I’ve been in more laps than a napkin.
MAE WEST
[Mary Jane “Mae” West]
American actor, playwright, screenwriter, singer, and author
1893—1980
She Always Knew How: Mae West, A Personal Biography by Charlotte Chandler
Baby Mae
Born in Brooklyn, New York, to a corset and fashion model mother and a prizefighter turned policeman and private investigator father, perhaps Mary Jane “Mae” West was born to shine bright in the public eye.
Performing by the age of five, “Baby Mae” as she was known, turned professional at 14 joining vaudeville’s Hal Clarendon Stock Company. At 19, West debuted on Broadway even receiving praise from The New York Times.
Creating her brand and sometimes writing and appearing as Jane Mast, Mae West penned her own risqué plays. In 1926, West appeared in Sex—a Broadway play which she wrote, produced, directed, and cast herself as the lead. Though the public loved it, pressure from religious groups and their political allies eventually led to Mae and the play’s cast being incarcerated on morals charges. Sentenced to 10 days in jail, West could have paid a fine and been release but chose to serve her sentence for the ensuing publicity.
The die was effectively cast, and “Mae West” was on her way to becoming a force of nature, first on stage and then in burgeoning motion picture industry.
“Miss” Quoted?
Sultry and often bawdy, Mae West’s early career in vaudeville and burlesque set the stage for her famous persona which, given the tenor and film codes of the 1930s, often conflicted with the censors. While the actor never references the line in her autobiography or her 1967 book of witticisms, several posthumously published biographies feature similar variations on the origin and notoriety of her napkin quote.
In West’s own words during the height of the movie industry’s self-imposed Hays Code guidelines for acceptable content, the actor goes on to say:
I believe in censorship. If a picture of mine didn’t get an “X” rating, I’d be insulted. Don’t forget, dear, I inventedcensorship. Imagine censors that wouldn’t let you sit in a man’s lap! I’ve been in more laps than a napkin. They’d get all bothered by a harmless little line like, “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?”
Another Sexy Miss
Another story involves the lead up to West’s appearance in the 1970 film Myra Breckinridge with a sex symbol of a different day, Raquel Welch. Asking her predecessor how Welch should navigate her role in the movie, West assured the young’un that she’d come to the right place by noting, “I’ve been on more laps than a napkin,”—a slight variation on the original quote which Welch retold a few days later as a guest on Johnny Carson’s popular Tonight Show.
Wonderful Witticisms
Whatever its first occurrence there’s significant concurrence that Mae West not only uttered the phrase a few times but also earned her reputation as an expert on putting men in their place.
Scripting many of her famous movie lines and penning her autobiography, the following sampling are definitively from the mouth of Mae:
When I’m caught between two evils, I generally like to take the one I never tried.
Klondike Annie
I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
LIFE magazine
Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
Sextette
It’s not the men in your life that count, it’s the life in your men.
I’m No Angel
When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better.
I’m No Angel
Life often begins after dark, and I’ve found too much of a good thing can be wonderful.
Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It
How the West Won!
A woman before her time, Mae West was often cast as the risqué seductress opposite leading men who were significantly younger than her, such as Cary Grant. In fact, West’s most successful movie, I’m No Angel, was with Grant when she was in her forties. Even West’s life partner during the last 25 years of her life, Paul Novak, was three decades younger.
Moreover, thanks to her talent and business acumen, by 1935 Mae West was the wealthiest woman in the United States. And only Randolph Hearst’s wealth surpassed her own.
Consequently, between her fame and fortune, West championed women’s equality and gay rights before either was popular or en vogue. Through professional relationships, personal friendships, and lovers, she also pushed the boundaries of what was “culturally acceptable” behavior between racial groups.
An icon throughout her life, West never lost sight of who she was versus the persona of “Mae West” that she created. As a result, she would sometimes speak about “Mae West” in the third person—a character apart from West herself.
Despite her fame, West always remained close to her family. Her mother’s death in 1930 had a profound effect on West. And once Hollywood became home, West moved her father and siblings to California and supported them financially.
What ironically might have been mistaken as a movie pratfall, West tripped out of bed in 1980. In actuality, she had suffered a stroke. Three months later West died.
In death as in life, Mae’s family ties remain close. Not far from the streets where Baby Mae first made audiences laugh, she shares a crypt with her parents and siblings at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
Portions of this article were excerpted from Ian Makay’s Food for Thought: The Pleasures of the Table: Primi Piatti.
#Art 🎨 Salvador Dalí “Mae West’s Face which May be Used as a Surrealist Apartment”
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