& The Curtain Falls... Arthur Laurents

He meant a great deal to me, one of my favorite show biz creatures: cranky, candid, & curt. He was part of the team that created my favorite musical, writing the book of Gypsy, one of the best librettos ever. It has character; it has a flavor of the period of the various theater styles of the time, a feeling of being transported back to the world of second-rate vaudeville & burlesque. It's amazing that the script actually does that. It is a great, great vehicle for a certain kind of actress, who is bigger than the sum of her parts.

He was the screenwriter of my favorite Hollywood Romance- The Way We Were, based on his own novel, which was based on his own life,with his long time partner Tom Hatcher as the Robert Redford character & Barbra Streisand as a stand in for himself.

I made note on this little spot on the Internet of news that Streisand wished to play Rose & direct a new film version of Gypsy. This spring Arthur Laurents’s had conversation with the musical's lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, that convinced him there shouldn't be another Gypsy movie. Laurnets: "He said, 'What is the point of it?' & I said, 'They have this terrible version with Rosalind Russell wearing those black & white shoes.' & then Sondheim told me something that he got from the British… & it's wonderful. He said, 'You want a record because the theater is ephemeral. But it's wrong. The theater's greatest essence is that it is ephemeral. You don't need a record. The fact that it's ephemeral means you can have different productions, different Roses on into infinity. So I don't want it now. I don't want a definitive record. I want it to stay alive."

He was role model to me in so many ways, he planned ahead for his death, giving directions to his agent Jonathan Lomma that when he died that he wanted it noted: "he was predeceased by his partner, Tom Hatcher, with whom he had lived in happiness for more than 50 years.”

In his engaging memoir from 2000- Original Story By, he was straightforward about his liaisons with gentlemen, referring to his partners as “those unremembered hundreds.... I think that people who are healthy have good sex, with a lot of variety to it."

Tom Hatcher, a former actor & real estate developer, would be his partner for 52 years. Hatcher died in 2006.

Laurents: “Writers are ‘the chosen people’ & I have been the happiest when sitting alone & putting my daydreams & fantasies down on paper.”

Laurents: "Gypsy is about the need for recognition. ... a need everyone has in one way or another."

I found him to be attractive, especially in his younger years, a small, compact man, like a cross between a Roman emperor on a coin & a hot gym teacher, difficult, diffident & Jewish… all plusses in my book.

Laurents:" They say I'm mean. They say this for 2 reasons. I I think too fast & I talk as fast as I think, & I'm often acerbic. But I say mean things as a defense. People who get their feelings hurt don't realize I have a very developed set of defenses. But also I will not suffer fools & amateurs. What that has cost me is a ... reputation. So?"

For more about his life, see my post on his birthday here.

He left this existence today at 93 years of age. He was still working up until March 2011.Mr. Laurents, I hope to see you at the big curtain call some day.

& If It Wasn't For Me, Than Where Would You Be, Miss Gypsy Rose Lee?

Some readers understand that Gypsy! is my favorite musical. I consider it a near perfect piece of theatre. I have it on good authority, because I am well connected in Hollywood, Barbra Streisand is to produce, direct & star in a new movie version of ths classic show. It has been filmed once before, with Rosalind Russell as an effective, but the softest of Mama Roses. I am not sure how I feel about Streisand (Tom Hanks is attached to the project as Herbie, a role I was made to play). I admire Streisand’s talent as a director, but I am afraid that she is a tiny bit long in the tooth for a character that starts the show in her late 30s. Still, Babs doing Rose’s Turn does intrigue me. If this project is a go, I would like to suggest Glee’s Lea Michele as Louise.

Burlesque star, actress & writer Gypsy Rose Lee was born 100 years ago today. Dismissed as "untalented" by her own mother, she remains a source of inspiration 4 decades after her death.

Rose Louise Hovick was born in Seattle to a teenage mother right out of the convent. Louise got an early start in show business, appearing with her little sister June as vaudeville act. It was apparent that “Baby June” was the more talented one the siblings. From an early age, Louise was pushed to the background while June was moved to the spotlight.

The family relocated to Hollywood & the act was renamed “Dainty June, the Hollywood Baby, & Her Newsboys.” Rose’s overbearing determination to see her young daughters have successful stage careers soon led to a divorce from her husband.

In their teenage years, Louise & June had the responsibility of supporting the family. They traveled the country, playing cheap vaudeville theatres, living out of suitcases & skipping school completly. But when June was 13, she eloped with fellow vaudevillian Bobby Reed. The sister act was finished.

Louise was unable to sustain the act on her own. Aged 17, stranded in Kansas City without a booking, she was approached by an agent about appearing in a burlesque show when the usual stripper had landed in prison. Despite her mother’s objections, Louise took the job & was reinvented as Gypsy Rose Lee.

Gypsy Rose Lee made her NYC debut in 1931, at Minsky’s famous The Republic Theatre, the first burlesque house on Broadway. Comedians Abbott & Costello, Phil Silvers, & Red Buttons were on the bill, but the striptease artists were the stars. At height of the Depression, a stripper could make $2,000 a week. Gypsy Rose Lee would play 12 weeks straight at The Republic, setting a record for the theatre. She arrested during one of the many police raids on Minsky’s theatres & this only helped her climb in popularity.



Gypsy Rose Lee didn’t adopt the usual bumps, grinds, & gyrations of burlesque routines. She developed a slow strip which she accompanied with a smart patter song. Her patter was her biggest asset; in those days, women made up nearly half of the typical striptease audience, & she became famous for he onstage wit & sophistication.

When she turned of 33, Gypsy Rose Lee decided to have a child . She told June that she wanted to select: "the toughest, meanest son of a bitch that I can find, somebody who's ruthless, & my child will rule the world." She chose the great Hollywood film director Otto Preminger & slept with him exactly once. When he was 18, her son Erik demanded to know why she wouldn't tell him who his father was, Her retort: "Because it's none of your business."

Gypsy Rose Lee's autobiography, & the stage musical & the film based on it, made the mother even more notorious than the daughter. Her 1957 memoir was a bestseller, but could have sold far more copies had she told the real truth about herself & her mother. Rose shadowed her daughters for decades, insisting on money & credit for their fame long after it was due. June herself not only starred in the premiere of Pal Joey but wrote 2 memoirs that traced her career as a fine actress & stage director; she is still living (I am leaving my original post, but smart readers have pointed out that the talented June Havoc passed away last March. My bad.).

Gypsy! was a horror show dressed up as a show biz story, & Rose Hovick was the monster. The play & the memoir were, like everything else having to do with that family, highly fictionalized: it turns out that Rose, the original stage mother, was even worse in real life. She was guilty of at least 2 murders, & possibly a 3rd.

The essence of Gypsy! Is basically true: Rose's voracious, almost inhuman ambition, the early fame of Gypsy's younger sister, who could toe-dance at the age of 2 as "Baby June" on the vaudeville circuit & the desperation that set in when radio, movies & the Depression made vaudeville extinct. June really did elope with one of the act's chorus boys & things got worse. Louise could not sing, dance or act, but she was willing to take her clothes off on stage to put food in their mouths, & shrewd theater operators soon recognized that the way she did it was something special.

After one of her many arrests, Gypsy Rose Lees stated: "I was completely covered… in a blue spotlight". Her talent for publicity soon made her a household name. The more famous & adored she became, the fewer garments she had to take off.

Through the decades, Gypsy Rose Lee & June fought, then reconciled, with June helping to nurse Gypsy through her final battle with lung cancer in 1970. But as Gypsy lay dying, she whispered to her son Erik: "After I go, don't let June in the house. She'll rob you blind."

I can’t wait to read the recently released American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare... The Life & Times Of Gypsy Rose Lee by Karen Abbott. It has garnered very positive reviews.



Tony winner Laura Benanti in the Gypsy! on Broadway with Patti Lupone.