The 100 Greatest Brooklynites of All Time: 20 to 11
Mary Jane West was born in Bushwick, and within 14 years was a professional vaudevillian. Soon after, she’d become an early 20th century sex symbol—seriously, her first starring role on Broadway was in a play she wrote (and produced and directed) called Sex, which was famously raided by police; she and the cast were arrested. She didn’t make it to Hollywood until the 30s, when she was almost 40, but she became a box-office sensation anyway opposite a young Cary Grant. She had a short movie career, a long break, a brief comeback, and then died in 1980. She’s interred alongside her family in Cypress Hills Cemetery.