Gypsy Rose Lee
Gypsy Rose Lee is one of the most famous burlesque performers in the history of burlesque. Born Rose Louise Hovick in Seattle, Washington, in 1914, she was the first born of two daughters to Rose and John Hovick. Her father left when the daughters were very young. Mother Rose put the girls to work and Rose and sister Ellen June Hovick performed vaudeville to earn money. Rose's sister, who went by her middle name June, eloped with one of their fellow vaudeville performers, Bobby Reed. Rose's mother was not pleased with Bobby, perhaps because he was much older than June, and had him arrested and even tried to shoot him but he survived because the safety was on. Despite her mother's obvious objections to Bobby, June gave birth to a daughter, April Reed, and stopped performing vaudeville with Rose in 1930.Left on her own to perform, Rose struggled to live up to her sister's singing and dancing skills. Rose's mother pushed her to continue to perform to earn money for the two of them, although vaudeville was on its way out. Then Rose discovered her incredible talent for burlesque. She had a different, smoother style than the other burlesque performers and she included humor in her act and she talked to the audience, which was not done before. Her talent quickly made her the star of Minksky's Burlesque, where she performed for four years.
Gypsy tried her hand at screen acting and she even co-authored a book called The G-String Murders. She bounced from Hollywood to New York, also going through a series of love affairs and husbands, and gave birth to a son.
When her mother died, Gypsy wrote her memories in an autobiography, titled Gypsy, where she exposed her mother's lifelong tyranny over her and her sister. Her autobiography became a best seller in 1957 and later became a smash hit Broadway show starring Ethel Merman which made Gypsy a living legend.
In 1965, over a decade after she quit stripping, Gypsy got her own television show based in San Francisco, CA, The Gypsy Rose Lee Show. In 1966 she was one of the performers on the Pruitts of Southampton starring Phyllis Diller and in 1967 she appeared on Batman.
Gypsy was diagnosed with lung cancer (due to smoking) in 1969 and she died in Los Angeles at age 54.
