giknis

The author of this book tried to strip away the myth and to find the facts of the life of Gypsy Rose Lee. This was no easy task since Gypsy has been known to say that she would never let facts stand in the way of a good story. This book covers her entire life as well as the Minsky brothers (of Minsky's Burlesque fame) but I found the author jumped around time far too much for my taste. One moment she is in 1965, then 1925, then 1948, then back to 1965. I found it very confusing and didn't really see the reason she did this. The items put together in the book didn't seem to me that they reveled anything more by being ordered this way. I was, however, amazed not by how many things were fictional in the musical Gypsy but by how many things were based in facts. Their act was called Dainty June and her Newsboy Songsters and they headlined the Orpheum Circuit - Mama Rose did indeed dream about a cow and they put her in the act and kept the cow head many years afterwards (but Gypsy was not part of the cow) - June did run off and get married with one of the chorus boys (but Gypsy had no interest in him - that was made up). If the author hadn't played with the chronology of the story so much I probably would have given this book a higher recommendation.

2022-11-14 16:21