Queer Places:
Cypress Hills Cemetery
Brooklyn, Kings County (Brooklyn), New York, USA
Mae
West (born Mary Jane West; August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980)[1]
was an American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian and
sex
symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades. She was known for
her lighthearted, bawdy
double entendres and breezy sexual independence, and often used a husky
contralto
voice.[2]
She was active in
vaudeville and on stage in
New York City before moving to
Los
Angeles to pursue a career in the
film industry.
West was one of the most controversial
movie
stars of her day; she encountered many problems, especially
censorship. She once quipped, "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune
out of it."[3][4]
She bucked the
system by making comedy out of conventional mores, and the
Depression-era audience admired her for it. When her film career ended,
she wrote books and plays, and continued to perform in
Las Vegas
and the
United Kingdom, on radio and television, and recorded
rock 'n roll albums. In 1999, the
American Film Institute posthumously voted West the 15th
greatest female screen legend of
classic American cinema.
West was married on April 11, 1911 in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Frank Szatkus (1892–1966),[96]
whose stage name was Frank Wallace,[97][98]
a fellow vaudevillian whom she met in 1909. She was 17.[99]
She kept the marriage a secret,[100]
but a filing clerk discovered the marriage certificate in 1935 and alerted the
press.[101]
The clerk also uncovered an
affidavit
in which she had declared herself married, made during the Sex trial in
1927.
At first, West denied ever marrying Wallace, but she finally admitted it in
July 1937, in reply to a legal interrogatory.[103]
The couple never lived together as husband and wife. She insisted that they
have separate bedrooms, and she soon sent him away in a show of his own to get
rid of him. She obtained a legal divorce on July 21, 1942, during which
Wallace withdrew his request for separate maintenance, and West testified that
Wallace and she had lived together for only "several weeks".
The final divorce decree was granted on May 7, 1943.
In August 1913, she met
Guido
Deiro (1886–1950), an Italian-born vaudeville headliner and star of the
piano-accordion. Her affair, and possible 1914 marriage to him, as alleged by
Diero's son Guido Roberto Deiro in his 2019 book Mae West and The Count,
went "very deep, hittin' on all the emotions". West later said, "Marriage is a
great institution. I'm not ready for an institution yet."[106]
In 1916, when she was a vaudeville actress, West had a relationship with
James Timony (1884–1954), an attorney nine years her senior. Timony was also
her manager. By the time that she was an established movie actress in the
mid-1930s, they were no longer a couple. West and Timony remained extremely
close, living in the same building, working together, and providing support
for each other until Timony's death in 1954.[107]
West remained close to her family throughout her life and was devastated by
her mother's death in 1930.[108]
In 1930, she moved to Hollywood and into the penthouse at
The Ravenswood apartment building where she lived until her death in 1980.[109]
Her sister, brother, and father followed her to Hollywood where she provided
them with nearby homes, jobs, and sometimes financial support.[110]
Among her boyfriends was boxing champion William Jones, nicknamed
Gorilla Jones (1906–1982). The management at her Ravenswood apartment
building barred the African American boxer from entering the premises; West
solved the problem by buying the building and lifting the ban.[111]
She became romantically involved at age 61 with Chester Rybinski
(1923–1999), one of the muscle men in her Las Vegas stage show – a wrestler,
former Mr. California, and former merchant sailor.[112][113]
He was 30 years younger than she, and later changed his name to Paul Novak. He
moved in with her, and their romance continued until her death in 1980 at age
87.[112][114]
Novak once commented, "I believe I was put on this Earth to take care of Mae
West."[115]
In August 1980, West tripped while getting out of bed. After the fall she
was unable to speak and was taken to
Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, where tests revealed that she had
suffered a stroke.[118]
She died on November 22, 1980, at the age of 87.[119]
A private service was held at the church in
Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills, on November 25, 1980.[120][121]
Bishop Andre Penachio, a friend, officiated at the entombment in the family
mausoleum at
Cypress Hills Abbey,
Brooklyn,
purchased in 1930 when her mother died. Her father and brother were also
entombed there before her, and her younger sister, Beverly, was laid to rest
in the last of the five crypts less than 18 months after West's death.[95][122][123]
For her contribution to the film industry, Mae West has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street in
Hollywood. For her contributions as a stage actor in the theater world,
she has been inducted into the
American Theater Hall of Fame.[124][125]
On June 25, 2019,
The New York Times Magazine listed Mae West among hundreds of artists
whose material was destroyed in the
2008 Universal fire.[126]
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_West