Mae West and Timothy Dalton in a disco duet of “Love Will Keep Us Together”

You know how sometimes you are researching a story and run across an unexpected thing which totally upsets all your notions? So… I was looking at old Mae West videos for a story and stumbled on… well.

Just watch it and forgive me later.

That’s from Sextette, based on her play by the same name. She’s 84 in that clip.  I just… It’s really disturbing and yet–

She was a truly remarkable woman, very sharp, very witty.  She didn’t back down from the shows she wanted to make, even if people thought it was inappropriate and did a lot of work that was ground-breaking in its day. From the beginning she was a strong and vocal supporter of gay rights, and this was in the early 1900s.

I don’t know if she was still playing the sex kitten in the film because that’s what she did or if it was because she wanted to screw with people’s ideas of age and its relation to sex.  Given her history, it could go either way.

To redeem her latter days a little, or at least give context, here’s an interview from the same year as the film. She’s still sharp and witty.

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