A Quote by Karen Abbott

I think Gypsy [Rose Lee] would be appalled at today's rawer, more blatant displays of the female form. She was, in her own way, a prude.

Karen Abbott

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Appalled Blatant Female Female Form Form Gypsy Her Lee More Own Rose She Think Today Way Would Would Be

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Karen Abbott
American - Author
Born: January 23, 1973

When Gypsy was older, after she became Gypsy Rose Lee, I think she was both proud and slightly ashamed of her Seattle roots. She worked very hard to rid her voice of any trace of a local accent, cultivating an affected way of speaking that sounded as if she pinned the ends of her words.

Karen Abbott

The cousin said that Gypsy [Rose Lee] took a full fifteen minutes to peel off a single glove, and that she was so damn good at it he gladly would've given her fifteen more. So this story got me thinking, who was Gypsy Rose Lee? Who could possibly take the simple act of peeling off a glove and make it so riveting that one might be compelled to watch this for a full half-hour? So I began researching, and I came across a series of articles from the year 1940 about Gypsy in Life magazine.

Karen Abbott

Her sister [June Havoc] said the musical portrayed who Gypsy [Rose Lee] wanted to be before the burlesque thing happened she wanted to be this beautiful, romantic person with dreams. So Gypsy told the story of her life as she wished she'd lived it: embellishing, softening the edges, eliminating certain things altogether.

Karen Abbott

Gypsy [Rose Lee ] was a masterful storyteller, and her memoir and by extension, the musical weren't only Gypsy's monument; they were also her chance for monumental revisionism.

Karen Abbott

I greatly admired Gypsy [Rose Lee] for being able to rise above her circumstances; I was terrified of her; I thought she was generous; I thought she was brilliant; I thought she was cruel.

Karen Abbott

She once said, 'I'm really a little prudish, which people may think incongruous'. I take a prudish point of view on certain films, books, and trends. Then, I pull myself up short and ask myself how Gypsy Rose Lee could possibly be this way.I thought that quote was so telling, a key insight into the way she so carefully separated who she was from her meticulous creation.

Karen Abbott

I felt differently about her [Gypsy Rose Lee] during every phase of the research and writing process. Often, I felt incredibly sorry for her; she had an extremely difficult childhood and a complicated 'to say the least' relationship with her family, her mother especially.

Karen Abbott

It was a great challenge to reconstruct Gypsy Rose Lee life, and my interviews with her sister [June Havoc] proved invaluable. It's not often that writers have access to living primary source material; this was the only person who experienced life on the vaudeville circuit with Gypsy during the 1920s, and who saw her perform at Minsky's Burlesque in the 1930s. She knew things that no one else could ever possibly know.

Karen Abbott

You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

One of my favorite people is Gypsy Rose Lee. She bears out the Biblical promise that he who has, gets. And I hope she gets a lot more.

Hedy Lamarr

I thought both she [Gypsy Rose Lee] and her story would be ill-served by a conventional, birth-to-death narrative, and so I structured the book like one of her stripteases: revealing a peek of shoulder, then a glimpse of knee, pulling back a bit before you go a bit further, until all is revealed at the end.

Karen Abbott

In Gypsy [Rose Lee] the musical, her mother, 'Mama Rose', is portrayed as a slightly eccentric, pushy, ambitious stage mother, but that version doesn't come close to the truth.

Karen Abbott

Gypsy [Rose Lee] is as unique as she is timeless. Her story is classic Americana, and the strangest rags-to-riches saga you'll ever read; I like to call it Horatio Alger meets Tim Burton.

Karen Abbott

She [Gypsy Rose Lee] was a sophisticated self-satirist with a contagious delight in the comedy of sex. She was coy; she was sly; she always had a witty quip; she had an intensely dramatic presence.

Karen Abbott

One of the biggest questions to me was whether or not Gypsy the person was capable of loving anyone or anything beyond Gypsy Rose Lee the creation, and even that was a conflicted, tortured relationship.

Karen Abbott

Gypsy [Rose Lee] wasn't a linear person, and she didn't live life in a linear fashion. She was relentlessly self-inventing, and moved backward as often as she moved forward.

Karen Abbott

A Quote by Karen Abbott

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