As an cinema buff (another word for "nut"), I am in a unique position to know, when reading a listing on Ebay for womens' vintage clothing, whether or not the movie star used as a keyword would have actually chosen it to wear it, or even be alive to wear it.  This fifth guide in my series on movies stars can help you, the buyer, make a more informed choice between sellers who use the names only as meaningless keywords and those sellers who use them correctly.  The three stars listed here were all major style icons of the 1930s in very different ways!

• Mae West, the one of a kind star who saved a studio (b. 1892 - d. 1980)
• Greta Garbo, the Swedish woman of mystery (b. 1905 - d. 1990)
• Bette Davis, the rambunctious fighter who refused to cave in to outdated notions of beauty and female behavior in film (b. 1908 - d. 1989)

MAE WEST

"Fat, fair, and who knows how many years past forty" said one writer cattily when Mae West, a leading Broadway star, first arrived in Hollywood under contract to Paramount Studios.  Mae shot back: "I'm not a little girl from a little town coming to a big town.  I'm a big girl from a big town coming to a little town."

Self-confidence was never a problem for Mae West.  She knew what her product was, and how to sell it.  Mae's films were usually set in the Gay Nineties, to showcase her famous undulating hourglass figure (actually barely over 5 feet, she wore towering platform shoes under those long skirts!) in yards of satin, lace, and diamonds.  Few sex symbols have worn so much clothing and still gotten their intended effect!

It was rumored she wore her own diamond jewelry in her movies, because the studio could not afford the bling she demanded.  Mae wrote her own screenplays, as she had her stage plays, and several novels.  She had grown up in Brooklyn, the daughter of a prizefighter, done vaudeville, and had even served time in jail for her play "Sex" (at the time a sensational title).

Her first starring role was in She Done Him Wrong (1933), based on her play "Diamond Lil." (The character was renamed Lady Lou to throw off the censors.)  She starred opposite a young Cary Grant, and the film was a smash hit beyond anyone's expectations. Mae's frank enjoyment of sex was a hit with audiences, as was her comic timing, her down-and-dirty songs, and her famous one-liners: "When women go wrong, men go right after them."  

This was followed by I'm No Angel (1933), in which Mae fulfilled her lifelong dream of being a lion tamer in a circus.  Again she starred opposite Cary Grant, and again the film was a box office winner.  Paramount Studios had been floundering, and the Mae West films put them back into the black. 

There was a minor scandal when it was revealed that she had been briefly married in 1911 to a minor vaudevillian.  Mae liked to present herself as a lusty single woman who loved 'em and left 'em, and that seems to have been the truth.

In the first film, she was costumed by a young Edith Head, because West was not yet considered an important star.  But from then on she was costumed by top designers like Travis Banton and even Elsa Schiaparielli.  But her open sexuality and brazen dialogue upset the censors, and so the quality of her scripts suffered in her subsequent films, such as Klondike Annie (1936) and My Little Chickadee (1939) with W.C. Fields, whom she detested.  And an appearance on the Charlie McCarthy & Edgar Bergen show in 1937 was considered so scandalous, her name was banned from the radio.

Mae was smart enough to quit while she was still a star, but she continued to appear in the theater, touring in "Diamond Lil" and other vehicles she wrote for herself, and in nightclubs.  She had bought a building in Hollywood and had an apartment there that was the perfect Westian fantasy, with white carpets, sculptures of nude women, and mirrors above the bed.  ("I like to see how I'm doin'," she said when asked about it.)   In the 1960s, Mae recorded a rock and roll album (!) and published an autobiography, "Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It."

She made two movies near the end of her life, Myra Breckenridge and Sextette.  Mae West remained Mae West, virtually unchanged, until the end of her life, always giving the public what they wanted.

GRETA GARBO (real name: Greta Lovisa Gustafsson)

Greta Garbo never actually said, "I vant to be alone," until she died in seclusion in 1990.  In Grand Hotel (1932) she asked to be left alone  But more important, it is the essential remoteness of her persona that makes the phrase fit.  She was both gloomy and glamourous, and incredibly beautiful.  There seemed to be real pain behind her acting, and little real joy.  Garbo has always been a mystery, in life and in death.

Garbo started in Sweden in silent films under the tutelage of director Mauritz Stiller.  They were both hired in 1926 by Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and brought to America.  Greta found the American publicity machine painful and embarrassing; for instance, she had to pose in a bathing suit next to Leo the Lion.  She made ten silent films and became a top star, enough so that she could demand to be released from standard studio publicity.  Faced with virtually no material, the MGM publicity department started "Garbo The Mystery Woman". 

When sound came in, her voice was revealed to be ideally suited to her appearance, and her accent easy to understand, unlike many foreign stars.  Garbo was at her best in close-up or in long shot, but in medium shot was revealed to be clumsy and slouched.  Adrian, MGM's most important costumer, dressed Garbo in her films.  He designed costumes and hats that kept attention on that marvelous face: the wide collars in Queen Christina, the elaborate veils, hats and necklines in Camille (both period films) and in modern films, lavish draped gowns and furs combined with tight small hats.

In 1939, she made her first comedy, the classic Ninotchka, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, which took her somber personality and turned it on its head.  Garbo was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance.  She played as a drab Russian comrade who learns the fun of glamour, champagne, and love.  Not to mention spangly gowns!

Unfortunately, her next and last film, Two-Faced Woman, (1941) was a disaster.  She was forced to appear in a two-piece bathing suit, unflattering gowns and hairdos, and the script was a dog.  After that experience, she abruptly retired from the movies.

For the rest of her life, Greta Garbo roamed the world, staying as much out of the public gaze as possible.  She never married, and no one really knows that much about either her sexuality or her lovers.  Many observers thought her simply dull in private. But on screen she was luminous, she was--Garbo.

BETTE DAVIS (real name: Ruth Elizabeth Davis)

When one thinks of Mae West, one instantly sees the hourglass figure, huge hat, and feather boa.  When thinking of Greta Garbo, her amazing face comes to mind.  When thinking of Bette Davis...well, there are those enormous eyes, and usually a cigarette.  But she was such a versatile chameleon of an actress, even while always being Bette Davis, that she has left us with dozens of images of her.  The transformed spinster Charlotte Vale in Now Voyager (1942), the insecure stage star Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950), the shy governess in All This and Heaven, Too (1940).

Bette Davis had been a popular girl and thought quite pretty, until she was signed for the movies by Warner Brothers.  There she learned the harsh lesson of what the studio found attractive.  And it was not her, even though a critic called her "a vision of blonde beauty" in her first film for them, The Man Who Played God (1932).   She made one film after another for Warners, which was run like an around-the-clock film factory, according to many of its stars.  In 1936, fed up with bad scripts, Davis fled to England, where she lost a court case to Warner Brothers. 

However, the trial raised her profile considerably, and she returned to a better quality of script, for instance, the classic Jezebel (1938), in which the headstrong Julie attends a society ball in a scarlet gown (in reality, it was brown because red would not photograph properly).  Davis's costumes were designed by Warner's head designer, Orry-Kelly. Her figure was considered "difficult," although in the 1950s a starlet would have killed for it--large bust, tiny waist, rounded hips.  Bustiness was not in style when Davis was a star, particularly for a dramatic actress of her caliber and appearance.  She did not want to be a sex symbol, nor did she think of herself that way, although she married several times and had many lovers.

Davis had no particular "look," unlike most female stars, because, as Orry-Kelly later recalled, the character came first.  For instance, she played a World War One society beauty in Mr. Skeffington (1944), drenched in ruffles.  But in Old Acquaintance (1943) her modern costumes were subdued, like her character.  Then in June Bride (1948) she played a fashion editor, and carried off her New Look outfits (designed by Edith Head) with aplomb.

Although she made many fine films for them, her career at Warners ended badly, with Beyond The Forest (1949).  Bette knew she was too old for the character and that the script was ludicrous.  However, her next film was a triumph: All About Eve (1950), considered to be one of the best films about theater ever made.  Davis's character, the outsize Margo Channing, was a great performance, and she was nominated for an Academy Award.  And Bette had most of the best lines, including: "Fasten your seatbelts.  It's going to be a bumpy night." Marilyn Monroe had a small but memorable appearance, as George Sanders's protege.

Edith Head did the costumes for Davis in this picture, and it is an oft-told tale that the gown Davis wears in the party scene was too large on top and fell off the actress's shoulders.  But Davis laughed and said she liked it better that way!  After the film was finished, she married her co-star, Gary Merrill, but the marriage was short-lived.

Davis's career was itself bumpy after that.  She kept working, in good, bad, and indifferent pictures.  Her career was given new life when she appeared with Joan Crawford in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962), a horror film.

In 1977 the American Film Institute made her the first woman to receive its Life Achievement Award.  Toward the end of her life, a stroke severely changed her appearance and affected her speech.  But Davis insisted on continuing to work and appear publicly.  Two years before her death she gave a touching performance in The Whales of August (1987),  playing the blind sister of Lillian Gish. 

Davis died of cancer in 1989.  She was a strong, emotional, fearless actress and an intense personality.  The screen is poorer for her absence.

copyright Elisa DeCarlo - use of this material is forbidden without permission