Becoming Mae West Book

First time in paperback: A dazzling biography of one of our most flamboyant stars and "a truly mighty woman"
-Boston Globe

Emily Worth Leider combines newly uncovered archival material, fine writing, and a rich appreciation of West's unique blend of comedy and "come-hither" appeal to shape this enormously engrossing biography and portrait of an era. She gives us not just Mae West the bawdy icon, but also the driven performer who honed her act on the vaudeville circuit, wrote her own material to get a decent part, and never stopped battling the censors-who provided some of her best publicity but who eventually struck a blow for prudery from which her career would never recover.

"Leider meticulously re-creates the world that created West, a world she bent to her own ambitions....Mae's sashay across the screen will henceforth seem as much an achievement as it has always seemed a delicious inevitability."
-Steven Bach, author of Marlene Dietrich