"When I'm Bad, I'm Better": Mæ West, Sex, and American Entertainment

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.