Born Mary Jane West on this date in 1893, Mae West began her career as Baby Mae and did her fist stint on Vaudeville at age 14. Mae West was a 21st Century woman who was dealing with 19th Century mores - she was a woman before her time. Why is she here on a baby boomer's blog? Well, because this was the very first "blond bombshell" we boomers were exposed to - I watched a lot of Mae West movies on the Saturday Matinee on the boob tube. She's here also because this is a pop culture blog and to this day Mae West is a giant pop culture icon! She is the original pop star who glittered half a century before Madonna and others ever graced a stage.
Ms. West was bawdy, brash and bold to a point that it landed her in jail for "corrupting the morals of youth" in 1927, spending 8 days in jail on a 10 day sentence. She was beautiful, intelligent and outspoken with a wicked wit, to this day Mae is quoted around the world on a daily basis - even though many people might not be aware of who they're quoting!
I thought I would share some of those truly funny and clever quotes with you on the anniversary of her birth. Enjoy and maybe now you'll know just who you're quoting when you repeat:
- A hard man is good to find
- A man in the house is worth two in the street.
- A dame that knows the ropes isn't likely to get tied up.
- Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.
- When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
- A man has one hundred dollars and you leave him with two dollars, that's subtraction.
- An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.
- Don't keep a man guessing too long - he's sure to find the answer somewhere else.
- Cultivate your curves - they may be dangerous but they won't be avoided.
- I've been in more laps than a napkin.
- I've been things and seen places.
- I'm a woman of very few words, but lots of action.
- Don't marry a man to reform him - that's what reform schools are for.
- Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you.
- He who hesitates is a damned fool.
- I speak two languages, Body and English.
- I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond.
- I didn't discover curves; I only uncovered them.
- He's the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of.
- His mother should have thrown him out and kept the stork.
- I like restraint, if it doesn't go too far.
- A man's kiss is his signature.
- A woman in love can't be reasonable - or she probably wouldn't be in love.
- I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.
- I believe that it's better to be looked over than it is to be overlooked.
- I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.
- Keep a diary, and someday it'll keep you.
- It's not the men in my life that count, it's the life in my men.
- It takes two to get one in trouble.
- Look your best - who said love is blind?
- It's not what I do, but the way I do it. It's not what I say, but the way I say it.
- I like a man who's good, but not too good - for the good die young, and I hate a dead one.
- It's hard to be funny when you have to be clean.
- Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache.
- Love isn't an emotion or an instinct - it's an art.
- Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
- One and one is two, and two and two is four, and five will get you ten if you know how to work it.
- Opportunity knocks for every man, but you have to give a woman a ring.
- Sex is emotion in motion.
- She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.
- When women go wrong, men go right after them.
- I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
- I'll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.
- You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
- To err is human, but it feels divine.
- When I'm good I'm very, very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better.
And a few more classics via video:
I'M NO ANGEL - "it's not the men in my life that counts, it's the life in my men"
Mae's 1957 Las Vegas Nightclub Act:
The "so bad it's good" Myra Breckinridge - look closely, that young guy opposite her is TOM SELLECK! Trust me - watch this to the end for her final line, hehehe:
