Emily Wortis Leider
Biographer of Hollywood and the American West
Emily Wortis Leider was a writer, the author of the poetry collection Rapid Eye Movement & Other Poems and of four biographies: California’s Daughter: Gertrude Atherton and Her Times (Stanford, 1991); Becoming Mae West (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997; Da Capo, 2000; Kindler Verlag, Germany); Dark Lover: The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003; Faber and Faber, United Kingdom); and Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood (University of California Press, 2011).
Harper & Row published her edition of a memoir written by her grandmother, Yesterday: A Memoir of a Russian-Jewish Family (1978).
Her poems and articles have appeared in The Chicago Review, Kalliope, Shakespeare Quarterly, The San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times. Born and educated in New York City, she lived for many decades in San Francisco. Emily's work is represented by The Wylie Agency (opens in a new tab), New York City.
