Mae West

She was born in Brooklyn in 1893. This incredible, provocative and explosive actress shocked the scene with her rebellious and cheeky posture. She also played with ambiguity quoting words as " Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? " and became the first sex-symbol, the most famous, and the best paid actress of cinema history in those moments.

Since she was a young girl she was very interested in stages so she wrote, directed, produced and played a lot of theatre plays.

Thanks to commercial success in Broadway of " Diamond Lil " (1928) she made her debut in cinema four years later with the film " Night after Night " (1932) directed by Archie L. Mayo.

After that she played in " Lady Lou " (1933) directed by Lowell Sherman which was an excellent adaptation of her play " Diamond Lil " acting by the side of Cary Grant. With this film she became a superstar showing a special aptitude for intelligent comedy with her own and typical sense of humour.

Her next acting was in " I'm no Angel " (1933) directed by Wesley Ruggles with Cary Grant again as the main actor. It happened the same as in the previous film and she was there the scriptwriter and had the main role.

Later she acted in films such as " Belle of The Nineties " (1934) directed by Leo McCarey, " Goin' to Town " (1935) by Alexander Hall, " Go West, Young Man " (1936) by Henry Hathaway, " Klondike Annie " (1936) directed by Raoul Walsh,or " Every Day's a Holiday " (1937) by A. Edward Sutherland. In all of these films she had memorable performances and also in most of them her scripts had to obey american censorship.

In 40's decade she played in " My Little Chickadee " (1940) directed by Edward F. Cline and " Heat's On " (1943) by Gregory Ratoff.

After acting in these films she wouldn't return back to cinema until 1970 by the hand of " Myra Breckinridge " (1970) directed by Michael Sarne and by the side of Rachel Welch.

In 1978 Mae West played in her last film called " Sextette " (1978) by Ken Hughes in which they also acted some musicians like Ringo Starr, Alice Cooper or Keith Moon.

She died at the age of 87 leaving a faultless and irreplaceable career.