Mae West

"Why don't you come up and see me sometime?"

The actual line is, "Why don't you come up sometime, and see me." Which is only slightly different from the misquote, but what can't be seen in print is the way she says it. Mae West could've read out the phone directory and made it sound absolutely scandalous. In this clip her character hits on Carey Grant with this line: "You know, I...I always did like a man in a uniform. That one fits you grand."


According to The Yale Book of Quotations' editor, Fred R. Shapiro, Mae West did say, "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?", but as herself. He insists the line was not in any of her movies, including the one her fans swear it was in, She Done Him Wrong.
According to Shapiro, West used it to greet a policeman assigned to her as an escort. As she once said of herself, "I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

However, the line does make a cameo appearance in her final film Sextette (1978), said to co-star George Hamilton.