Collector Darrell Rooney and Hollywood historian Mark Vieria have updated their 2011 book ‘Harlow in Hollywood’ about the platinum blonde star who died in 1937 at age 26. Mae West, a Hollywood sex symbol of the 1930s, was in her 60s when she embarked on a "passionate affair" with 21-year-old Richard DuBois — but it was her heavily muscled lover who ultimately walked away. "By all accounts from the people who were there, it was, at the very least, a passionate affair," author Michael Gregg Michaud told Fox News Digital.
"This was 1954...
There was about a 40-year age difference here...
She liked young men. But it was also part of the myth she worked so hard to create about herself." "She wanted to be known as an international sex symbol, and she was going to do everything to keep that title," Michaud shared.
"She presented herself in a very sexy way. She surrounded herself with very sexy men. Richard was one of them.
But she left a lasting impression on him." MAE WEST’S ASSISTANT SAYS ‘30S SEX SYMBOL WASN’T A FAN OF NUDITY IN FILMS Mae West is seen here in 1932. In her later years, the Hollywood star kept her love life piping hot.
(John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images) Michaud has written a new book about the classic Hollywood star, "Mae West and Her Adonises." It focuses on her later years when she hit the nightclub circuit and performed alongside a sea of Herculean boy toys who quickly became lovers when the curtains went down. "This is my third book about Mae West.
