Evelyn Fialla was also born in Austria-Hungary , in approximately 1877 . Her family emigrated to the United States and settled in Youngstown , Ohio . She met Percy Hildegard when she was fourteen and eloped with him to Chicago , where she became a saloon singer . She divorced him on an unspecified date , and went on to marry several more times over the course of her life . Sources such as Ripley 's Believe It Or Not ! reported thirteen marriages . Hildegard herself put the number at eight . As a traveling dancer , she worked her way from Ohio across the West to San Francisco , California . After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake left the city in ruins , Hildegard moved to Goldfield , Nevada , a boomtown of the California Gold Rush . Hildegard was paid handsomely for her exceptionally popular act at the town 's Northern Saloon . Though she ultimately spent less than a year in Goldfield , she quickly opened her own dance hall and had a relationship with prospector Diamondfield Jack . Hildegard was said to have won her title of Diamond Tooth Lil in a successful bet with a Reno dentist , who set a diamond in her front tooth . Lil was said to have entertained and managed multiple profitable brothels across the West , including Death Valley , California , Denver , Colorado , and Boise , Idaho , where her " Star Rooms " in Boise had amenities including steam heating and both hot and cold water . She had reached Boise by the early 1940s . In 1944 , she announced that her famous front tooth diamond would be willed to the Idaho Children 's Home orphanage upon her death . By 1966 , she had sold her jewelry and was penniless in California . She died at the Claremont Sanitarium of Pomona in 1967 . '' Diamond Lil '' , the successful Broadway play written and acted by Mae West in 1928 , is assumed but not confirmed to be based on the Lils ' lives . The show was later adapted into the 1933 film '' She Done Him Wrong '' . West said that her inspiration for the name likely came from her father 's nickname for her mother , " Til " , short for " Matilda " , and sometimes with her drink of choice , " Champagne Til " . West based the character on herself and viewed Lil as an alter ego . " The femme fatale of the Bowery " , declared '' The New York Times '' of West 's Lil in the play 's 1949 revival , " bowling her leading men over one by one with her classical impersonation of a storybook strumpet " , dressed in " some of the gaudiest finery of the century " with a " snaky walk , torso wriggle , stealthy eyes , frozen smile , flat , condescending voice , and queenly gestures " — in all , " a triumph of nostalgic vulgarity " . West won a lawsuit in 1966 against a Los Angeles performer for infringement of the name " Diamond Lil " .
1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
Diamond Tooth Lil