Dear Constant Reader,
My apologies, this goes out a day late, but your faithful correspondent was at the dentist yesterday and her entire schedule went keflewie (that’s a technical term) as a result.
A very happy 102* to the greatest Lady of Burlesque, Gypsy Rose Lee!
For your pleasure, here’s a little picture of Gypsy:
This is the program from her 1949 tour, from The Boston Babydoll Collection. And here’s a photo of her autographing one of those very same programs!
And just for fun, here’s Devora Darling, all dressed up for her Gypsy tribute act, “A Stripteaser’s Education” during the Madame Burlesque tour and the photo that inspired the costume.**
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For more Gypsy goodness, you could read her famous memoir, Gypsy: Memoirs of America’s Most Celebrated Stripper, her novels, The G-String Murders and Mother Finds a Body, or listen to her on the albums Gypsy Rose Lee Remembers Burlesque and That’s Me All Over. Not to mention all the movies inspired by her writings: Gypsy, Lady of Burlesque, and Doll Face.
There’s also her son’s memoir Gypsy and Me: At Home and on the Road With Gypsy Rose Lee (also called My G-String Mother: At Home and Backstage with Gypsy Rose Lee).
And then there is a plethora of other books about her: American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose, Stripping Gypsy: The Life of Gypsy Rose Lee, Gypsy: The Art of the Tease, and Lady of Burlesque: The Career of Gypsy Rose Lee.
Not bad for someone who described herself as “no talent”!
*Probably. Her mother had a fluid relationship with the truth and thought nothing of forging birth certificates to raise or lower her daughters’ ages when the situation arose.
**That’s not actually Gypsy; it’s Burgundy Brixx as Gypsy. Our costumer didn’t look too closely…
Oh, The Glamourous Life! 
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