West was born in Brooklyn in 1892. She began performing in vaudeville shows in early childhood and soon graduated to Broadway shows. She began writing her own material and in 1926 produced her own play, Sex, about a gigolo. West was arrested and spent 10 days in jail for obscenity. Undaunted, she continued writing racy plays and battling censors for the next two years, until she finally scored a Broadway success with her 1928 play, Diamond Lil.  West went on to become a Hollywood star and one of the most highly paid women in the United States. She continued to taunt censors with the heavily suggestive dialogue she wrote for herself. Audiences loved her witty wordplay and campy innuendoes. Her films included She Done Him Wrong (1933), Go West, Young Man (1936), and My Little Chickadee (1940). After the early 1940s, West’s film career faded, and she returned to the stage with live touring shows and nightclub acts. In 1959, she published an autobiography. She appeared in two more films, Myra Breckinridge (1970) and Sextette (1978), before she died.

(ED. NOTE): The attached pic was inscribed to me by MAE at the little fold-out desk in the back-seat of her stretch limo about a year before her death. No longer very mobile and not as articulate as she was in her prime, her cursive remained brilliant.