When I'm Bad, I'm Better: Mae West, Sex, and American Entertainment - Softcover

Hamilton, Marybeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520210948 ISBN 13: 9780520210943

Publisher: University of California Press, 1997

Synopsis

In a world of trendsetting film icons, few are more familiar than Mae West. Yet for all her public controversy, West is also a mystery. Marybeth Hamilton combines elements of biography, cultural analysis, and social history to unmask West and reveal her commercial savvy, willpower, and truly shocking theatrical transgressions.

About this title

Review:

Mae West is one of the best-known celebrities of the 20th century; she is a cultural symbol that, 65 years after her heyday, continues to be remembered, imitated, and mocked. Yet how is it possible to know Mae West? She left no diaries, no letters. Her ghostwritten biography is inaccurate. The image she created in interviews and in plays and movies offers only slanted insight into her personal life. Acknowledging all of this, Marybeth Hamilton has created a unique biography that focuses as much on the impact of West's public persona as it does on speculations about her private self. Hamilton's take on Mae West is particularly interesting when she focuses on West's appeal to gay culture and the idea, which originated as long ago as the 1930s, that West was a female impersonator.

From the Publisher:

A lively, perceptive social history that explores Mae West's flamboyant 80-year career as a lightning rod for changing sexual mores and fashions in popular entertainment.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0520210948
• ISBN 13: 9780520210943
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 317