We're Just Happy To See Her

Film star Mae West shocked and scandalized movie censors in the 1930s, but she won the hearts of fans with her humorous approach to sex. Now, decades after her death, she is drawing new fans and old followers to the town where it all began.

West's hourglass figure and suggestive swagger is back on Broadway. CBS News Correspondent Lisa Leigh reports with the help of Tony-nominated actress Claudia Shear, West's legend is entreating a new generation of admirers to, "Come up and see me sometime."

It's been 20 years since West's death, but on her birthday flowers are still placed at the Brooklyn, N.Y. mausoleum where she is interred. A visit to the site inspired Shear not only to write the play Dirty Blonde, but portray the legend herself.

"Every night I walk into the theater and…there are [her] big eyes on the stage and I say, 'Hello, Miss West.' The fact that I am so grateful to be able to write this play is due to the fact that it's Mae West. And she was amazing. She was absolutely amazing," Shear says.

Dirty Blonde, which got its start Off-Broadway, is a comedy based on two obsessed Mae West fans, Jo and Charlie, who meet on a visit to her final resting place. The characters fall in love in this unlikely setting.

The show has had tremendous success at the theatre named for another screen icon, The Helen Hayes.

It is Shear's first time on Broadway -- both on stage and as a playwright -- and this year she has already been nominated for two Tony awards. Shear is quick to credit her collaborators, and modestly passes on becoming the toast of Broadway, ("It's more like the muffin!" she laughs.)

The show is scheduled to run in New York through the end of the year, then it will play in both London and Los Angeles.

Mae West died on August 17 1980, at the ripe young age of 88.