born Aug. 17, 1892/93, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.
died Nov. 22, 1980, Los Angeles, Calif.
U.S. film actress.
She performed with a Brooklyn stock company around 1901, and by 1907 she had become a performer on the national vaudeville circuit. She made her Broadway debut as a singer and dancer in 1911. In 1926 she began to write, produce, and star in her own Broadway plays, including the sensation-creating Sex (1926), Diamond Lil (1928), and The Constant Sinner (1931), productions that mired her in legal battles. Her frank sensuality, regal postures, and suggestive wisecracks became her trademarks in popular movies such as She Done Him Wrong (1933), Belle of the Nineties (1934), I'm No Angel (1933), and My Little Chickadee (1940). In World War II Allied soldiers called their inflatable life jackets "Mae Wests" in honour of her hourglass figure. Her films were revived in the 1960s, and she appeared in Myra Breckenridge (1970) and Sextette (1979).