching drag queens,

throughout vaudeville,
she played on bills with them,

she played
with the great Bert Savoy.

[ Applause, chatter ]

Hamilton: She performed on
the Lower East Side of New York,

that was where
the gay world congregated.

The same drinking houses
where you'd find prostitutes,

you also found what
were called at the time

"fairy impersonators."

Waiters: ♪ If a sailor
in pajamas I should see ♪

♪ I know he'll scare
the life out of me ♪

♪ And on a great big battleship
you'd like to be ♪

♪ Working as chambermaids!
Stuck! ♪

Chauncey: In the late '20s

there was just an enormous
amount of fascination

with fairies and pansies
and drag queens, sapphic women.

Drag balls drew hundreds
of female impersonators

and literally thousands
of straight spectators.

Pierpont: And she wrote a show
called "The Drag,"

with guys swanning around in
boas and gowns and makeup.

It again had a social point
of view about homosexuality

and tolerance,
but it climaxed in a drag ball,

which apparently went on
for 20 minutes.

Chauncey: She actually went into
a bunch of

Greenwich Village speakeasies
where the queer set hung out

and recruited 40 or 50 queens
to come be a part of her show.

There's a great line in
"The Drag"

where a queen talks about
walking up 10th Avenue

and all the meat
that's sizzling.

Cantone: Oh, yum yum.

Chauncey: I can't think
of any other straight woman

who was writing a gay play
in this period.

It's pretty unusual
for anyone to be writing

gay plays in this period.

I don't think that she was
a sweet social reformer

trying to improve the position
of gay people

in producing these plays.

She was using them to get ahead
and to make a name for herself.

But in the course of doing that,
she gave a lot of gay people

and a lot of drag queens,
genderqueers,

a chance to express themselves.

Watts: The play "Drag"
really rankled the critics

and the social reformers.

And they were determined
to put an end to Mae West.

They began to agitate
for Mae West to be arrested

for the play "Sex" before
"The Drag"

could make it
onto the Broadway stage.

Hamilton: February 9, 1927,
Mae West went backstage

and found herself surrounded
by officers

from municipal vice squad
who rounded up the cast,

put them in Black Mariahs

and careened through
Times Square.

Watts: When they take her
to night court,

the judge asks her,
"Are you Mae West?"

And she says,
"Don't you read the newspapers?"

She was brought to trial.

A journalist said, "Mae, what
do you think's gonna happen?"

And she turns and says,

"I expect this will be
the making of me."

Hamilton: She's convicted
of obscenity and of behavior

designed to corrupt
the morals of youth,

and she's sent to the workhouse.

She said later that the only
thing that bothered her about it

was that she had to wear
cotton underwear.

Kenwith: I asked her
what jail was like, she said,

"Oh, I had a lovely time."

She became very friendly
with the warden and his wife.

They would take her out
on evenings.

Von Teese: So it wasn't really
like prison, you know.

She was treated really well,

and I think that also gave
her time to plot

and plan
what she was going to do next.

Desrochers: She only spent
eight days in jail.

In those eight days she used
that publicity

to get the show running again
and sell more tickets.

Najimy: It was great publicity
and it also was

a great statement
about what she thought

her rights should be
as a performer, as an artist.

She's like,
"I'm doing my play.

You can come or you can put me
in jail,

it's going to be fantastic
either way."

♪♪

Hamilton: Mae West knows that
when she steps onto the stage

she is stepping onto the stage
not just as a character

but as Mae West
the celebrated pornographer

who spent eight days in jail

for an obscene play.

She was a very, very canny
reader of her audiences

and a very canny reader
of her own publicity.

♪♪

West: They said to me, uh,
"Gee, you pack 'em in,

but you have 80% men."

And then I start
paying attention,

and I look out and see
and I said, "Gee, what is it?

What am I doing
or what am I not doing,

that I'm not getting
enough women in my audience?"

Then I start to analyze it.

May have been this belly dance
I did in that first show,

that kept the women out, see?

Then I start to think of

what I was
going to write for my next play.

I wanted to write something
that I would get the women, see?

"What can I do to get the women?
What can I do?"

♪♪

Hamilton: The play
that she debuts on Broadway

in the spring of 1928,
it was a period piece.

It was set in the 1890s.

She's wearing these amazing,

ornate floor length hourglass
corseted gowns.

All of a sudden they're not
talking about her

in terms of sleaze,

they're talking about her
in terms of glamour.

♪♪

Talley: The Mae West look
is all about corsets.

And everything about her
is overkill.

Overkill in jewelry,
overkill in diamonds.

But it manages
to look incredible.

The way she walked across
the stage

in a portrait hat with plumes.

Even when she's undressed,
she's dressed.

She's not sitting around there
in a nude chiffon chemise,

she's still laced up.

Those clothes were not vulgar.

West: "Diamond Lil" was the one
that really took the world,

you know what I mean, see?

When I had the hats and gowns
and the corsets,

then I had --
oh, God, I had women,

and, oh, the way
they turned them away.

That did the trick.

Hamilton: People who would never
have gone to her play "Sex,"

respectable people,
they'll go to this play

because it makes them
feel sophisticated

without making them uneasy.

[ Applause ]

Thomas: She was 35 with 30
years of show biz experience

of how to reach an audience,
how to sing, how to dance,

how to act,
how to present personality.

West: ♪ I wonder where
my easy rider's gone ♪

♪ I wonder where my
easy rider's gone ♪

Hamilton: Her performance
starts to take on

the distinctive overtones

that we recognize
as Mae West-ian.

West: And you, Mister...

Mm-hmm.

Hamilton: She's playing
a sexy woman

but there is a kind of in-joke.

She learns to do it
with a nod and a wink.

West: Warm, dark and handsome.

♪ I put all my junk
in pawn ♪

♪ To bet on any horse
the jockey's on ♪

♪ Well, I wonder where
my easy rider's gone ♪

♪ Oh, I wonder where my
easy rider's gone ♪

Pierpont: She's completely
transformed, not her message,

but the way she's delivering it,
people are laughing.

Maid: You buy
such pretty things.

And all of them diamonds --
you're so rich!

West: Yes, I wasn't always rich.

-Maid: No?
-West: No, there was a time

I didn't know where
my next husband was coming from.

Pierpont: The persona
that she then adopts

is a woman who loves sex.

And that is true, she loves men.

West: Wouldn't hurt me
any to have a new kind of man

added to my record, would it?

Pierpont: That's also
about power.

That's about not having one man
have any power over you.

And the "A-ha" moment of when
she realized,

"I can make it funny,"

I think it's one of the great
lightning strikes

in our entertainment history.

West: ♪ Well, I wonder where ♪

♪ My easy rider's gone ♪

[ Cheering and applause ]

Pierpont: For the movies,
"Diamond Lil" becomes

"She Done Him Wrong,"

and it made her a star.

She goes from basically
being sent to jail

for what she wants
to say in 1926

to being the toast
of Broadway in 1928,

to being the highest paid
actress in America

by the mid-'30s

because she learned
to make people laugh.

Grant: Haven't you met a man
that could make you happy?

West: Sure, lots of times.

Man:
I see a man in your life.

West: What, only one?

Arnold:
Tira, I changed my mind.

West: Yeah, does it work
any better?

Man: Young lady are you trying
to show contempt for this court?

West: No, I'm doing my best
to hide it.

Anytime you got nothing to do
and lots of time to do it,

come up.

♪♪

♪♪

Basinger: The stronger a persona
that's created by a movie star,

the harder it is to penetrate
any understanding

of who they were.

They had to play
that role publicly so much

that they started
playing it privately.

Hamilton: I do believe she was
as promiscuous as she claimed.

The consequences
of claiming that

were not
that easy to live with.

In 1911, when West was coming up
on 18 years old,

she was touring in a small time
vaudeville troupe.

And she met a dancer called
Frank Wallace.

She started sleeping with him.

Reportedly she was sleeping
with other people

in the cast as well.

Somebody took her aside
and said,

"You need to look out
for your reputation."

It was the one time
in West's career

where that kind of advice
seems to have stuck with her.

So they got married, and almost
immediately she regretted it.

There were even reports of her
locking him in their hotel room

while she went off at night
and gallivanted

with other members of the cast.

Malachosky: After a week or so,

he started talking about
settling down,

having a house,
having her as the housewife.

And she said, "Oh, no,
that's not going to happen."

So she made arrangements for him

to go on a separate
vaudeville circuit.

Hamilton: She would then go on
to deny

that she'd ever been married.

And I think probably just willed
herself to forget

that it had ever happened.

♪♪

I think what was most painful
about this episode for her,

it wasn't so much the marriage.

It was the fact
that she succumbed to a fear.

Succumbing to fear of any kind
was anathema to her.

But succumbing to fears
about her reputation,

that was really not
what she did.

It wasn't how she wanted
to think about herself.

It wasn't how she presented
herself to the public.

It's a sense of having
betrayed herself, I think,

that seems to come across
to me in this.

♪♪

Pierpont: I don't think
she ever told her mother.

She says it was her mother who
taught her how to deal with men.

She taught her:
have lots of them,

just don't have one.

One was dangerous.

One would take her
off the stage,

one would take her attentions
away from her profession.

Reporter: Do you think
you'll ever marry?

West: Not unless I met a man

who could mean
more to me than my work.

I don't think
that is likely at present.

♪♪

Thomas: There was Jim Timony,
her manager for many years.

They had started out as lovers
and that petered out.

♪♪

Malachosky: Owney Madden
was one of the backers

for "Diamond Lil."

She had to break it off
because of his connection

with the mafia.

Kenwith: She loved George Raft.

Pierpont: She loved musclemen.

She hung out
with the Bowery types.

Thomas: She was big
into wrestlers and boxers.

Malachosky: Chalky Wright
and Gorilla Jones.

Kenwith: Black men.

They were men,

that's all that mattered to her.

Leider: She had
an insatiable appetite

for new and better lovers.

Von Teese: She always acted
like she had lots of men around

but I think that privately,

I think there were certain men
that really got her.

♪♪

Watts: Guido Deiro

was the world's
most amazing accordion player.

And they meet in vaudeville
and she falls for him.

He's good-looking,
sweeps her off her feet.

And she falls for him.

♪♪

Deiro Jr: My father and Mae went
together for almost four years.

The physical attraction
was incredible.

As she's described
in her autobiography,

sex with this man was something
that she wanted to do

morning, noon and night,
and that's all she wanted to do.

Her method of contraception
was primitive.

She put a tiny sponge
on a silk ribbon.

Eventually that led
to the inevitable.

She wired her mother,
"'Lady's Journal' hasn't come

for the last two months,
what should I do?"

And Tilly wired back,

"Cancel it."

The doctor botched the abortion,

which almost killed her.

She was now barren.

When my father found out,

he was
emotionally devastated.

He refused to see her
or talk to her.

Von Teese: She never talks
about heartbreak

ever in her whole life.

She would never even speak
about being sad.

West: I don't allow myself
to have any negative thinking,

you know what I mean.

I just stop it, wipe it out.

I won't allow my emotions
to develop in that vein,

you know, sorrow or anything
negative or depressing.

Watts: Men in her life said

they could never
get close to her.

That could come from her father.

There's a lot of tension
between the two of them.

He was a bare-knuckle
prize fighter in the era

when it was
the most violent of sports.

Pierpont: she said he had
an explosive temper

and that she didn't want him
to touch her.

But she goes out of her way
to say that he wasn't abusive,

she just didn't like him.

Watts: She doesn't like the way
he treats her mother at all.

She had such a difficult
relationship with him.

She views men as people who
disempower women purposefully.

She would say that her mother
understood her better

than her father did.

♪♪

Pierpont: Her mother
was the love of her life.

Malachosky: Her mother
passed away in 1930,

and she kind of
just went bonkers.

West: My mother always thought
everything

I did and said was great.

That was the worst tragedy
in my life,

I don't ever expect anything
to equal that.

♪♪

Thomas: It's too bad
that Mathilde

didn't live five more years.

She would have seen Mae become
the highest paid woman

in America in 1935.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Watts: Mae West's film
"She Done Him Wrong"

gave everybody
from the smallest town

and the biggest city the chance
to actually see her.

It was released in February
of 1933,

just after FDR is elected.

And a lot of people see her
and FDR

as kind of a new spirit
that seizes America.

The film generates
so much box office

that by June,
according to Paramount

it was able
to climb out of bankruptcy.

Announcer: And now, folks,
we are entering the gates

that so many try to crash
and so few pass.

Within these portals you may see
such famous stars

as the Marx Brothers,
Mae West, Cary Grant,

and many of your
other favorites.

Watts: It catapults her into
the limelight, into success.

Announcer: And now
the huge crowd is awed

as the star of stars
makes her appearance.

Mae West has come to town.

Talley: People wanted to escape
in the movies.

The poverty, the difficulty,
the breadlines.

And Mae West created an image
of this beautiful woman

walking around
in these extraordinary clothes.

The glamour of 1930s Hollywood
depended a lot on Mae West.

West: I'm up here at
Mr. Graumann's beautiful theater

to see
the grand opening premiere

of my new picture,
"I'm No Angel."

Of course, I didn't call it
"I'm No Angel" for nothing.

Don't forget, come up
and see me sometime.

Malachosky: Paramount
came and said,

"Well, we need
another film for you,

so what would you like to do?"

She actually wanted to be
a lion tamer as a child.

And so she wrote
"I'm No Angel,"

and she portrays Tira
the lion tamer.

[ Fanfare ]

Ringmaster:
Tira, the million-dollar beauty!

♪♪

It was a childhood fulfillment.

♪♪

Talley: There she is, making
an entrance into the circus

in Madison Square Garden
on a big, beautiful elephant,

and there she is whipping
the lions into performance.

[ Lion roaring ]

Come on!
A woman, training lions?

Putting her head
in a lion's mouth?

So she's thinking of ways
to show herself

as a woman of power,
an original woman.

Doherty: One of the great
Mae West moments

is at the beginning
of "I'm No Angel."

♪♪

Man: If I wasn't a married man,
I could go for you, baby.

West: No wisecracks now.

Penny for your thoughts.

Doherty: All the guys are like
cheering her

and she's on stage,
and she does her act.

West: ♪ I've got
the face of a saint ♪

♪ On the level,
it ain't paint ♪

♪ Beware of these eyes ♪

♪ I'm a devil in disguise ♪

♪ And they call me
Sister Honky Tonk ♪

♪ Get over, dirty ♪

♪ They call me
Sister Honky Tonk ♪

I gotta scram now.

♪ They call me
Sister Honky Tonk ♪

[ Men shouting ]

♪♪

Am I makin' myself clear, boys?

♪♪

Suckers.
-Basinger: "Suckers."

I mean, that was her.

She's not vulnerable.

She's not easy to take.

She can't be hurt easily.

Mae West cannot be had.

She can take you,
but she can't be had.

Hamilton: When West
came to the screen

I think the assumption was that
she would be a draw for men.

Kind of stag night out.

But "I'm No Angel"
drew so many women

that a theater owner
in Omaha, Nebraska,

had women-only screenings.

Woman: It's been such a great
pleasure to meet you.

-West: Thank you.
-Woman: Permit me to say

I think
you're perfectly wonderful.

West: Coming from a woman
that's a big compliment.

Charming to meet
you lovely people.

Pierpont: There's a lot
of women's fantasy.

The jewels, the clothes,

Cary Grant
falling at your feet,

all the men in the world
falling at your feet.

Plus you're independent,
you're tough,

and you don't
take it from anybody.

You've got your femininity
and your independence.

♪♪

Talley: I love when
she's sitting at home.

And there's this lazy Susan,

and each boyfriend represents
a kind of an animal.

There's a skunk for the skunk
and there's a lamb

and there's a little chipmunk
and a squirrel.

It's an amazing tactic
to say, look,

these are the kind of men
I've had, and I've had them

and I remember them in this way.

Man: Say, what's my picture
doing by that skunk?

West: I figured
it belonged there.

Haskell: She always had herself
pitted against the swells.

Woman: I can't see why
everybody's so

absolutely gaga about her.

She's obviously a person
of the commonest sort.

Haskell:
She couldn't have been this

swaggering woman of appetites

if she were upper class.

She luxuriated in her Brooklyn
background.

Woman: I think she's crude
and a very ill-bred person.

[ Gasps ]

Basinger: The audience
could understand,

she's not a high-class woman,
she's one of them.

She made no attempt to change,

to get perfect diction,

she just talked like
who she was.

West: "W."

Aw, "W" like in witch.

No, no, witch!

Pierpont: I think she was very
proud of where she came from

and the fact
that she made it up.

She was from Brooklyn.

West: Dame misunderstood me.

Pierpont: She sounds like it.

She never tried to

create a fancier way
of speaking.

West: "T" like in tomato.

♪ I always loved to be
in bright lights ♪

♪ My streets
are paved with gold ♪

♪ I found myself
a new kind of man ♪

Woman: Sing it, honey!

West: ♪ He's one
to have and hold ♪

-Woman: And how!
-Talley: She always included

black women in her films.

Of course they were maids,

but they were not just handing
her a cup of tea or coffee.

They were her friends.

West: Somethin' not bad, huh?

Woman: Not bad?

I've never seen such presents as
this here...

Talley: And they're not
just subservient.

They're talking and exchanging,
and there's a repartee.

Libby: I don't know, but me
and men do pretty well together.

West: Yeah, what kind of men
do you like, Libby?

Libby: I'm just crazy
about dark men.

Watkins: Her relationship to
her maids reflects her own sense

of being
really of the common class.

Underneath
this façade of elegance,

this façade of wealth,
was a common person.

And I think she wanted
to show that.

West: I'll trouble you to scram.

Watkins: She treats her maids in
a more familiar manner

than she does most other people.

Woman: How much?

West: Oh, Beulah?
Beulah: Yes, ma'am?

Talley: "Beulah,
peel me a grape."

In another film, that would
be very, very offensive,

but when you hear her say,
"Beulah, peel me a grape,"

it's like,
"Sister, get me a vodka."

West: ♪ Takes a good man to
break me ♪

-Sure does!
-♪ No man can shake me ♪

-I know!
-♪ Until I let him go ♪

Lyonne: Her African American
housekeepers are credited

in her films,

which is radical for its time,

even though it sounds inane.

West: Well, is it a flash,
or is it a flash?

Watkins: But still there's
the overriding fact

that they were maids,
she was in charge,

and that these people in these
films were portrayed as maids

and that's the only way
you really saw them.

Jefferson: Those voices
that are, you know,

Hollywood's version
of black vernacular,

which is not really
a vernacular,

it's a created,
constructed dialect.

It's meant to sound, you know,
a little naive,

and a little ignorant.

West: I don't know him much
better than I know Shakespeare.

Maid: Shakespeare?

I don't remember any
Mr. Shakespeare calling on you.

West: That was before
you came with me.

Maid: Oh, I see.

Watkins: Nothing that I've read

leads me to believe
that she was a real advocate

of civil rights
for African Americans.

But my own sense
of her relationship

to the
African American community

was that she looked at it
with interest.

She felt that there were things
going on there

that she was drawn to.

She was very taken by
and respected black music.

And I think that she, uh,

she knew
what she was doing with it.

West: ♪ When a St. Louis woman
comes down to New Orleans ♪

♪ When a St. Louis woman comes
down to New Orleans ♪

Pierpont: She said she was
really revolutionized

by seeing black performers
dancing and singing in Chicago

while she was on tour.

West: ♪ Had a good man
in Memphis... ♪

Pierpont: She brings it right
into her movies.

In her third movie,
"Belle of the Nineties,"

she has enough clout
to finally get the studio

to hire Duke Ellington
and his Orchestra.

♪♪

West: ♪ My old flame ♪

♪ I can't even think of
his name ♪

I told them, I said,

"Now I want Duke Ellington
in this picture."

So, they said, "Oh, they don't
know how to play the instruments

and so it won't
come over right."

I said, "Well, that sounds
awful funny to me,"

I said, "They make records,"
I says,

"There's something else there,"
I says, "Otherwise,

they wouldn't be putting up
a barrier not to let them in."

I said, "We need them.

You haven't got anybody here
that can play like this man."

♪ No one can
rag it like that piano man ♪

♪♪

♪ They got a hot cornet
that you could never forget ♪

Pierpont: I think it's her way
of saying

"I know I'm white and I know
I got this platinum wig

on my head, but this is where
it comes from."

West: ♪ I brought them here ♪

♪ 'Cause I couldn't bear
to lose ♪

♪ Those Memphis blues ♪

♪♪

Pierpont: Paramount referred to
her as

a one-woman production unit
in charge of everything.

At least overseeing everything.

No director seemed to ever want
to work with her more than once

because she directed
the director to a degree.

Lyonne: She waltzed in and said,
"I wrote it,

and we're going to shoot it
like this, kid."

♪♪

Basinger: She was
always working.

She was kind of an outsider
to Hollywood, to the system.

She wasn't married.

She wasn't a part
of the social world.

If you look at old movie
magazines of the days,

they're all out
at parties together.

You never see Mae West
anywhere in these things.

Thomas: She didn't smoke,
and she didn't drink.

Nightclubbing
didn't appeal to her.

Her idea of going out
was to go watch a boxing match.

I don't think she had
very many women friends.

She said, "Men are
my kind of people."

West: You see, my life
has never been with women.

Marlene Dietrich
is a good friend.

My sister, maybe one
or two other women.

But women in general,
I have no time for them.

Because they're not writers
and they're not producers.

Their lives are different
than mine.

Nobody did what I did.

Von Teese: She was so confident.

She was egotistical --
that's the reality of it,

but why shouldn't she be?

When you think of that iconic
blonde sex symbol,

can't really think
of anybody before her.

Pierpont: People loved her.

And she didn't look
like anything

that was around at the time.

She was easy to caricature
because she was so exaggerated.

West: Let me see...

Well...
[ Chuckles ]

Talley: Mae West was not
a tall woman.

She walked on very high,
high platform shoes.

It was like Cleopatra's barge
on her feet.

♪♪

Basinger: You know the two great
walks in American film

belonged to John Wayne
and Mae West.

They roll.

He rolls his way,
in his direction,

she rolls her way in hers.

Jefferson: below the waist
it undulates,

and it's this languid rhythm.

Above the waist,
it's like a pugilist.

♪♪

Pierpont: There were cartoons,
birds and dogs.

Even the animal world seemed to
talk like that for a while.

Bird: Oh, he was so handsome,
you know, and so young.

Pierpont: There were paper dolls
and people were saying

the Coke bottle
looked like Mae West.

You know, in 1940,
the Royal Air Force

names a lifejacket after her

because it's got
a bulbous shape.

She seemed to penetrate
daily life.

And the body thing
is important too.

Women really reacted
to that body.

Lyonne: That is
an empowered woman.

That's the look I want,
you know what I mean?

She looks like she's eaten
some sandwiches.

Man: ♪ My American beauty ♪

♪ Please don't be coy... ♪

Hamilton: But there was
lots of discussion

about her appeal to young girls.

Girl: Come up and see me
sometime.

Hamilton: One of West's critics
said that,

at a school in his neighborhood,

when the children dressed as
their favorite movie character,

seven girls came dressed
as imitation Mae Wests.

Girl:
Say, how'm I doing, fellas?

Stick around,
you might learn something.

Watts: You read about women
in the fan magazines,

they write in and say, "Well,
I tried Mae West's moves."

One woman writes and says,
"Oh, I imitated Mae West

and my husband hit me
and I got a black eye."

Hamilton: People concerned with
the morals of Hollywood

had gotten fed up with Mae West.

Watkins: It became something
that the moralists

in the country decided had to be
stamped out in some way,

or at least contained.

♪♪

Breen: The vulgar,
the cheap and the tawdry is out!

There is no room on the screen
at any time

for pictures which offend
against common decency.

Doherty: In July 1934

the Production Code
Administration

is created to regulate
motion picture content.

Hallett: The enforcer
of the code, Joseph Breen,

who is a very devout Catholic,

is also very anti-Semitic --

he sees himself
as a Christian moral police

that will force Jewish producers

to stop making these kinds
of morally degenerate films.

♪♪

There's this idea that Hollywood
is like a hypodermic needle

and it's injecting violence
and immorality

into the youth of America.

[ Gunshots ]

♪♪

Dietrich: And I might have
to move a little closer,

if I get chilly.

I may even put my hands
in your pocket.

[ Gunshot ]

♪♪

Doherty: My father, 1933.

He's 12 years old.

He wants to go see
"I'm No Angel,"

a film that
he's heard about, right?

But outside the theater
is his parish priest,

who of course knows
my father on sight.

And my father
just continues walking.

He's not going to buy a ticket
to this film

in front of his parish priest.

Now if you multiply
that by ten million,

you can sort of see
the influence

that Roman Catholics have over
the motion picture box office.

And one of the things
censorship

under the production code
is going to do

is control the unbridled
sexuality of women.

♪♪

Doherty: The films that you see
before 1934

are awash in women
who traffic in their sexuality

and are not punished for it.

♪♪

One of the best examples
is "Red-Headed Woman,"

a film starring Jean Harlow.

She's basically
a marriage wrecker

who sleeps her way to the top.

And she gets away with it!

Harlow: You're afraid you're
gonna take me in your arms.

You're afraid
you're gonna kiss me.

Man: Is that so?

Harlow: Well, why
don't you do it?

Man: Keep away from me,
I'm warning you.

-Harlow: Why don't you do it?
-Man: Keep away from me!

Harlow: You don't dare
stay here.

You don't trust yourself.

Do it again, I like it.

Do it again!

Doherty: And then
there's Mae West.

Man: What's the matter, baby,
don't you like me anymore?

West: Sure, I'm just relaxing.

Doherty: You had seen
sexually charged women,

but you hadn't seen a woman
wisecrack sexually,

from the title credits
to the end credits.

Man: You know, I'd like
to take you away from all this.

West: All this?

[ Chuckles ]

Oh, I getcha.

Yeah, for a long time I was
ashamed of the way I lived.

Man: You mean to say
you reformed?

West: No,
I got over being ashamed.

♪♪

Hallett: She's writing these
characters that are upending

the idea that women are passive,

women's sexuality
victimizes them,

and she makes the fallen woman
the good woman.

And that really is a threat
to the patriarchal structure.

♪♪

Hamilton: This is the depths
of the Depression.

People are very worried
about family stability

and about men's authority
within families.

Chauncey: There was
a real pushback

against women's rights
in general.

Legislation passed restricting
women's access to jobs

and trying to shore up
men's position.

Pierpont: People were so
concerned about what women were,

whether they were sexual
or should they be sexual

and what were
they allowed to be?

Hamilton: So after 1934

you have much more intensified
scrutiny of all films,

but West's in particular.

She really has a difficult time.

West: The sex personality
was the thing that made me

and the thing they wanted,

it was the thing the censors
were after, you know.

I saw they let someone else
do something

that they wouldn't let me do,
you know.

I couldn't get away with it.

Breen: We must be on the lookout
for themes or action or dialogue

which are likely
to give offense.

We work with all who are...

Doherty: You submit your script
in advance.

Joe Breen marks it up,
he sends it back to the studio,

you change some stuff,
you send it back.

You have a very long,
complicated process

before the cameras
start to roll.

And so there's no room
for improvisation or ad libs.

And if you see Mae West give
a line that might be licentious,

you can cross it out
or suggest a change.

Malachosky: She said,
I would even have to put things

in the scripts
that would embarrass me,

just to get them to approve
what I really wanted.

West: Trying to outsmart me,
what a laugh that is.

Fooling with one of
the smartest dames

he ever put his arms around.

Barreca: She's one lick
of the lips away

from being shut down
by the censors.

But you can't censor
a hand on a hip.

You can't censor an eye-roll.
-Man: I beg your pardon.

You dropped your glove.
-West: Oh, thank you.

Maybe I can do something
for you sometime.

Yeah.

Man: I got a model
in the workshop,

one I've been working on,
if you'd like to see that.

West: Oh, in the workshop, huh?

Oh, I'd just love
to see your model.

Man: Are you in town for good?

West: I expect to be here,
but not for good.

Hamilton:
"Belle Of The Nineties"

is actually just cut to pieces.

They bring West back
into the studio

to film a new ending
where she and her partner

are given a hasty wedding.

Judge: By virtue of the solemn
promise you have here

made one to another,

I hereby pronounce
you man and wife.

West: Thank you judge,
thank you.

Hamilton: A questionable woman
sees the error of her ways

and is safely married off
at the end of the film.

But the film makes no sense
with that ending.

Doherty: And in fact the reviews
actually say,

"This is here
to placate the censors."

I mean, Mae West doesn't
get married, right?

Man: I don't suppose you believe
in marriage, do you.

West: Only as a last resort.

Watts: But then it became public
that Mae West had been married

at the age of 17,

and that she'd failed
to get a divorce.

She seemed a little less bold.

And that, along with censorship,
hurts her career.

[ Piano playing
"On The Good Ship Lollipop" ]

Doherty: In 1933,

Mae West is the biggest star
that Hollywood has.

In 1934, who's the biggest star?

Shirley Temple.

The difference between
pre-code and post-code:

Mae West, Shirley Temple.

♪♪

Doherty: And if you can make
a lot of money

with Shirley Temple,

and nobody's calling you
a smut merchant,

and you're not getting
a lot of hassle

from the Legion of Decency,

and Mae West is controversial,

and has her own vision
of what film should be...

West: Well, what are you gonna
do about it?

Doherty: You're going to pick
Shirley Temple every time.

Why disrupt things
with Mae West,

who's being neutered
by the Production Code.

Brother Bowser:
Welcome, Sister Annie!

I'm Brother Bowser,
superintendent

of our settlement house.

Hamilton: "Klondike Annie"
was going to be the film

that would allow West
to be entirely inoffensive.

West: What is that,
a boarding school?

Brother Bowser:
No, that's a dance hall,

patronized by the rough-minded.

Hamilton: She was going to be
playing a woman who had seen

the errors of her ways

who stepped
into this role as a missionary.

Brother Bowser:
This, dear sister,

is our little
haven of brotherly love.

Hamilton:
But West getting religion

struck people as blasphemous.

She really is just not going
to be able to do anything right.

Wojcik: Motion Picture Magazine
says,

if Mae West goes Pollyanna,
she's ruined!

Because what we want
from Mae West is not good girl.

We want Mae West
to be a bad girl,

and to make
being a bad girl fun.

And Mae West reformed
is not particularly fun --

or interesting.

Watts: All along the road,
she's pushing, pushing, pushing,

and I think to some degree
she likes the battle.

Because she fights and fights
and fights,

and she does her thing anyway.

Announcer: We're all very happy
to have as our guest

one of
the greatest personalities

on the screen today,
Miss Mae West.

Bergen: She was on
my father's radio show.

My father, Edgar Bergen,
was a ventriloquist,

and Mae West came on to Charlie,
which was my father's dummy.

She said, "Charlie, come up
and see me sometime.

I'll let you play
in my woodpile."

[ Laughter ]

Watts: The first skit
was "Adam and Eve,"

with Mae West playing Eve.

And she's flirting with Adam
in a -- in a --

in a definitely sexual way
in the Garden of Eden.

West: Listen,
long, lazy and lukewarm.

[ Laughter ]

You think I want to stay
in this place all my life?

Ameche: Well, then,
what do you want, trouble?

West: Trouble.
Listen, if trouble means

something that makes
you catch your breath,

if trouble means something
that makes your blood

run through your veins
like seltzer water,

mmm, Adam, my man,
give me trouble!

Cho: Her parodying that,
and being this temptress,

that's a very offensive thing
to, you know,

people who live and die by what
the Bible says about women.

Watts: The switchboard at NBC
just lit up with complaints.

Man: Mae West is a danger

to the morals
and sanctity of our homes...

Woman: Decidedly unfit for the
ears of any children...

Woman: ...vulgar, profane,
and indecent...

Man: God's laws cannot
be transgressed

without
a befitting punishment...

Man: ...unwarranted
and inexcusable...

Man: ...violation of decency
should not go...

Woman: ...she should be ruled
off the air!

Leider: It was on a Sunday,
was part of the problem.

There were people who thought
that just to have Mae West

on the air at all on a Sunday

was insulting.

♪♪

Bergen: It was a big drama.

She was banned from NBC.

Couldn't ever appear
on that network again.

But nothing could
intimidate her.

She just was not afraid
to go out

and poke a bear with a stick.

Leider: But her goose was cooked
at that point

and her Paramount contract
was not renewed.

♪♪

♪♪

West: What a man.

Fields: You must come up
and see me sometime.

Malachosky: Universal came
to her and said,

"We want you to do this movie."

And she said,
"Out of all the films I made,

that's the one that is
most remembered

and probably my least favorite."

Fields: May I present my card?

West: "Novelties and notions."

What kind of notions you got?

Fields: You'd be surprised.

Some are old, some are new.

Pierpont:
"My Little Chickadee,"

things are frozen in place.

Her act is a little bit stale --

so is W.C. Fields' act by then.

Desrochers: She's moving
into her 50s.

It's no longer a youthful woman

who's talking about sex
and sexual innuendo.

Doherty: She's really trapped
in the Mae West persona.

Barbara Stanwyck
or Joan Crawford

or Katharine Hepburn --

they can go into all other kinds
of genres.

They've got a range,
because their persona's

not in amber the ways hers is.

Wojcik: She had one thing
she did,

and she did it very well,

but it was getting harder
and harder for her.

And she wasn't gonna slide
into a grandmother role.

She wasn't gonna play
somebody's mom.

So she took the act to Vegas.

♪♪

Man: ♪ I'm just a gigolo ♪

♪ And everywhere I go ♪

♪ People know
the part I'm playing ♪

♪ Paid for every dance ♪

Selling each romance ♪

♪ Oh, what they're saying ♪

West: I realized there
was nothing there

inducing the women.

The main thing that kept them
out was the nude women, nudity.

And I thought,
"Gee, this is it.

I'll bring nude men out there,
for the women."

I says, "I can't go wrong!"

And it really worked,
these women screamed out there.

♪♪

Pierpont: Vegas is vaudeville,
renewed and rewrit.

♪♪

West: Mmm, Havana.

All those tropical nights.

Oh, what was his name?

Ah, yes, I remember now.

Lyonne: She's a businesswoman.

And she's seeing the men

as kind of the props
of Mae West Enterprises.

[ Cheering and applause ]

There's got to be
something really fulfilling

about feeling like you're
washed up on one side of town

and then seeing that connection
is still alive.

Schlatter: The guys had
lubrication on their body.

They were oiled up and they were
massive muscles, piles of them.

And she looked at them
like she had known each of them

in a biblical sense.

[ Cheering and applause ]

♪♪

[ Cheering and applause ]

Hamilton: She had a new audience

who had rediscovered her films

through their being shown on TV.

Because by then televisions
were in every home.

Collingwood: Good evening
Miss West.

West: Good evening.

Collingwood: It's good of you to
let us all come up to see you.

Watts: In the fall of 1959,

Mae West is scheduled to appear
on "Person To Person"

which was a show hosted
by Charles Collingwood,

who was a pretty conservative,
straight up reporter.

She takes him on a tour
of her two-bedroom apartment.

Collingwood: You seem to have
a lot of mirrors around.

West: Oh, yes,
for personal observation.

I always like to know
how I'm doing.

Malachosky:
Well, the censors, pbbt!

That show never got aired.

It's never been seen
to this day.

West: I like all types of men.

In fact the man I don't like
doesn't exist.

Doherty:
Mae West being Mae West

in whatever medium -- Broadway,
film, radio, television,

is going to be a challenge
for mainstream moral guardians.

She was censored in virtually
every form of mass entertainment

of the 20th century.

Interviewer: Before we go
any further, Miss West,

may I feel free
to ask you any question at all?

West: Of course, but please
use a little discretion.

I understand the censor
has a weak heart.

Watts: She made an appearance
on "The Red Skelton Show,"

which was a family show.

Interviewer: We'd like to hear
about some of the unusual men,

the men who were offbeat.

West: Well, a smart girl
never beats off any man.

Watts: The network censors
let it go past

I think because I don't think
they got what she was doing.

Schlatter: I'm not an expert
on the art form,

but I believe that beating off
is the same now as it was

at the turn of the century.

♪♪

Russell:
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

Von Teese: Mae West is one of
those people

that drag queens
immediately wanted to imitate.

Russell: Ooh. One at a time!

Bailey: Just a bad girl being
good to the rest of the Navy.

Von Teese:
You can put on Mae West.

Lady Bunny: Her wigs are draggy.

The rings on every finger,

she is a total look,

conceived of from picture hat
to platform shoe.

You know, there's lines,
I mean, you can almost hear

the rim shots after the jokes.

I mean, "Oh!"

Pierce:
I love Las Vegas.

I went up to the gambling tables
a few weeks ago,

and there was a tall, dark,
and handsome croupier.

He said, "Miss West,
I'd love to lay you ten to one."

I said, "An odd time,
but I'll be there."

Najimy: if you look at
the traditional femme fatales

that the gay community
is a fan of,

it's all women
who have broken the rules.

-Oh, oh!

One more time.

Hamilton: But she becomes
a kind of object of camp humor.

-I'll see you around,
and I'll see you around.

Hamilton: Somebody who seems
kind of comically overblown

and unsexual.

So it works for her in that
it gives her an audience.

It also kind of diminishes her.

Cantone: She thought of herself
as a great comedienne.

And when she saw people
do impressions of her

it was a parody of.

Meanwhile, she was a parody of.

Watts: There were rumors that
spread at a certain point

that she was actually a man.

That's part of
the Mae West legend.

Chauncey: People who thought
Mae West was a man

saw someone who didn't seem to
naturally inhabit femininity

but who was performing
femininity.

♪♪

♪♪

Barrett: I was sort of
a friend of Mae's.

She was a funny lady.

It wasn't that
she was funny-funny,

you know, like, telling jokes.

She was witty.

One day, I received a phone call

from the vice president
of 20th Century Fox,

and he said,
"Rona, tell me about her.

Does she still have it
up there?"

And I said,
"Boy, does she ever."

He said,
"Well, I've got a movie,

and I think she would be
so perfect

for this particular part.

Announcer: The book that
couldn't be written

is now the motion picture
that couldn't be made.

"Myra Breckinridge"!

West: I'll be right
with you boys.

Get your resumes out.

Cantone: Myra Breckinridge was
like a cult camp classic

that was accidentally
really so bad it was good.

So that's why gay men love it.

West: Mmm. Hi, cowboy.

How tall are you
without your horse?

Cowboy: Well, ma'am,
I'm six feet, seven inches.

West: Well, never mind
about the six feet.

Let's talk about
the seven inches.

Basinger: How the heck can you
make the thing you were in 1934

still work in the 1970s?

This is how strong it was.

This is how original
and unique it was.

And this is how much
she owned it,

knew what it was,
and could deliver it.

♪♪

♪♪

Lyonne: Here's the plot:

I'm going to be 87 years old,
I've got an idea for a picture.

It's called "Sextette,"

I'm going to play
a 28 year old woman.

I'm going to be married
to Timothy Dalton.

Dalton: I wanted to carry you
across the threshold.

Lyonne: My exes are going
to include Tony Curtis...

Curtis: Tonight,
we relive the past!

Lyonne: George Hamilton...

West: Mmm, is that a gun
in your pocket

or are you just glad to see me?

Lyonne: Ringo Starr...

Starr: And you'll always have
a place in my heart.

Lyonne: Really, there's going
to be this obscure cameo

by Keith Moon
playing my stylist...

Moon: Wild silk.
Wild silk!

West: Oh, it's beautiful.

Lyonne: Alice Cooper
is coming over...

This movie's going to make
little to no sense.

It's going to be clearly
from the first frame insane.

There's going to be a scene
where I'm sort of talking to

a bunch of Olympic athletes...

West: Wow, I've never seen
that position before!

Lyonne: She's 87 doing
these numbers,

it's a radical,
radical power move.

Very very rare.

Starr: Oh, it was great.

Oscar nominated, it should have
been, yes, please.

Sir, I am Laslo Karolny.

West: Husband number six,
meet husband number four.

Starr: A pleasure.

I just thought it would be great
to hang out with Mae.

The most difficult thing was
while we were working,

the director would give her
her lines into the earpiece

and then she
would say her lines.

But still, she was Mae.

And that was that.

She invited us to dinner,

and she went all the time
to this restaurant she knew.

But she gets there an hour
earlier than you

to do the lights,

so she's got all the lights
on her

as you walk in the restaurant.

We heard later she does that
wherever she goes.

Basinger: Mae West,
in doing these films,

skirted the edge of disaster.

And for many people,
she was a disaster.

They were embarrassed,
they were shocked.

But she didn't care.

Pierpont: Why is it horrifying

that she's out there
being sexual?

I mean she's parading it
in the same delirious,

over-exaggerated way
she always paraded sexuality.

Why aren't we
with her anymore?

West: The British are coming.
Mmm!

Barreca: She was allowed
to break every taboo

except the sexualized
older woman,

that became too scary.

West: Hi!

Dalton: Well, I certainly
take my hat off to you.

West: Mmm, you'll have to
take off more than that, honey.

Barreca: As a woman
in her 60s,

I can say I have no problem

with her
staying with this character.

An idea of a woman
with an appetite of all kinds.

♪♪

Basinger: If the idea of a woman
standing up and saying,

as an old woman,
I can still be attractive,

I can still have a sex life,

this may look dumb to you,
but this is who I am --

if that's sad, it's sad.

But, you know, there's a kind
of wonderful courage

and defiance to it.

And there's the one thing that
she always had:

self-confidence.

Women need more self-confidence.

And she's the role model

for that more
than for anything else.

Atta girl, Mae, go get 'em.

[ Applause ]

♪♪

♪♪

Watts: I think her one true love
came late in life.

I think it's Paul Novak.

He was devoted to her
and her to him.

♪♪

Malachosky: When she was doing
her nightclub act in the 1950s,

he was one of the muscle men
in the show.

She trusted him.

He looked after her.

It just grew into
a great relationship.

And he stayed with her
all those years.

Nussbaum: There are worse
situations than having

an extremely devoted bodybuilder

be your lifetime companion for
the last 30 years of your life.

That's not something
to look askance at.

Thomas: He said, "I believe
that God put me on this Earth

to take care of Miss West,"

and he did.

He was loyal to Mae
to her last breath.

Savitch: Mae West,

Hollywood's most enduring
sex symbol died today.

Man: Mae West died alone
in her elegant

Hollywood apartment
at the age of 88.

Man: Mae West will be buried
alongside her mother and father

in her hometown of Brooklyn,
New York.

Pierpont: What a trajectory.
What a woman.

She wasn't
a product of her time,

she was a product
of her own imagination.

♪♪

West: ♪ Aww ♪

♪ Oh, oh ♪

Lyonne: I don't think
that Mae West

is one of our great heroes

in the way, you know,
Gloria Steinem or Jane Fonda is.

But she is
unquestionably a feminist.

She actually is like,

"Right, but why would you
get paid more than me?

Why would I get married
if I don't want to?"

That is hugely empowering
and rebellious

when we think about the era
in which it was happening

and also the fact
that even still today

we're having
these conversations.

Announcer: The one, the only,

Miss Mae West,
ladies and gentlemen!

[ Cheering and applause ]

West:
♪ A guy what takes his time ♪

♪ I'll go for any time ♪

♪ I'm a fast movin' gal ♪

♪ I'd like some slow ♪

♪ I can spot an amateur ♪

♪ Appreciate a connoisseur
at his trade ♪

♪ Who would qualify,
no alibi ♪

♪ To be the guy
what takes his time ♪

♪ Oh ♪

West: ♪ It's so nice to have
a man around the house ♪

♪ Oh, so nice to have
a man around the house ♪

♪ Someone tall and dark
and dreamy ♪

♪ With a face that's
soft and creamy ♪

♪ Who may just come up
and see me ♪

♪ It's so nice ♪

♪ I may add an extra fellow
here and there ♪

Announcer: To order

"American Masters --
Mae West: Dirty Blonde" on DVD,

visit Shop PBS

or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

This program is also available
on Amazon Prime Video.

West:
♪ With a couple or a dozen ♪

♪ Till I find out who's a man
and who's a mouse ♪

♪ It's so nice to have a man
around the house ♪

Men:
♪ We love her dearly ♪

West: ♪ I'd just die ♪

♪ Without a guy ♪

♪ Around the ho-o-ouse ♪

[ Applause ]

♪♪