Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

Tonight the NYPL will be celeberating the 100th birthday of Gypsy Rose Lee and yours truly will be there. GYPSY ROSE LEE: An American Icon Laid Bare A Centennial Celebration with Karen Abbott, Jo "Boobs" Weldon, Miss Tickle and others Saturday, Januray 8, 2011 at 7:00 PM in the Celeste Bartos Forum "On January 8, 2011, the world's most famous burlesque performer turns 100 years old. Join LIVE from the NYPL for a centennial celebration of the birth of Gypsy Rose Lee: novelist, playwright, New Yorker essayist, fashion icon, actress, activist, member of New York’s literati, world-famous “ecdysiast" and subject of one of the best-loved musicals in American history. Be amused and appalled by dramatic readings from never-before-published letters in Gypsy’s archives, housed in the New York Public Library. Special guests include Jo "Boobs" Weldon (author of The Burlesque Handbook and Headmistress of The New York School of Burlesque) who will perform a burl...

AMERICAN ROSE by Karen Abbott Random House Publishing, December 28, 2010 I have been fascinated by Gypsy Rose Lee ever since I saw the movie version of Gypsy! starring Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood but I had no idea until I was older and knew more about musicals that it was based on a true story.  Now Karen Abbott has written a magnificent new book about the elusive, elegant and erudite practioner of the art of the striptease. The book is not just a biography of a fascinating woman who moved beyond what must have been a troublesome and traumatic childhood, to reinvent herself into a cultural icon.  It is also a social history of era that will never be seen again except in grainy photos and old movies. Gypsy born Ellen June Hovick on January 9, 1911 wasn't even allowed to keep her original name. The minute her younger sister was born, Ellen June became Rose Louise, so her pretty blonde sister could have her name.  From the time she was a child, Gypsy wa...