Mae started performing at an early age and never looked back. She took advantage of the Roaring Twenties and society’s less constricted view of what a woman was allowed to be. Naturally, she pushed the envelope farther than anyone else by calling the first play she wrote “Sex” and causing a sensation in the leading role. Arrest and conviction on a morals charge didn’t slow her one bit – the publicity was fantastic! – and she followed up with success after success on the Great White Way.

In 1928 her fourth full-length Broadway play, “Diamond Lil” drew rave reviews, lines around the block, and made Mae a full-fledged Broadway star. But Hollywood didn’t roll out the red carpet for Mae as it had for other Broadway sensations. The film companies’ self-regulatory body, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (commonly known as the Hays Office) banned the play as unsuitable for the screen.

Mae started performing at an early age and never looked back. She took advantage of the Roaring Twenties and society’s less constricted view of what a woman was allowed to be. Naturally, she pushed the envelope farther than anyone else by calling the first play she wrote “Sex” and causing a sensation in the leading role. Arrest and conviction on a morals charge didn’t slow her one bit – the publicity was fantastic! – and she followed up with success after success on the Great White Way.

In 1928 her fourth full-length Broadway play, “Diamond Lil” drew rave reviews, lines around the block, and made Mae a full-fledged Broadway star. But Hollywood didn’t roll out the red carpet for Mae as it had for other Broadway sensations. The film companies’ self-regulatory body, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (commonly known as the Hays Office) banned the play as unsuitable for the screen.