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Ron Briley: Review of Noralee Frankel's Stripping Gypsy: The Life of Gypsy Rose Lee (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

The entertainment biography genre is often neither entertaining nor particularly informative. Rather than scholarly endeavors which attempt to place their subject within historical and cultural context, entertainment biographies, basing much of their research upon less than reliable interviews, tend to perpetuate gossip which may titillate readers while revealing little of significance. But the possibilities of the more academic entertainment biography are evident in the fine study of famed stripper Gypsy Rose Lee written by Noralee Frankel, a scholar of African-American and women's history who serves as assistant director for women, minorities, and teaching at the American Historical Association. Employing the Gypsy Rose Lee Papers deposited with the New York Public Library, along with a comprehensive reading of periodical and secondary literature, Frankel paints a complex portrait of a woman who was a stripper, writer, actress, talk show host, and patron of the arts; all the while raising important questions regarding gender and class in twentieth-century America.

Frankel cautions her readers to view the 1959 musical Gypsy, based upon Lee's 1957 best-selling memoir, with some skepticism, maintaining that the author often presents a more positive account of her mother Rose than was the actual case. Perhaps the reality of Gypsy's early years would not have provided the basis for a sentimental musical and film, which celebrates a mother's sacrifices for the stage careers of her children. In Frankel's biography, Rose was more an albatross for her daughters Gypsy and June; initially belittling Gypsy's talent and then seeking to exploit the financial success enjoyed by her older daughter. Thus, Rose emerges in Frankel's book as a mentally imbalanced mother who may have loved her children but could not overcome her self absorption and efforts to control her offspring. Unfortunately, Gypsy incorporated many of her mother's worse characteristics into the relationships with her son and three husbands.

Gypsy Rose Lee was born Rose Louise Hovick on 9 January 1914 in Seattle, Washington. Her parents divorced when she was four years old, and her mother pushed Gypsy and her sister June into vaudeville. Ever the classic stage mother, Rose focused her attention upon the singing and dancing of June, who eventually rebelled against her mother by marrying and leaving the act. The mother then shifted her focus to Rose Louise, who assumed the stage name of Gypsy Rose Lee.

While constantly fighting with her mother, Gypsy began a lucrative career in burlesque during the 1930s, performing in New York City at Minsky's and touring with the Ziegfield Follies. Frankel describes Gypsy as a stripper who attempted to titillate her admirers with her wit as much as with her sexuality. Gypsy conversed with audiences as she removed her clothing, often discussing such topics as literature and art while exhibiting her fine sense of timing for comedy. The striptease artist also refused to appear in the nude, revealing far less skin than most strippers. Awkward and demeaned as a child, sexual empowerment, Frankel argues, ñallowed Gypsy to both move outside of herself and dominate the scene. The audience's passivity contrasted with the entertainer's assertiveness. Gypsy manipulated the audience to produce the response she desiredî (18).

Although burlesque proved financially lucrative for Gypsy, she was ambivalent regarding the accolades she received for removing her clothes. Seeing to earn respect as an actress, in 1938 she left New York City for Hollywood. Her reputation as a stripper haunted Gypsy's film career as the Hays Office, overseeing the industry's production code, insisted that Gypsy appear as Louise Hovick. Twentieth-Century Fox also decreed that Gypsy marry boyfriend Arnold R. Mizzy, a dental supply manufacturer. The marriage failed after four years as the entertainer refused to surrender her career. After a series of films in which Gypsy's sexuality and potential as a performer were squandered in low budget pictures, she returned to New York City where she was able to reassert some control over her life.

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia closed New York City burlesque, but Gypsy was able to reconstitute her act on Broadway in Star and Garter. Often embarrassed about her lack of formal education, Gypsy was an avid reader who enjoyed the New York City intellectual and art scene. She also harbored aspirations as a writer. In addition to writing pieces for the New Yorker and American Mercury, Gypsy completed a mystery novel, The G-String Murders (1941), which became a best seller and was made into a film. Her second novel, Mother Finds a Body (1942), was less well received, while her play The Naked Genius (1943) fared poorly at the box office and with critics.

During the Second World War, Gypsy lent her talents to war bond efforts and entertaining the troops in the struggle against fascism. One of the major contributions of Frankel's biography is the attention she devotes to Gypsy's political views. During the 1930s and 1940s, Gypsy, along with her friend Fanny Brice, supported numerous progressive causes such as aid to Loyalist Spain. Gypsy was also active as a union leader with the American Guild of Variety Artists, advocating for actors' unemployment benefits as well as equal treatment for black performers. Frankel argues that later efforts to blacklist Gypsy as a communist sympathizer were likely a result of her union activities.

While continuing to extend the parameters of her career, Gypsy struggled with her personal relationships. She was in love with producer Michael Todd, and Frankel suggests that her short marriage to actor William Kirkland from 1942-1944 was a failed attempt to convince Todd that he should desert his wife for Gypsy. Although it was assumed that Kirkland was the father of Gypsy's son Eric, the child was actually the product of an affair between Gypsy and film director Otto Preminger. Gypsy proved to be a loving but controlling single parent much like her own mother, and she failed to inform Eric as to the true identity of his father until the confused young man was in high school. In 1948, Gypsy married Spanish artist Julio de Diego, but this final marriage was also terminated by divorce. While Gypsy sought to maintain traditional conceptions of motherhood during the 1950s, she was, in the final analysis, insistent upon retaining her career and independence.

Her post war forays into radio and television were blocked when the red-baiting publication Red Channels listed Gypsy as supportive of communist front organizations. The accusations led to the blacklisting of Gypsy, and she once against found employment in stripping, but this time in Europe. Gypsy professed her patriotism and denounced communism, finally returning to the Untied States in the late 1950s and appearing in stage plays and occasional films. Frankel suggests that in order to gain acceptance within the more conservative post World War II consensus, Gypsy downplayed her progressive politics of the New Deal era.

She gained acceptance and notoriety for her autobiography and the musical Gypsy, moving from New York City to California, where she hosted a popular television talk show in San Francisco. The show was cancelled in 1968, and two years later Gypsy died from lung cancer. Frankel presents Gypsy as an independent woman, much like Madonna, who sought to foster and manipulate her sexuality for financial gain. Nevertheless, she was also ill at ease with her reputation as a sex symbol, struggling to gain respectability as a writer and sophisticated collector of art and antiques. Born into poverty, Gypsy was always concerned with financial security, and she found herself returning to the stage as a stripper. She was even willing to distance herself from her progressive politics in order to avoid the blacklist. Gypsy secured a degree of prosperity and respectability, but she never seemed to find real personal happiness. Her independence and sexuality challenged conventional gender roles, but despite her best efforts to create some distance from her humble origins, Gypsy was never really able to shed the psychologically damaging influences of her mother. Noralee Frankel has crafted a fine scholarly entertainment biography which should serve as a model for historians. Stripping Gypsy removes the hyperbole surrounding the renowned stripper and unveils the struggles of this intelligent and ambitious woman to push the boundaries of gender and class in twentieth-century America.

Posted on Saturday, August 15, 2009 at 6:35 PM | Comments (1) | Return

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