by Karen Abbott
24 “early-bird acts”: June Havoc, interview with Laura Jacobs, 2002.
25 “Am I keeping the right rhythm”: Goldwyn, 243.
26 “shocking” displays: Gypsy Rose Lee scrapbooks, 1930, Reel 1, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
27 immoral “parties”: Ibid.
28 “as big as a horse”: Lee, Gypsy, 202.
29 “Close the flap”: Ibid., 219.
30 she had murdered a cow: Author’s interview with Erik Preminger, November 2009. Specifically, Preminger said, “This is more my guess” as to what really happened.
31 The cops threw Gladys in jail: Lee, Gypsy, 225. A May 12, 1930, article in Zit’s Weekly claimed that Gladys was sick.
32 “When Miss Clark is showing”: Shteir, Striptease, 113.
33 “There isn’t any show”: Lee, Gypsy, 225.
34 “I was a star”: Ibid., 226.
35 “I have,” Gypsy claimed: “Gypsy Rose Lee: Dowager Stripper,” Look, February 22, 1966.
36 a pseudonym to trick Grandpa: Lee, Gypsy, 227.
37 when she wore a bandanna: Gypsy Rose Lee scrapbooks, Reel 2, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
38 “lush, exotic beauty”: John Richmond, “Gypsy Rose Lee, Striptease Intellectual.”
39 her ability to read tea leaves: Richard E. Lauterbach, “Gypsy Rose Lee: She Combines a Public Body with a Private Mind,” Life, December 14, 1942.
40 “Now stand up and show them”: Lee, Gypsy, 230.
41 “They would always be so embarrassed”: Frankel, 19.
42 “Well,” she said: Daily News (New York), September 15, 1936.
43 “She was never an ingenue”: June Havoc, interview with Laura Jacobs, 2002.
44 “There is a year my mother”: Author’s interview with Erik Preminger, November 2009.
45 “Well, don’t stay”: June Havoc, interview with Laura Jacobs, 2002.
46 “Would you like a cup”: Ibid.
47 My god, she thought: Ibid.
48 “I couldn’t stand it”: Ibid.
49 Mother dropped a coat: Havoc, More Havoc, 157.
50 a vegetable “essence”: Lauterbach, “Gypsy Rose Lee: She Combines.”
51 “You should have told me”: Lee, Gypsy, 240.
52 “gave him a lesson”: Gypsy Rose Lee scrapbooks, 1930, Reel 1, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
53 “You’d ought to read”: Ibid.
54 helped themselves to June’s history: Author’s interview with Tana Sibilio, January 2010.
55 “No filth”: Zit’s Weekly, March 23, 1931.
56 “brunette of unusual face and form”: Ibid.
57 “daytime person living in”: “Gypsy Rose Lee: Dowager Stripper,” Look, February 22, 1966.
58 “Darling! Sweetheart!”: Davis, “The Dark Young Pet of Burlesque.”
CHAPTER 25: NEW YORK CITY, 1930–1931
1 “You can become a winner”: Quoted in Petras and Petras, 287.
2 The founder of a coal firm: The New York Times, October 30, 1929.
3 The president of the Rochester Gas: The New York Times, November 14, 1929.
4 The head of a major brokerage firm: The New York Times, November 24, 1929.
5 A man slit the throats: The New York Times, December 17, 1929.
6 The owner of a wholesale produce firm: The New York Times, November 17, 1929.
7 A Scranton man doused himself: The New York Times, November 18, 1929.
8 In the Bronx: The New York Times, December 12, 1929.
9 “improper schemes”: The New York Times, October 26, 1929.
10 “that will reinstate courage”: The New York Times, October 30, 1929.
11 More than four hundred leaders: The New York Times, December 6, 1929.
12 “work”: Ibid.
13 “where all that money”: The New York Times, October 28, 1929
14 A sixteen-year-old messenger boy: The New York Times, Nov. 17, 1929.
15 $5.50 for legitimate theater: Minsky and Machlin, 94.
16 The number of productions declined: Atkinson, 286.
17 “By 1930”: Shteir, Striptease, 134.
18 Built in 1900: The New York Times, January 29, 1931.
19 By the time the show closed: The New York Times, October 22, 1927.
20 shot in the groin: Mitgang, Once Upon a Time, 10.
21 “Who shot you?”: Ibid., 12.
22 “Arnold Rothstein has just been shot”: Ibid., 2.
23 for twenty long years: The New York Times, January 29, 1931.
24 “Three years it took me”: Lee, Gypsy, 257.
25 “Remote Control Girl”: Corio, 74.
26 “She has trained”: Ibid.
27 horizontal coochers: Shteir, Striptease, 137.
28 “The only trouble”: de Camp, 119.
29 “In the unnatural blaze of lights”: Kazin, 87–88.
30 “dazzling and superabundant”; “Minsky-ized”: The New York Times, September 13, 1933.
31 The producer came at him: Minsky and Machlin, 101.
32 “bump so vigorously”: Zeidman, 156.
33 “strips like she just had dynamite”: Mitchell, 57.
34 If she took too long: Sothern, 19.
CHAPTER 26: ENGLAND, 1952
1 “Once I chided her”: Murray, n.p.
2 a “big lesbo”: June Havoc to Gypsy Rose Lee, undated, Series I, Box 2, Folder 12, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
3 “I hate like hell”: Ibid.
4 “I’d like you even if”: June Havoc, interview with Laura Jacobs, 2002.
5 Christopher Walken: Author’s interview with Erik Preminger, November 2009.
6 Erik swallowed: Author’s interview with Rosemary “Dardy” Minsky, a former wife of Harold Minsky (the son of Abe Minsky) and sister of the famous burlesque star Lili St. Cyr.
7 “I’m a woman alone”: Preminger, 45.
8 “liberating”: Ibid., 138.
9 “Honey, I wasn’t even born”: Ibid., 50.
10 someone hurls a rock: Series II, Box 10, Folder 3, diary entry for August 13, 1952, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
11 “Rehearsal in three languages”: Ibid., entry for April 30, 1952.
12 “Have decided”: Ibid., entry for May 17, 1952.
13 “A stripteaser,” she says: Corpus Christi Times, August 1, 1952.
14 “Dear June”: Gypsy Rose Lee to June Havoc, undated, Series I, Box 2, Folder 12, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD. I got the 1952 date from the prologue to More Havoc.
CHAPTER 27: NEW YORK CITY, 1931–1932
1 “It was all too discouraging”: Frankel, ix.
2 “singing beggar” of Broadway: The New York Times, August 15, 1931.
3 coated in citronella: The New York Times, February 15, 2004.
4 “Hooverville”: The New York Times, August 29, 1993.
5 “He wants us!”: Lee, Gypsy, 249.
6 inventor of modern burlesque: Minsky and Machlin, 126.
7 “How old are you?”: Lee, Gypsy, 251.
8 “Wear your hair like that”: Ibid., 252.
9 Every day she rehearsed: Video footage of Gypsy practicing on the roof of the Republic, 1931, courtesy of Erik Preminger. The clip is silent, but you can see Gypsy mouthing the words. View it online at www.KarenAbbott.net.
10 “Come in and see her”: Havoc, More Havoc, 17.
11 process of her own invention: Erik Preminger, interview with Laura Jacobs, 2002.
12 “Breasts more like molehills”: Minsky and Machlin, 111.
13 “This is the only place left”: Havoc, Early Havoc, 253.
14 “Louise wasn’t a woman yet”: Ibid., 255.
15 “cowboy production number”: Lee, Gypsy, 252.
16 the Poet and Peasant Overture: Havoc, Early Havoc, 258.
17 “And now, ladies and gentlemen”: Havoc, More Havoc, 257.
18 “And suddenly”: Laura Jacobs, “Taking It All Off,” Vanity Fair, March 2003.
19 “Seven minutes of sheer art”: Minsky and Machlin, 98;
John Richmond, “Gypsy Rose Lee, Striptease Intellectual,” American Mercury, 1941.
20 “Gypsy Lee was a riot”: Zit’s Weekly, April 25, 1931.
21 “fan trouble”: New York Evening Graphic, May 6, 1937, Gypsy Rose Lee scrapbooks, Reel 1, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
22 “indecent performance”: The New York Times, April 11, 1931.
23 “I wasn’t naked”: Minsky and Machlin, 144.
24 “Help!” she cried: Maeder (ed.), 78.
25 “My baby,” Rose insisted: Minsky and Machlin, 144.
26 postraid fan mail: Series I, Box 7, Folder 1, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
27 $900 salary: George Davis, “The Dark Young Pet of Burlesque,” Vanity Fair, February 1936.
28 she stuffed the squares of paper: Shteir, Gypsy, 160.
29 Cameo Apartments: Lee, Gypsy, 254.
30 “I wish she was in”: Havoc, Early Havoc, 257.
31 “You know,” she told Gypsy: Lee, Gypsy, 257.
32 “Gypsy could really”: Minsky and Machlin, 142
33 “I’m not giving anything away”: Havoc, More Havoc, 160.
34 she accidentally spilled her lines: Richmond, “Gypsy Rose Lee, Striptease Intellectual.”
35 No one could afford: Frederick Lewis Allen, 107.
36 seven out of ten: Ibid.
37 “feminine hygiene” and “marriage hygiene”: Tone, 160.
38 a 14-karat gold button: Story from June Havoc, as told to Tana Sibilio.
39 Gypsy made one enemy: Briggeman, 41.
40 “Fourteen?”: Minsky and Machlin, 123.
41 “I’ll put this in the file”: Ibid.
42 “like an animal”: Sothern, 133.
43 “Gypsy had a style”: Ibid., 131.
44 “Lew Costello”: Minsky and Machlin, from an image of a Minsky program.
45 he yelled “Minsky!”: Lee, Gypsy, 256.
46 “No actor should join”: Shteir, Gypsy, 159.
47 “It takes time to be bad”: Lee, Gypsy, 256.
48 “Seven days a week”: Shteir, Gypsy, 159–160.
49 “all those down-and-outers”: Minsky and Machlin, 99.
50 the largest investigation: Mitgang, Once Upon a Time, 98.
51 “When you’re in politics”: Edward Jean Smith, 225.
52 “by virtue of the Constitution”: Mitgang, The Man Who Rode the Tiger, 170.
53 first few notes of “Ave Maria”: Havoc, More Havoc, 64.
54 It cost $8,888: Lee, Gypsy, 266.
55 at the “funny parts”: Havoc, More Havoc, 268.
56 Gypsy lost her virginity: Author’s interview with June Havoc, June 2008.
57 “I’m going to have to rape”: Havoc, More Havoc, 62.
58 “She had to get rid”: Author’s interview with June Havoc, June 2008.
59 “I would like to kiss you”: Telegram from Rags Ragland to Gypsy Rose Lee, undated, Series I, Box 7, Folder 2, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
60 Waxey Gordon was forty-three: Downey, 99.
61 an estimated 32,000 speakeasies: The New York Times, November 5, 1933.
62 At the height of Rothstein’s operation: Lerner, 261.
63 the Bahamas’ export of whiskey: Ibid.
64 New York City had its share: Lerner, 259–260.
65 a 6,000-foot beer pipeline: The New York Times, October 17, 1930.
66 “in the know”: Lerner, 134.
67 “freedom of the seas”: Frederick Lewis Allen, 25.
68 a five-year-old boy was killed: The New York Times, July 30, 1931.
69 just $10.76 in taxes: The New York Times, April 28, 1933.
70 “Compliments of Mr. W.”: Lee, Gypsy, 262.
71 “Thank you for the champagne”: Ibid., 263.
72 “No names”: Ibid.
73 “Gyps,” she whispered: Preminger, 74.
74 “I don’t understand this”: Lee, Gypsy, 263.
75 “brushed good”: Ibid., 269.
76 “You can fuck or suck”: Author’s interview with Arthur Laurents, October 2008.
77 “She was very involved”: Author’s interview with June Havoc, June 2008.
78 3,600 hours on her feet: June Havoc, interview with George Bettinger, 1997.
79 “Plenty of popcorn, dear”: Havoc, More Havoc, 68.
80 “Let go of me, June”: Ibid., 61.
81 “And this is my baby”: Ibid., 66.
82 “Gypsy assured us”: Minsky and Machlin, 142.
83 Gypsy held out: Author’s interview with June Havoc, June 2008.
84 “There are a lot of influential people”: Ibid.
85 “It was a society”: Ibid.
86 she didn’t really love her: Ibid.
CHAPTER 28: NEW YORK CITY, 1931–1932
1 “There are three things”: Mitgang, Once Upon a Time, 2.
2 “Where is the green room?”: Lee, Gypsy, 251.
3 “Remember now”: Ibid., 252.
4 “She had mastered the art”: Minsky and Machlin, 97.
5 For the first time in burlesque history: Barber, 340.
6 Miss Seattle: New York Evening Journal, March 28, 1931, Gypsy Rose Lee scrapbooks, Reel 1, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
7 “I stuck a pin into you”: James Thurber, “Robot,” The New Yorker, August 29, 1931.
8 “No religious act”: Lee, Gypsy, 254.
9 “had her idiosyncrasies”: Minsky and Machlin, 140.
10 “She used foul words”: Author’s interview with Dardy Minsky, October 2009.
11 A day riding the Ferris wheel: Author’s interview with Erik Preminger, November 2009.
12 “He could keep a hard-on”: Havoc, More Havoc, 220–221.
13 “She had a monkey”: Minsky and Machlin, 140.
14 More than eleven thousand: Ibid., 147.
15 the final night: The New York Times, September 19, 1931.
16 “Minsky American Wheel”: The New York Times, May 16, 1931.
17 To Whom It May Concern: Minsky and Machlin, 130.
18 “Minskyville”: Alva Johnston, “Tour of Minskyville,” The New Yorker, May 28, 1932.
19 “Lose a few hundred”: Ibid.
20 “I have never yet heard”: Walsh, 35.
21 “a reformer is a guy”: Walker, 224.
22 “Do you think anything’s broken?”: Minsky and Machlin, 131.
23 “Tweed Courthouse”: The New York Times, December 2, 2001.
24 Q: Where did you keep these moneys: Mitgang, Once Upon a Time, 107–109.
25 “Atta boy, Jimmy!”: Ibid., 147.
26 “Presumably by a goy”: Minsky and Machlin, 106–107.
27 Paget’s disease: Minsky, 131. I spoke with Charlene Waidman, executive director of the Paget and Bone and Cancer Foundations, who said that Billy Minsky’s diagnosis was “undoubtedly due to a wrong assumption” by his doctor. At the time of Billy’s death in 1932, little was known about Paget’s disease; it is not a fatal condition.
28 “Never work north of Fourteenth Street”: Minsky and Machlin, 132.
CHAPTER 29: NEW YORK CITY AND NYACK, NEW YORK, WINTER 1953–1954
1 “I am going to give”: Rose Thompson Hovick to Gypsy Rose Lee, August 23, 1945, Series I, Box 1, Folder 12, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
2 “Who is paying”: Havoc, More Havoc, 3–4.
3 “Closer, please”: Ibid., 4.
4 He’s been stealing money: Preminger, 187–190; Series II, Box 10, Folder 4, diary entry for June 25, 1953, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
5 “Is your mother home?”: Erik Preminger, interview with Laura Jacobs, 2002.
6 She opened her purse: Ibid.
7 “So very elegant”: Series II, Box 10, Folder 4, diary entry for November 8, 1953, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
8 “I hope this is”: Ibid., entry for November 23, 1953.
9 answering “Miss Lee’s Residence”: Author’s interview with Erik Preminger, November 2009.
10 “Mother died at 6:30”: Series II, Box 10, Folder 4
, entry for January 28, 1954, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
11 “I know about you”: Havoc, More Havoc, 275.
12 “You’ll fall”: Ibid.
13 “You’ll never forget”: Ibid., 276.
14 “This isn’t the end”: Ibid.
15 Gypsy and one of Rose’s neighbors: Details courtesy of researcher/writer Carolyn Quinn.
16 without any marker: Ibid.
CHAPTER 30: NEW YORK CITY, 1932–1936
1 “H. L. Mencken called me an ecdysiast”: Lee, Gypsy, 2.
2 “We take great pride”: Ibid., 296.
3 “childishly leering”: Shteir, Striptease, 88; Carl Van Vechten, “A Note on Tights,” American Mercury, July 1924.
4 “kimonophobe”: Kenneth Tynan, “Cornucopia,” The New Yorker, May 30, 1959.
5 “went for Miss Lee”: Russell Maloney, “Burlesk,” The New Yorker, June 8, 1935.
6 “How vital!”: Lee, Gypsy, 290.
7 “three stains bluer”: Kyle Crichton, “Strip for Fame: Miss Gypsy Rose Lee, in Person,” Collier’s, December 19, 1936.
8 La Traviata at the Met: The New York Times, December 17, 1935.
9 a humming effect: Author’s interview with D. A. Pennebaker, December 2008.
10 “Don’t ask questions”: Lee, Gypsy, 272.
11 “The moment I said it”: Ibid., 273.
12 “depressing times”: The New York Times, May 25, 1932.
13 “I don’t know myself”: Minsky and Machlin, 150.
14 “You were getting $60”: Crichton, “Strip for Fame.”
15 “It made me uncomfortable”: Preminger, 75.
16 “I guess I wasn’t used to”: Crichton, “Strip for Fame.”
17 when the show closed: The New York Times, April 18, 1933.
18 “burlesque moderne”: Boston Post, November 24, 1933, Gypsy Rose Lee scrapbooks, Reel 1, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
19 “limousine trade”: Boston Evening Transcript, December 1, 1933, Gypsy Rose Lee scrapbooks, Reel 1, Gypsy Rose Lee Papers, BRTD.
20 Gypsy would even wear: J. P. McEvoy, “More Tease than Strip,” Reader’s Digest, July 1941.
21 “Burlesque pays well”: New York World Telegram, June 11, 1934.
22 “Drive out the racketeers”: Brodsky, 342.
23 “stands in need of”: Mitgang, Once Upon a Time, 119.
24 “You let them shit”: Brodsky, 399.