Gypsy Rose Lee

• Born: January 9, 1914
• Birthplace: Probably Seattle, Washington
• Died: April 26, 1970
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

Identification American striptease dancer, stage and film star, and writer

Incorporating humor in her striptease act, Lee became the best-known and the most-photographed burlesque entertainer of the 1930’s. She appeared in a few late 1930’s Hollywood films. Her interest in writing emerged during this decade. Her autobiographical book Gypsy(1957), which inspired a musical of the same name, describes her rise and her turbulent relationship with her infamous stage mother.

Gypsy Rose Lee’s career began in American vaudeville during the 1910’s and 1920’s. Her mother managed Lee’s talented younger sister June Hovick (later, June Havoc) while Lee, born Rose Louise Hovick, assumed minor roles. When June married at age thirteen, she left vaudeville. Lee became responsible for supporting herself and her mother through her own act with the “Hollywood Blondes”; however, vaudeville was dying. By 1930, Lee was performing in a Kansas City, Missouri, burlesque theater. Reluctantly, she replaced a stripper in the comedic skits, but eventually she reinvented herself as a striptease entertainer. Rather than emphasizing singing, dancing, or jerky, bump-and-grind stripping techniques, Lee’s act featured her ability to engage the audience through comedic dialogue with them and to perform a drawn-out seductive striptease.

Lee’s success started with her debut at the Gaiety Theater in Toledo, Ohio, and was extended through her lengthy run at Minsky’s Republic Theatre in New York. Her comedic techniques included dropping the names of highbrow luminaries, mentioning academic trivia, reciting and singing bawdy poetry and songs, dropping straight pins into the bell of a tuba, whirling her hand on bald men’s heads, and spinning into the stage curtains. Lee’s costumes were tasteful, often elegant, and specifically designed for her act. She tended to strip down to lingerie and silk stockings—she believed that going this far was more arousing than revealing her nude body. Her desire to be taken seriously as a performer led her to join Florenz Ziegfeld’s production Hot Cha! (1932) and assume minor roles in musical theater. By 1935, she was performing at Irving Palace in New York. Charmed by Lee, syndicated gossip columnist Walter Winchell encouraged her writing career.

Just before the Great Depression, burlesque theaters were closing. Lee left Minsky’s to become the first stripper to star in a Ziegfeld production, the 1936-1937 Follies. She fortified her friendship with sister June and befriended Fanny Brice, whom she credited for influencing her attitude toward show business, her stage appearance, and liberal politics. Lee’s film career followed and included You Can’t Have Everything (1937); Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937); Sally, Irene, and Mary (1938); Battle of Broadway (1938); and My Lucky Star (1938). Modest success in films led her back to the stage; however, she later appeared in the popular films Stage Door Canteen (1943) and Belle of the Yukon (1944). Lee’s murder mystery novels, The G-String Murders (1941) and Mother Finds a Body (1942), received praise from literary critics and from successful writers such as Craig Rice and Truman Capote.

Impact

Lee created an entirely new type of performance art that combined casual stripping with comedy. During the 1930’s, she broke down the stereotype of the stripper as a mindless, disreputable, and immoral performer. Lee’s influence in the world of burlesque as both entertainer and writer remains strong. She also showed the mainstream that the striptease was capable of incorporating art, beauty, appreciation of the human body, and intelligence.

Bibliography

Frankel, Noralee. Stripping Gypsy: The Life of Gypsy Rose Lee. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Lee, Gypsy Rose. Gypsy: A Memoir. New York: Harper, 1957.

Preminger, Erik Lee. Gypsy and Me: At Home and on the Road. Boston: Little, Brown, 1984.