American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee (Book)

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American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

Author: Karen Abbott

In her new book, “American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare, The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee” (Random House, 448 pp., $26), journalist Karen Abbott has written a thrilling history of America’s last and best burlesque star, whose career went from the Jazz Age through the Depression and into the prosperity of postwar America.

Born in 1911, Louise Hovick was an awkward vaudeville kiddie performer, overshadowed by her talented sister June and her stage-mother-from-hell Mama Rose, who may have murdered two people. At 18, faced with destitution, Louise remade herself into Gypsy Rose Lee, star of Broadway burlesque. Gypsy became one of America’s most famous celebrities, a public figure whom no one really knew, consorting with mobsters and politicians. In a meticulously researched book, Abbott takes readers on a wild ride through the middle American roadhouses to Broadway and Beverly Hills, digging through the complicated, dark and triumphant life of Gypsy Rose Lee.

Product Code: AMEDPBLY26