Out of His Own Way

Picture it: 1960s Hollywood. The young, fresh-faced president of the Canadian Mae West fan club had just set foot in Los Angeles to meet his idol, befriend her, and become her personal assistant and all-round Agador Spartacus. Craig Eadie had seemingly done the impossible. He’d turned groupie-level infatuation into a real relationship. He’d left Toronto for the City of Angels, where he was brought under the wing of one of its most notorious icons. He needed a change of scene, a place where his talent for impersonation would thrive and his feminine side would be celebrated. And then — imagine — in sashayed Mae West, with an invitation to come up and see her sometime.

West was about to become a new mother — a drag mother, that is. Now picture a makeover montage, with wigs, dresses, jewels, where the star of I’m No Angel delights in turning her young protegé into a funhouse-mirror version of herself: brazen, sensual, and steeped in intrigue. Under her tutelage...