We'll both be proud of our figures!

Mae West was a successful stage actress and playwright before she moved to Hollywood in 1932. At a relatively late age (almost forty years old), West was put under contract at Paramount and had her first starring role in She Done Him Wrong (1933), based on her own successful play Diamond Lil. Adapted for the screen by Harvey Thew, John Bright and West herself, the film became a box-office hit, allegedly saving Paramount from bankruptcy. West's next film I'm No Angel (1933) — story, screenplay and dialogue written by West with help from Harlan Thompson — was also a huge success and ultimately proved to be the most successful film of her career.

Mae West and Cary Grant in a scene from I'm No Angel. The film contains some of West's best-known lines, such as "Oh Beulah, peel me a grape!", "Well, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men" and "When I'm good I'm very good. But when I'm bad I'm better".

To promote I'm No Angel, West wrote letters to several theatres, encouraging them to play her new film. The letter below, written in true West fashion, was sent to a theatre in Louisiana just a month before the film's premiere. I'm No Angel was West's last film before the establishment of the Production Code Administration in July 1934, her films being heavily censored from then on.

Source: Mae West

Transcript:

September 11, 1933

Manager, Affiliated Theatres, Inc.

Mavins Theatre

Reseve, Louisiana

Dear Sir:

I'm no angel ... but I've spread my wings a few times!

I know what every young girl should know ... and a couple of things they ought to forget!!

But -- what I'm learning every day, is a little bit more about show business! I've learned a lot about it in the past, but anybody who thinks he knows all about show business is screwy! When the complete textbook on show business is written it will contain nothing but figures -- not the kind that bulge in front and behind -- and certainly not written in red.

The way I've doped it out ... it'll be full of figures that come from box-offices! I've been accused of writing with one eye on the script and the other on the box-office, and on that accusation I'm willing to stand convicted, and I promise never to get my eyes crossed, either.

"I'M NO ANGEL" --- (and you can take that title as a warning from me)--- is my new picture. I believe I've got a story that's a honey! Something the neighbors will talk about over their back-fences! My first starring picture --- "She Done Him Wrong"... got 'em all into a huddle. My new one will knock 'em for a goal! That's not a boast, it's confidence--- the only kind worth having.

There never was any kind of dame, anywhere, that worried more about her figure than a showman does about his! I mean the one he reads and either weeps or sings about at the end of the week.

I've produced shows of my own, so I know first-hand what co-operation between the show and theatre management means at the box-office. Let's co-operate.

Ask the folks to "come up and see me" in "I'M NO ANGEL"... and we'll both be proud of our figures!!

Sincerely,

(signed)

'Mae West'