Gypsy Rose Lee travels light in this undated photograph. Her birthdate is undated too! Her mother faked Rose's birthday on documents to avoid child labor laws. Such is the nature of true burlesque. One would think a woman synonymous with stripping would have learned to carry less clothes, but that's showbiz. The girls look more comfortable. Road warriors!
True Burlesque Mother Finds a Body by Gypsy Rose Leee. Not
too many celebrity authors will find their book is still in print 75
years after publication, but Gypsy Rose Lee's is…and it has a blurb from
The New Yorker which reads "Pure ozone to those tired of ordinary
oxygen." Not only that, unlike, oh…say media whore and best-selling
fake history writer Bill O'Reilly, she actually wrote it herself!
Mother Finds a Body was notable stripper Gypsy Rose Lee's second
murder mystery. The first publication was in 1942. It was first
anthologized in Triple Detective Magazine in the same year, from which
the lurid drawings and cover above come. It followed her first novel,
The G-String Murders which is probably better known, so I'm doing this
one. I think Gypsy did actually write the thing, as she was bright as a
burlesque spotlight beam and could type. I've seen the picture of her
typing and you can too!
Gypsy had a few names, as all
strippers do. Rose Louise Hovick or Ellen June Hovick depending on who
you believe. Another thing Gypsy did common to strippers was eloping at
age 15. I could almost save that phrase and cut and paste it into my
burlesque posts.
Gypsy's first successful dancing was
apparently "marathon" dances, which were common around the Depression.
The last couple standing wins the prize and a pair of exhausted feet.
The grueling contest prepared Gypsy for years of hoofing…nearly naked on
stage but standing tall.
Another notable thing Gypsy did was get pregnant from the film director
Otto Preminger, a filmmaker way before his time and one who challenged
convention often. The resulting spawn, her son Erik Lee Preminger,
untimely donated her papers to the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library, which apparently has the actual manuscript for this book. Preminger also wrote the introduction to the current edition HERE on Amazon.
Jim Linderman is author of ten art and photography books, you can browse them HERE
