Mae West - - "Ear-Say"

There is so much hearsay going around about MAE WEST that it is no surprise to see the Yale University librarian Fred Shapiro double-checking what his EARS say.
This frivolity was spotted in an Arizona newspaper:
• • • • If you say it, you'll be misquoted • • • •
• • . . . delving into musty, old paper archives to get quotes from long-dead famous people sounds hopelessly anachronistic - - like a movie star who keeps her clothes on.
• • But the words of just such a star - - Mae West - - are in a new book that used just such antiquated techniques. The premise of the book is that some long-attributed quotes are fiction or folklore.
• • Yale librarian Fred Shapiro spent six years with advanced Internet searches to come up The Yale Book of Quotations. But he also combed dusty, old paper records, according to Reuters News Service.
• • And Fred Shapiro watched all of Mae West's pre-1967 movies searching for the line: "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me."
• • It wasn't there, wrote Fred Shapiro. Mae West never said it on screen. She said it to a police guard sent to be her escort. Mae West also said: "I used to be Snow White, but I drifted." . . . .
• • Source: The Arizona Republic Newspaper (no Reuters byline given)
• • printed on 30 October 2006
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Mae West
• • Illustration: Mae West • • from MovieNews 1933 • •
NYC
Mae West.