Lee, Gypsy Rose 1914–1970

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Gypsy Rose Lee
1914–1970

Gypsy Rose Lee (Rose Louise Hovick), who was born on February 9 in Seattle, was a successful burlesque performer whose life and relationship with her domineering stage mother, Rose Hovick, became the story for the musical Gypsy. Her humor and cleverness transformed burlesque into a more mainstream phenomenon, at least to the extent to which a burlesque performer could become a legitimate media figure. She died of lung cancer in Los Angeles on April 26.

Forced onto the vaudeville stage as a young child in an act with her younger sister June, Louise (as she was called in the act) worked in the chorus. Having left their salesman father, the Hovick family act known as Baby June and Her Farmboys toured the country on the sputtering vaudeville circuit. Looking toward the only type of traveling show that could still be successful, Rose turned the girls' act into a more risqué group called Rose Louise and her Hollywood Blonds. Working finally in burlesque houses, Rose turned the illness of another burlesque performer into Louise's big chance, as she volunteered her daughter as that performer's replacement.

Taking the name Gypsy Rose Lee, Louise began a long career as a performer. Her wit, humor, and intelligence transformed a striptease act into something more substantial and respectable, and she even appeared at high society functions. Her personality and talent made her one of the most popular burlesque performers of her time. The depression and the closing of many theaters that hosted live shows encouraged Gypsy Rose to shift her performances to the movies. She appeared in several films, including Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937), often cast as an exotic dancer or a burlesque performer but never achieving the success for which she had hoped. She became a mystery writer specializing in a genre she dubbed "the burlesque mystery" novel, publishing The G-String Murders in 1941. The book became the film Lady of Burlesque (1943) starring Barbara Stanwyck. Gypsy Rose Lee also published articles in The New Yorker and Harper's.

Her most successful writing venture came with the publication of her autobiography, Gypsy, in 1957 after her mother's death in 1954. A best-seller that focused on Gypsy's vaudeville years with her mother, the memoir became the stage musical Gypsy, with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Stein, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The show premiered in 1959 with Ethel Merman as Mama Rose. The show became a film in 1962 with Rosalind Russell as Mama Rose.

Gypsy Rose Lee's romantic life followed the pattern of her career. Married briefly three times, she also had affairs with the producer Mike Todd and the director Otto Preminger. Her son, Erik, was fathered by Preminger while she was married to William Kirkland.

In her later years Gypsy Rose Lee became a show business "personality" whose roots in vaudeville and burlesque made her a living symbol of a kind of entertainment whose day was past. She continued to appear in movies, including the 1966 The Trouble with Angels starring Rosalind Russell and Hayley Mills and the 1969 The Over-the-Hill-Gang. She also hosted a television talk show in 1965.