1892–1980

Theater in the early twentieth century wasn’t sexy enough for the sultry Mae West, and so in 1926 she finally sat down and wrote a play smutty enough for her to really sink her teeth into. It was titled simply Sex, and she was both the producer and star. For her efforts, she was sentenced to jail (for “corrupting the morals of youth”) and assaulted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice. She later produced several other successful Broadway plays, including The Wicked Age (1927) and Diamond Lil (1928); she also introduced the “shimmy” to legitimate theater. She was one of the first stars to really take command of her own sexuality, and is revered today as one of the most glamorous icons of the Jazz Age.