Mae West: Driven From Drink?

Via The Orange Papers The Religious Roots of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps:

When she seemed to have been bitten by the "get religion" bug, she met with Frank Buchman and endorsed MRA. The Buchmanites exploited her name for all it was worth, and widely reprinted a picture of her posing with Frank Buchman while holding a Moral Re-Armament book, and quoted her praising MRA or Frank Buchman. But the New York Times writer B. R. Crisler came up with one of the best lines when, in his spoof of Hollywood foolishness, he awarded the title:

Profoundest Philosophical Reflection: Mae West's statement to Dr. Frank Buchman, head of the Oxford Movement, on the occasion of their historical meeting: "I owe all my success to the kind of thinking Moral Rearmament is."
New York Times, "CIRCUS OF SUPERLATIVES", B. R. Crisler, January 7, 1940, page 135.

One of Mae West's biographers had a very different take on the encounter. He wrote that Mae West was using Frank Buchman in a publicity stunt:

Universal's publicity department, remembering all the attention Mae and Billy Sunday had reaped from their meeting, persuaded a famous but naïve religious leader to come up and see her. Even a bemused B. R. Chrisler of The New York Times devoted considerable space to this manipulation, commenting, "As startling in its way as the Nazi-Soviet pact was the unexpected interview between Mae West and Dr. Frank Buchman, the English theologue, who is the leader of the so-called Moral-Rearmament Movement on the Pacific Coast."
Maneuvering Dr. Buchman onto a sofa beneath a nude painting of herself for the benefit of photographers, Mae, effulgent in a sheer pink negligee, assured him that she owed all her success to the kind of Moral Rearmament he represented. The guileless Buchman replied: "You are a splendid character, Miss West. You have done wonderful work, too, in pleasing and entertaining millions with your charming personality." Dr. Buchman apologized that he was an amateur at this kind of thing, but Mae told him he was doing fine and inquired whether he had met W. C. Fields. Buchman hadn't, and Mae regretted this, telling him, "Moral Rearmament is just what Bill needs. Give it to him in a bottle and he'll go for it." Having scored all her points, Mae allowed the press agents to escort Dr. Buchman back to a world in which he was more experienced.
MAE WEST, a biography, George Eells and Stanley Musgrove, page 193.