Diamond Lil by Mae WEST (Signed Presentation Copy)
Charming presentation copy, playfully inscribed by Mae West to her co-star Richard Coogan
WEST, Mae. Diamond Lil. New York: Sheridan House, 1949.
Mae West (1893-1980), legendary film star and sex symbol of the Golden age of Hollywood, was also a very successful playwright and screenwriter. She wrote and produced her own plays and scripts, and she starred in her scenarios on stage and screen. Such is the case with Diamond Lil, which was first created as a play, turned into a novel, and then produced into a film. West conceived the hip-swaying, wise-cracking Diamond Lil – Gilded Age femme fatale of the Lower Manhattan underworld - as a character and as an alter ego.
Diamond Lil was first published as a play in 1928, and produced into a hit Broadway show the same year, with Mae West starring in the leading role. In 1932, West adapted her play into a novel, and the following year she brought her Diamond Lil character, renamed Lady Lou, onto the silver screen in She Done Him Wrong (1933), starring Cary Grant as the heroine’s love interest, Captain Cummings. The film was a box-office success and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.
This edition of Mae West’s novel was issued to coincide with the 1949 Broadway revival of Diamond Lil. The production was directed by Charles K. Freeman, and featured Mae West in the leading role, and Richard Coogan as Captain Cummings, Lil’s object of lust.
This is a charming presentation copy, playfully inscribed by Mae West to her co-star Richard Coogan “who played the part of Capt. Cummings in the play ‘Diamond Lil’ in 1949”, – with best wishes from ‘Diamond Lil’ and the author”.
Richard Coogan (1914-2014) was an American actor best known for his portrayal of Captain Video in Captain Video and His Video Rangers from 1949 to 1950.
256 pp. 8vo, some wear to spine ends. Endpapers browned. Good in very good dust-jacket (slight edgewear). Dust jacket art depicting the fabulous Diamond Lil by Baryé Phillips.