Some readers understand that Gypsy! is my favorite musical. I consider it a near perfect piece of theatre. I have it on good authority, because I am well connected in Hollywood, Barbra Streisand is to produce, direct & star in a new movie version of ths classic show. It has been filmed once before, with Rosalind Russell as an effective, but the softest of Mama Roses. I am not sure how I feel about Streisand (Tom Hanks is attached to the project as Herbie, a role I was made to play). I admire Streisand’s talent as a director, but I am afraid that she is a tiny bit long in the tooth for a character that starts the show in her late 30s. Still, Babs doing Rose’s Turn does intrigue me. If this project is a go, I would like to suggest Glee’s Lea Michele as Louise.
Burlesque star, actress & writer Gypsy Rose Lee was born 100 years ago today. Dismissed as "untalented" by her own mother, she remains a source of inspiration 4 decades after her death.
Rose Louise Hovick was born in Seattle to a teenage mother right out of the convent. Louise got an early start in show business, appearing with her little sister June as vaudeville act. It was apparent that “Baby June” was the more talented one the siblings. From an early age, Louise was pushed to the background while June was moved to the spotlight.
The family relocated to Hollywood & the act was renamed “Dainty June, the Hollywood Baby, & Her Newsboys.” Rose’s overbearing determination to see her young daughters have successful stage careers soon led to a divorce from her husband.
In their teenage years, Louise & June had the responsibility of supporting the family. They traveled the country, playing cheap vaudeville theatres, living out of suitcases & skipping school completly. But when June was 13, she eloped with fellow vaudevillian Bobby Reed. The sister act was finished.
Louise was unable to sustain the act on her own. Aged 17, stranded in Kansas City without a booking, she was approached by an agent about appearing in a burlesque show when the usual stripper had landed in prison. Despite her mother’s objections, Louise took the job & was reinvented as Gypsy Rose Lee.
Gypsy Rose Lee made her NYC debut in 1931, at Minsky’s famous The Republic Theatre, the first burlesque house on Broadway. Comedians Abbott & Costello, Phil Silvers, & Red Buttons were on the bill, but the striptease artists were the stars. At height of the Depression, a stripper could make $2,000 a week. Gypsy Rose Lee would play 12 weeks straight at The Republic, setting a record for the theatre. She arrested during one of the many police raids on Minsky’s theatres & this only helped her climb in popularity.
Gypsy Rose Lee didn’t adopt the usual bumps, grinds, & gyrations of burlesque routines. She developed a slow strip which she accompanied with a smart patter song. Her patter was her biggest asset; in those days, women made up nearly half of the typical striptease audience, & she became famous for he onstage wit & sophistication.
When she turned of 33, Gypsy Rose Lee decided to have a child . She told June that she wanted to select: "the toughest, meanest son of a bitch that I can find, somebody who's ruthless, & my child will rule the world." She chose the great Hollywood film director Otto Preminger & slept with him exactly once. When he was 18, her son Erik demanded to know why she wouldn't tell him who his father was, Her retort: "Because it's none of your business."
Gypsy Rose Lee's autobiography, & the stage musical & the film based on it, made the mother even more notorious than the daughter. Her 1957 memoir was a bestseller, but could have sold far more copies had she told the real truth about herself & her mother. Rose shadowed her daughters for decades, insisting on money & credit for their fame long after it was due. June herself not only starred in the premiere of Pal Joey but wrote 2 memoirs that traced her career as a fine actress & stage director; she is still living (I am leaving my original post, but smart readers have pointed out that the talented June Havoc passed away last March. My bad.).
Gypsy! was a horror show dressed up as a show biz story, & Rose Hovick was the monster. The play & the memoir were, like everything else having to do with that family, highly fictionalized: it turns out that Rose, the original stage mother, was even worse in real life. She was guilty of at least 2 murders, & possibly a 3rd.
The essence of Gypsy! Is basically true: Rose's voracious, almost inhuman ambition, the early fame of Gypsy's younger sister, who could toe-dance at the age of 2 as "Baby June" on the vaudeville circuit & the desperation that set in when radio, movies & the Depression made vaudeville extinct. June really did elope with one of the act's chorus boys & things got worse. Louise could not sing, dance or act, but she was willing to take her clothes off on stage to put food in their mouths, & shrewd theater operators soon recognized that the way she did it was something special.
After one of her many arrests, Gypsy Rose Lees stated: "I was completely covered… in a blue spotlight". Her talent for publicity soon made her a household name. The more famous & adored she became, the fewer garments she had to take off.
Through the decades, Gypsy Rose Lee & June fought, then reconciled, with June helping to nurse Gypsy through her final battle with lung cancer in 1970. But as Gypsy lay dying, she whispered to her son Erik: "After I go, don't let June in the house. She'll rob you blind."
I can’t wait to read the recently released American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare... The Life & Times Of Gypsy Rose Lee by Karen Abbott. It has garnered very positive reviews.
Tony winner Laura Benanti in the Gypsy! on Broadway with Patti Lupone.
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