Mae West - Personal Life

Personal Life

West was married on April 11, 1911, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Frank Szatkus, stage name Frank Wallace, a fellow vaudevillian whom she first met in 1909. She was 17, he was 21. West kept the marriage a secret. But in 1935, after West had made several hit movies, a filing clerk discovered West's marriage certificate and alerted the press. An affidavit in which she had declared herself married, which she made during the Sex trial in 1927, was also uncovered. At first, West denied ever marrying Wallace but finally admitted in July 1937, in reply to a legal interrogatory, that they had been married. Even though the marriage was a reality, she never lived with Wallace as husband and wife. She insisted they have separate bedrooms and she soon sent him away in a show of his own in order to get rid of him. She obtained a legal divorce on July 21, 1942, during which Wallace withdrew his request for separate maintenance, and West testified that she and Wallace had lived together for only "several weeks." The final divorce decree was granted on May 7, 1943.

West may also have had another secret marriage. In August 1913, she met an Italian-born Vaudeville headliner and star of the piano-accordion, Guido Deiro. Her affair went "ery deep, hittin' on all the emotions. You can't get too hot over anybody unless there's somethin' that goes along with the sex act, can you?" Deiro fell in love with West and arranged his bookings so that the two traveled together. They became engaged in either late 1913 or early 1914. Some sources reported the pair were married. During a 1935 radio broadcast Walter Winchell incorrectly reported that Mae West had been married to Guido's brother, Pietro. Walter Wincher, a writer for Accordion News magazine, corrected the error: "In a recent radio broadcast, Walter Winchell conveyed the information that Pietro Deiro had been married to Mae West for four years. As one Walter to another, I must set him right. Pietro was never married to the 'come up and see me sometime' girl. Guido Deiro, his brother, was supposed to be the fortunate accordionist."

West made no public statements indicating that she had been married to Deiro. She referred to him simply as "D" in her autobiography. West's biographers state that the two never married. West and Deiro split in 1916.

Deiro's son claimed that years later Mae West privately revealed to him that she had become pregnant by Guido, and had an abortion without his knowledge, resulting in complications which left her sick for nearly a year and ultimately unable to bear children.

According to Deiro's biographer, West filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery on July 14, 1920. The divorce was granted by the Supreme Court of the State of New York on November 9 of that year. West later said, "Marriage is a great institution. I'm not ready for an institution yet."

Mae West remained close to her family throughout her life and was devastated by her mother's death in 1930. In 1930, she moved to Hollywood and into the penthouse at the new Ravenswood apartment building, where she would live until her death in 1980. After she began her movie career, her sister, brother and father followed her there. West provided them with nearby homes and also jobs and sometimes financial support.

West also began a relationship James Timony, an attorney fifteen years her senior, in 1916 when she was a vaudeville actress. In addition to their romantic relationship, Timony acted as her manager. By the time West was an established movie actress in the mid-1930s, they were no longer a couple. However, West and Timony remained extremely close, living in the same building, working together, and providing support for each other, until Timony's death in 1954.

At the age of 61, Mae West became romantically involved with one of the musclemen in her Las Vegas stage show, wrestler, former Mr. California, and former merchant marine Chester Rybonski (1923–1999). He was thirty years younger than West, and later changed his name to Paul Novak. He soon moved in with her and their romance continued until West died at the age of 87 in 1980. Novak once commented, "I believe I was put on this Earth to take care of Mae West."

West had many other boyfriends throughout her life, including boxing champion William Jones, nicknamed Gorilla Jones. When the management at her apartment building discriminated against the African-American boxer and barred his entry, West solved the problem by buying the building.