Synchronicity: Strippin,’ Shootin’ and Reminiscin’
March 16, 2021
The New Gypsy Rose Lee
from “Look” magazine, Sept. 28, 1948 issue
Strippin’
The synchronicity of things that show up always amazes me, though, by now, it should seem a natural phenomenon. Overnight, while going through my 1940s magazines searching images for our upcoming 1940s photo shoot, I came across an article on the famous burlesque strip-tease artist Gypsy Rose Lee. This was amazing to me because “Gypsy” the musical based on her memoirs came up in two conversations I had this week, one with my Flappers to Fringe collaborator Oakley Boycott and the other with my sisters, Judith and Kimberly.
Shootin’
With Oakley, I brought up the topic during one of our photo shoots. I’d seen the movie version over the previous weekend with Rosalind Russell as Mama Rose and was ranting about the costumes. I said, it’s a great example of why historical costumers, like myself, should never take clothing cues from movies. This one is way off. The costumes make no sense in the context of the story because it revolves around the death of Vaudeville, which was the late 1920s. The costumes were, like so many movies, reflective of the time in which it was filmed. In this case, the early 1960s, especially those for Natalie Wood who played Gypsy Rose Lee. This contradiction is not that uncommon in films and you never know who made the decision, the costumer or director. The discrepancy obviously didn’t matter at the time because costume designer Orry-Kelly got an Academy Award nomination that year.
Reminiscin’
With my sisters, we were reminiscing about a family vacation to Europe taken in the early 1970s to visit older sister, Judith, who was living in England at the time. One of the highlights of our trip was seeing the musical, “Gypsy,” with Angela Lansbury as Mama Rose. I had just mentioned this trip to Oakley as part of our “Gypsy” conversation saying my mother so resembled Lansbury that watching reruns of her TV series “Murder She Wrote” gives me comfort. My Mom had long-since died, just three years after our England trip, as a matter of fact.
And That’s A Wrap
So, there you have it, how strippin,’ shootin,’ and reminisin’ came together. Synchronicity: the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.
Gypsy
in “Belle of the Yukon”
The Article (Look magazine, Sept. 28, 1948 issue)
Headline: “The New Gypsy Rose Lee”
The article is topped by two side-by-side pictures, (above) one of the “new” 35-year-old Gypsy looking elegant in a designer gown and the other of the “old” Gypsy of just six years prior. That picture has her scantily clad in a burlesque costume from the 1942 publication of the “Star and Garter” magazine. At that point in time, according to the article, she’d already written a best seller about her life. The caption under the photo reads: “The new Gypsy, brassy, brainy, lush” … has a 24-room house with “gold” plumbing and murals by Vertes.
The article is quite fun, going on to say that Gypsy, born Rose Louise Hovick is “too talented for her own good” being a “fabulous fusion of intellect and sex-appeal.” She “has a genius for writing, acting, art and vigorous living. As a result, she shoots off in all directions like a Roman candle, instead of concentrating on one field.”
The writer goes on to say that a play she wrote and was to have starred in the previous spring gathered dust while she “trailer-honeymooned” with Spanish artist Julio de Diego. (I can only surmise that they went on their honey moon by travel trailer.) That’s the “new” Gypsy, the article says, “a belligerent intellectual, yet in all her phases – the burlesque-with-class days, her literary – tea period, her successes on Broadway and in Hollywood – she remains her tough, sentimental self.” By this point, according to the article, Gypsy had made six movies, plenty of money but was still best known as a “stripper-authoress.”
Another photo gave insight into her latest endeavor. “Her new play, ‘The World on a String,’ has her sister (actress June Havoc) a lisping brat, her mother a money-grabber, herself being told: ‘Them society bums are playing you strictly for laughs.’ Still, she is generous, sentimental and worships 3-year-old son, Eric.”
The article was really interesting to me, giving so much background on Gypsy Rose Lee and I had no idea that the musical “Gypsy,” written in 1959 by Arthur Laurents, was based loosely on Rose Lee’s 1957 published memoirs. The musical, with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, gave us the now classic songs, “Let Me Entertain You” and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” The story revolves around Rose Lee’s mother, Mama Rose, who was first brought to life on Broadway by Ethel Merman, followed by Rosalind Russell in the 1962 movie version, with, as previously mentioned, Natalie Wood as the infamous Gypsy Rose Lee.
