Overview

"Whenever stripper Gypsy Rose Lee encountered public criticism, she spoke frankly in her own defense. ""Thousands have seen me at my--ah--best; and thousands have made no objections.""Noralee Frankel's lively biography, Stripping Gypsy, the first ever published about the highly mythologized Gypsy, examines the struggles Lee faced in making a lucrative and unconventional career for herself while maintaining a sense of dignity and social value. Frankel shows that the famous Miss Lee was an enigma, clearly struggling with her choices and her desire to be respected and legitimized. Those who know Gypsy Rose Lee only from the musical and film based on her rise to stardom will be surprised by what they uncover in Stripping Gypsy. In all ways, Lee trafficked in the incongruous: she was at once sex object, intellectual, and activist. In addition to her highly successful strip-tease act and film career, she published two mystery novels and a memoir, wrote two plays, and showed her original artwork in famed Modern Art-impresario Peggy Guggenheim's gallery. Lee also gained notoriety for her participation in liberal politics. As photographer Arnold Newman said, ""She was a lady, a brilliant, bright woman who was the friend of many writers and intellectuals."" Though she wasn't above using her femininity to full advantage, Lee aspired to much more than admiration for her physical beauty.Frankel places Lee's life in social and political context while detailing a fascinating entertainment career, in which Lee created and recreated her own identity to fit changing times. Frankel's biography transcends the sensationalism of stripping and asks the public to see the woman beneath the costume, a woman who always kept a little of herself shrouded in mystery."

Full Product Details

Author:   Noralee Frankel
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 15.80cm , Height: 2.20cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.490kg
ISBN:  

9780199754335

ISBN 10:   0199754330
Pages:   320
Publication Date:   03 March 2011
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

Preface: Stripping Gypsy 1. Getting Started 2. The Burlesque Stage 3. Sophisticated Stripper 4. Follies with Girlfriends 5. To Hell With Louise Hovick 6. Failure as a Dutiful Wife 7. Death, Dies, and Mother 8. Finding the Body 9. Cultured Stripper 10. World Fair's Stripper 11. The Naked Genius 12. Stripping for Labor and the War Effort 13. Motherhood 14. On the Carnival Circuit 15. Nothing to Conceal 16. Strip Around the World 17. Back Home 18. Immortality in Book and Song 19. The Most Famous Former Stripper in the World 20. Aging Gracefully in Public Notes Bibliography Acknowledgements Index

Reviews

<br> It is simply impossible to read [this] book and not fall in love with Gypsy's tenacity, wit and confounding, beguiling, oh-so-American mix of self-mythology and self-awareness. -- Washington Post <br><br> The first truly scholarly biography of Gypsy Rose Lee. And in the same way that much of today's neo-burlesque phenomenon is fueled by feminist underpinnings, so too does Frankel, in this exhaustively researched work, reveal the forward-thinking politics of this burlesque pioneer. -- Bust Magazine <br><br> Frankel has done a commendable job sorting through the myths, embellishments, and falsehoods that Lee and the show-business publicity mill spread throughout the years. Her book reveals Lee's significance to the history of popular culture...She does an excellent job of situating Lee within the culture of show business in the 1930s and 1940s. -- Reviews in American History <br><br>

full of fascinating details Rochdale Observer ...careful and candid...Frankel's critical distance does nothing to detract from just how extraordinary Louise Hovick - the name Gypsy was born with - really was. From her beginnings in burlesque in the 1930s to her death in 1970 when she had become a brand as well as a legend, Gypsy received more media coverage than almost any other woman. -Times Literary Supplement

Author Information

Noralee Frankel is the Assistant Director, Women, Minorities, and Teaching at the American Historical Association. Her books include Freedom's Women: Black Women and Families in Civil War Era Mississippi and Break Those Chains at Last: African Americans, 1860-1880 (OUP, 1996). She lives in the Washington, D.C, area.

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