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.

Marybeth Hamilton holds a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University and teaches American History at Birkbeck College, University of London.

"The most reliably sober and informative of the recent crop of West studies, Marybeth Hamilton's [book] pinpoints West's startling transformation from frank man-hating to easy sexual mockery."—Claudia Roth Pierpont, New Yorker

"[Hamilton] deftly inserts into her narrative biography details from West's life to provide a new perspective on her performance style . . . [and] examines West's sexy comedy in the context of the popular theatrical traditions of early 20th-century urban America."—Rachel Shteir, American Theatre

"Vivid and sharply written . . . [this book] shows us all those borrowed plumes from lost lives that went to make up Mae West."—Susan Jeffreys, New Statesman and Society

"What must strike the reader about Hamilton's careful scholarship is how 'common' West's origins actually were. . . . The strength of Hamilton's book is its in-depth discussion of the ways West drew on her working-class roots in order to offer herself up to middle-class audiences as a 'slumming' experience."—Kelly Mayhew, American Book Review