Outskirts Press, INC.

Mae West & The Count takes you inside Mae’s relationship with the man who launched her career and stole her heart.

Set in the first half of the 20th Century, this is the heretofore untold story of the torrid romance, lust-filled five-year marriage, and entwined show business careers of the Vaudeville headliner "Deiro" and the "Queen of Camp" Mae West.

Unpublicized by mutual agreement, the improbable, humorous, and often heartbreaking, personal and professional relationship between the Italian nobleman, who rose to “rock-star” fame, and the Brooklyn-born fifth-grade dropout who became a show business legend and an icon of sexual freedom, is intimately and elegantly exposed in this volume.

"I couldn't help myself – “D” was an amazing lover. The sex thing was terrific with this guy. I wanted to do it morning, noon and night, and that's all I wanted to do. “
-Mae West, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It (1959).

“It went very deep, hittin' on all the emotions. You can't get too hot over anybody unless there's somethin' that goes along with the sex act, can you?"
-Mae West, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It (1959).

Columbus Ledger – 1913: “Deiro, the young Italian at Keith’s this week, is the inventor of the particular style of piano-accordion he is playing. It is manufactured in San Francisco, he says, from a plan he drew while in Rome. He says that the instrument covers five octaves and has twice the tone compass of a piano. He expects to retire from the stage as soon as he makes enough money to finance a plant for the manufacture of his invention—and, incidentally, to get married. And to guess who? Mae West. Remember that short-haired comedienne who appeared at Keith’s the week Eva Tanguay was performing at the Southern? If memory serves, Miss West introduced Deiro, who was visiting here that week, as her fiancé, Count Deiro, Guido being his first name. It is refreshing to find that he ain’t no such animal. He was the most popular act at Keith’s this week.”