In the early 1940s, Mae West was one of Hollywood’s wealthiest women. Although Mae’s best on screen years were behind her, she was still immensely popular nationally and enjoyed international fame. She made an iconic cultural movie with W.C. Fields in 1940 called My Little Chickadee but soon her career stalled. It seemed that the blonde bombshell had become a cultural icon and many studios felt that her fame outpaced her drawing ability as film roles began to dry up. During World War II, Miss West’s name was applied to various pieces of military equipment, particularly inflatable life vests worn by airmen which were eventually listed in Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition as “Mae Wests.” In addition, United States Army soldiers referred to twin-turreted combat tanks as “Mae Wests.”
Yet, she claimed, she felt a void in her life. Mae never got over the death of her mother in 1930, occurring just as her career was taking off. For the next decade, Mae would date the “Bad Boys” of Hollywood and the gangsters of the mean streets of the underworld. She later admitted that she was always attracted to the “good versus evil” aspect of life. Although raised Protestant, Mae was far from devout and remained skeptical about faith in general. Mae rejected the concept of eternal life but maintained a strong curiosity regarding what happens after we die. Between fall 1941 and spring 1942, she decided to devote her energies to investigating spirituality and the possibility of life after death.
Mae’s first séance was, like the woman herself, spectacular! Mae hosted a séance at the celebrity desert resort La Quinta in Palm Springs, California which was conducted (Mae claimed) by aviatrix Amelia Earhart, whose husband, George Putnam, worked for Paramount and had overseen the premiere of Mae’s movie Go West Young Man in 1936. Mae believed that she had made contact with her father, John Patrick West who died in 1935, using spirit tapping, in which the deceased supposedly tap out messages for the living. From that point on, her interest in the supernatural was piqued. In the following years, Mae dabbled in astrology, numerology, and fortune telling and always adhered to a rigid set of superstitions.
In her personal search for assurance of eternal life, West became determined to develop her own psychic abilities. She soon began consulting psychics, healers and spiritualists, who instructed her on how to communicate directly with the spirit world using a meditative technique that encouraged practitioners to banish all conscious thoughts so that “the inner voice” could be clearly discerned. West worked diligently to achieve a meditative state; for three weeks she sequestered herself each day in a darkened room, striving to cleanse her mind and seeking a connection with the spiritual realm. Finally, in the third week, she claimed to have a breakthrough. She began to hear psychic voices, and before long their images became clear.
Mae later told of her first visit from a little girl named Juliet, who greeted her with “Good morning, good morning, good morning, dear.” Next came the deep voice of a man, emanating from within Mae herself whose thick brogue was peppered with “thee’s” and “thou’s” completely incomprehensible to her. She received a visitation from her mother, dressed in black, telling her, “There’s so much to do . . . there are so many to bring over.” Visits from her spirit guides became so frequent that she could hardly sleep at night. Finally, one night a ring of spirits, mostly men attired in Victorian dress, floated above her bed, continuing to chatter. She told one interviewer that, exhausted, she pleaded, “I have to get my sleep. I’m a working girl! Could we cut down on the visits?” While they appeared less regularly, she claimed to have visions for the rest of her life.
In time, Mae embraced the notion of reincarnation, believing that Catherine the Great was a “pre-incarnation” of herself. She decided that she was destined to play the Russian empress and created the title role in Catherine was Great (1944) on Broadway. The play spoofed the story of the Russian empress and Mae surrounded herself with an “imperial guard” of tall, muscular young actors, a performance trend that she would continue for the rest of her life.
When Ms. West wasn’t occupied with a play or a film, she was usually organizing a séance or consulting a psychic at Lily Dale Assembly, a community in New York dedicated to the religion of Spiritualism founded in 1879, when spiritualism was all the rage in America. Aside from Mae West, other celebrities who visited Lily Dale included Harry Houdini, Mahatma Gandhi, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Susan B. Anthony, and Walt Disney.
For the last quarter century of her life, the one outside interest that Mae devoted herself to was spiritualism. Mae always yearned to stay in touch with her loved ones, especially her deceased mother, father, and kid brother Jack West. Reportedly, she witnessed the full body manifestations of both her deceased brother and pet woolly monkey, separately, on the cornice of her bedroom wall. You can’t be surprised that Mae West had a pet monkey now can you? Acquaintances would be invited to attend séances or ESP demonstrations at the Santa Monica beach house that the actress purchased in the 1950s. Mae West was well ahead of her time as far as ghost hunters go. Were she alive today, I’m quite sure she’d have her own television show devoted to all things that go bump in the night.
But Mae’s visitors also included old friends from the movie business, friends that were quite alive and well. Decades later, Mae told a young reporter, “Cary Grant comes t’ see me. Gilbert Roland, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo and George Raft. I almost married George, ya know.” After all, she was Mae West.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
