Mary Jane West, known as Mae West, was an American actress, singer, comedian, screenwriter, and playwright. Recognized as a prominent sex symbol of her time, she was known for portraying sexually confident characters and for her use of double entendres, often delivering her lines in a distinctive contralto voice. With a career spanning more than seven decades, she was frequently associated with controversies over censorship and once stated, "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it." West is listed as one of the top 25 female movie stars of all time in the American Film Institute's survey AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Biography from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Also born on August 17
- Robert De Niro1943 · American actor
- Sean Penn1960 · American actor and filmmaker
- Thierry Henry1977 · French footballer
- Larry Ellison1944 · American businessman
- Jiang Zemin1926 · Leader of China from 1989 to 2002
- Austin Butler1991 · American actor
- Charles I of Austria1887 · Habsburg monarch from 1916 to 1918
- Maureen O'Hara1920 · Irish and American actress and singer
Also born in 1893
- Mao Zedong1893 · Leader of China from 1949 to 1976
- Hermann Göring1893 · German Nazi politician and military leader
- Joachim von Ribbentrop1893 · German politician and diplomat
- Lillian Gish1893 · American actress
- Ip Man1893 · Chinese martial artist
- Alfred Rosenberg1893 · Baltic German Nazi theorist and war criminal
- Omar Bradley1893 · United States Army general
- Hattie McDaniel1893 · American actress