Mae West In A Revival & Hitting On Rock Star Alice Cooper

Mae Today
One of Mae West’s most noted successes – a role with which she is now a bit bored – is as a high-living lady in “Diamond Lil”. The play is still being revived. In a New York dressing room in 1949, Miss West puts on some “prop” diamonds – valued at $2,000 – which she wears in the play. photo: Wide World Photos 8/4/1952

Mae West remained in the public eye for decades. First in vaudeville, then the legitimate stage, followed by movies and radio. Topping off her stardom, there were whispers and rumors throughout her career that Mae West was not actually a woman.

One of the stranger stories I ever read made the claim that the real Mae West (who was definitely born a woman in 1893) died (no specific date was given) and was replaced for many years by a lookalike female impersonator.

If true, some evidence would have emerged by now.

Regardless, in 1943 after ten films Mae left motion pictures. She then did a live act in Las Vegas during the 1950s consisting of songs and jokes, surrounding herself with beefy musclemen while performing. She finally returned to the big screen in 1970 in the notoriously campy film Myra Breckinridge starring Raquel Welch.

Sextette With Alice Cooper

But it was Mae’s appearance in Sextette that tops them all for camp and ridiculousness. Mae was in her eighties and the unbelievable plot is succinctly described by imdb as “On the day of her wedding to her sixth husband, a glamorous silver screen sex symbol is asked to intervene in a political dispute between nations, which leads to chaos.”

In hi 1979 review Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, “‘SEXTETTE’ is a disorienting freak show in which Mae West, now 87 years old, does a frail imitation of the personality that wasn’t all that interesting 45 years ago.”

The movie features a wide variety of celebrities including Timothy Dalton, Tony Curtis, George Hamilton, George Raft, Walter Pidgeon, Dom Deluise, Rona Barrett, Regis Philbin, and a pair of drummers The Beatles Ringo Starr and The Who’s Keith Moon.

Also appearing was rock singer Alice Cooper who supplies a bizarre story about working with Mae West.

“I did a song with Mae West,” Cooper said. “Did she come on to me? You bet she did. But then I found out she came on to everybody, you know?”

“We ended one of our scenes, and Mae whispered to me: ‘Why don’t you come on back to my trailer?’ I said: ‘Because you’re 86 years old and I’m not sure if you’re a woman or not!'”

“But if I hadn’t have been married I would’ve gone. Definitely. Just for the experience.”

Mae West died on November 22, 1980 at the age of 87.