Mae West

Actress • Singer • Writer

Birth Date: August 17, 1893

Death Date: November 22, 1980

Birth Place: Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York City, New York

When she was good, she was very good. But when she was bad, she made film history. Whether making films, writing plays or flirting with the camera, Mae West was undisputedly the most controversial sex siren of her time. At 33 years old, she wrote, produced, directed and starred in her first Broadway play entitled "Sex," a 1926 production deemed so obscene that she landed in jail for it. She was the queen of double entendres on and off screen, delivering some of the best-remembered quips in movie history. In "She Done Him Wrong" (1933), West delivered one of the most quoted lines in movie history, "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"