Mae West

Today’s Awesome Woman is the iconic Mae West. Recently I ran across the movie “I’m No Angel” and decided to watch it. The first thing that struck me was that Mae’s body was similar to myself & most of the women I meet these days. You know, the women that are constantly told by the media that we’re fat. They’ve done a really good job of bombarding us with that message. Factor in that there aren’t very many attractive clothes made for full-figure women, and we lose feeling sexy. So back to Mae, I was struck by how she carried herself and could tell that she just knew she was sexy! I was lucky enough to see her when she made a guest appearance at the Mr. America Contest. At the age of 84 she still had it & carried herself like a Goddess.

Mae started working vaudeville when she was 5 years old and later performed in revues on Broadway. Eventually she began writing her own plays under the pen names Jane Mast. Her first play, "Sex", landed her in jail for ten days on obscenity charges in 1926. All of the media attention about the case enhanced her career. Her next play, The Drag, dealt with homosexuality. But the Society for the Prevention of Vice made sure it never made it to Broadway. Controversy ensured that West stayed in the news and most of the time this resulted in packed performances. In 1928 her play "Diamond Lil" became a huge Broadway success.

At age 38, Mae was offered a contract with Paramount Pictures. She made her film debut in a small role in “Night After Night” where she was allowed to rewrite her own scenes. Geroge Raft, the star of the movie, said of Mae "She stole everything but the cameras.” From there on Mae wrote & starred in a string of movies. “She Done Him Wrong” was based on Mae’s Broadway hit “Diamond Lil” and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. By 1933, West was the eighth-largest U.S. box office draw in the United States and, by 1935, the second-highest paid person in the United States (after William Randolph Hearst). Among a phalanx of other films, Mae also wrote & co-starred in “My Little Chickadee”. Mae’s sexuality & double entendres created controversy and contributed heavily to the creation of the Motion Picture Production Code and heavy censorship. Mae’s writing was eviscerated by censors and as a result her films & success suffered.
She returned to Broadway and created a Las Vegas show.

My favorite Mae West story is that when she was dating boxing champion William Jones, the management at her apartment building discriminated against the African-American boxer and barred his entry. West solved the problem by buying the building.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0922213/bio
http://allaboutmae.com/biography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_West

Mae West (I) - Biography www.imdb.com
Mae West (I) on IMDb: Movies, TV, Celebs, and more...

Lorraine Hansberry

Today’s AWU WOD is Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965). She was the first African-American woman playwright to have a play produced on Broadway. “A Raisin in the Sun" debuted in 1959, it was inspired by her family's legal battle against racially segregated housing laws in the Washington Park Subdivision of the South Side of Chicago during her childhood. “A Raisin in the Sun” was hugely successful and helped to launch her career. In addition to being a playwright she also wrote political speeches, essays and letters. Hansberry contributed to the understanding of abortion, discrimination, and Africa. She joined the Daughters of Bilitis and contributed letters to their magazine, The Ladder, in 1957 that addressed feminism and homophobia. Although Hansberry married a white Jewish man, Robert Nemiroff in 1953, the couple separated in 1957 and divorced in 1964, it is rumored that Hansberry was a Lesbian. Hansberry was conscious of her lesbian identity and she negotiated between the public and private spheres. Black lesbians encountered racism from the mainstream, white gay culture, and also persecution from heterosexual blacks. Hansberry spent her short life trying to raise awareness of the troubles of the world through her literature. She suffered a long battle with pancreatic cancer and died on January 12, 1965, at the age of 34. Her premature death, cut short a promising career. A message from Martin Luther King Jr. was read at her funeral: "Her creative ability and her profound grasp of the deep social issues confronting the world today will remain an inspiration to generations yet unborn." He was right, her legacy lives on, both " A Raisin in the Sun and A Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window are staples of high school English classrooms. ".

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