Stripping Gypsy: The Life of Gypsy Rose Lee
Search in google:
Hailed as an "endlessly fascinating biography of an extraordinary woman" (Daily Express) and "a page turner" (Independent), Noralee Frankel's lively biography illuminates the fascinating career of Gypsy Rose Lee, a woman who created and recreated her own identity to fit changing times. Placing the famed stripper's life in a refreshing new light, Frankel reveals that though Lee was not above using her femininity to full advantage, she aspired to much more than admiration for her physical beauty. Indeed, those who know Lee only from the beloved musical and film Gypsy!--which celebrates her unconventional rise to stardom--will be surprised to discover a woman who was not only a sex object, but also a best-selling writer, artist, political activist, and union leader. In addition to her highly successful strip-tease act and film career, Lee published two popular mystery novels and a memoir, wrote two plays, showed her original artwork in famed Modern Art-impresario Peggy Guggenheim's gallery, and gained notoriety for her participation in liberal politics. Kirkus Reviews A biography of a 1930-40s burlesque artist who amounted to far more than the sum of her parts. The notion that Gypsy Rose Lee (1911-1970) was a might-have-been seems misguided, but Frankel (Freedom's Women: Black Women and Families in Civil War Mississippi, 1999, etc.) convincingly argues that Lee's talents could have taken her beyond stardom as a stripper for Minsky's Burlesque. To be sure, Frankel shows that Lee created a witty act that was "more tease than strip." But Lee encountered barriers when she tried to step beyond Minsky's. In the '30s, she filmed several middling comedies, for which Fox producer Darryl Zanuck, fearful of censors, billed her by her real name, Louise Hovick, lest anyone recognize the lady of burlesque. (Zanuck was particularly "worried about any appearance of nonmarital sexual activity.") Lee also authored two mysteries, a bestselling biography and a play for Broadway (where she also acted), exhibited her paintings at Peggy Guggenheim's gallery, followed the opera and read voraciously. However, puritanical Americans never let go of the girl from Minsky's; a condescending book reviewer labeled Lee "The Jane Austen of the striptease set." Frankel has less success arguing that Lee revealed more of her body than she did of her psyche. Beneath details of Lee's tortured relationship with her mother, her failed marriages and her forceful work on behalf of unions, readers will see only a fiercely determined, confidant Lee, not someone hiding her inner life. The author mined published accounts and Lee's private papers and correspondence, but the bibliography lists not a single personal interview. Words from Lee's sister (June Havoc), her son (Erik Preminger, who isforthcoming in a recent biography of father Otto) and from surviving co-workers may have brought readers closer to the great entertainer. Gypsy gets the extra bow she deserved.
Preface: Stripping Gypsy1 Getting Started 12 The Burlesque Stage 133 Sophisticated Stripper 254 Follies with Girlfriends 385 The Rise and Fall of Louise Hovick 506 Failure as a Dutiful Wife 617 Death, Dies, and Mother 708 Finding the Body 809 Cultured Stripper 9510 World's Fair Stripper 10411 The Naked Genius 11912 Stripping for Labor and the War Effort 13313 Motherhood 14214 On the Carnival Circuit 15515 Nothing to Conceal 16716 Strip Around the World 18417 Back Home 19518 Immortality in Book and Song 20719 The Most Famous Former Stripper in the World 21820 Aging Gracefully in Public 230Notes 248Bibliography 285Index 295
