WQLN Free Online Screening on August 20 of PBS/American Masters film Mae West: Dirty Blonde

WQLN is hosting a free online screening of the PBS/American Masters film Mae West: Dirty Blonde on Facebook Live on Thursdaym August 20 at 7 PM, followed by a live chat with folks from Erie Playhouse and the Film Society of NWPA! And support a local business by picking up a "Mae West meal pack" from the Brewerie at Union Station!

Mae West achieved great acclaim in every entertainment medium that existed during her lifetime, spanning eight decades of the 20th century. A full-time actress at seven, a vaudevillian at 14, a dancing sensation at 25, a Broadway playwright at 33, a silver screen ingénue at 40, a Vegas nightclub act at 62, a recording artist at 73, a camp icon at 85 - West left no format unconquered. She possessed creative and economic powers unheard of for a female entertainer in the 1930s and still rare today. Though she was a comedian, West grappled with some of the more complex social issues of the 20th century, including race and class tensions, and imbued even her most salacious plotlines with commentary about gender conformity, societal restrictions and what she perceived as moral hypocrisy. American Masters - Mae West: Dirty Blonde is the first major documentary film to explore West's life and career, as she "climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong" to become a writer, performer and subversive agitator for social change. Produced and directed by Sally Rosenthal and Julia Marchesi.