Writer, stage performer, screen actress, and nightclub entertainer Mae West emerged, a ray of light during the Great Depression, as a uniquely independent, outspoken, flamboyant, and humorously erotic woman. She achieved legendary status in American show business folklore and won a wide international following. Rarely has a show business personality left so indelible a mark on American popular culture, influencing the laws of film censorship, and bequeathing a series of outrageous ripostes and innuendoes to the language—most famously, "Come up and see me sometime"—that were still used at the end of the twentieth century. During World War II, allied troops honored her hourglass figure by calling their inflatable life jackets "Mae Wests." Learning of this new meaning to her name, she commented: "I've been in Who's Who, and I know what's what, but it's the first time I've been in a Dictionary...