Karen Abbott

I don't consider 'American Rose' to be a biography so much as a microcosm of 20th-century America, told through Gypsy's tumultuous life…

— Karen Abbott

By 1865, all Southern women - the happily and regrettably single, the perpetually engaged, the wives and widows - had tired of…

— Karen Abbott

America's first Olympics may have been its worst, or at least its most bizarre.

— Karen Abbott

I had spent five years not earning a penny, getting rejected. Thank God I had a husband who was supportive and encouraging.…

— Karen Abbott

In 2001, I moved from Philly to Atlanta, where I lived for six years. I had never lived anywhere but Philly, and…

— Karen Abbott

Gypsy [Rose Lee], who was called Louise as a kid, gave her first performances here with her sister [June Hovac], playing for…

— 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…

— Karen Abbott

Burlesque thrived during the Great Depression, and by extension, so, too, did Gypsy [Rose Lee]. Men could no longer afford to pay…

— Karen Abbott

I felt differently about her [Gypsy Rose Lee] during every phase of the research and writing process. Often, I felt incredibly sorry…

— Karen Abbott

I wasn't really a dark kid, but I was in my head a lot. I got good grades all through my 16…

— Karen Abbott

Classic burlesque in the style of Gypsy which many modern burlesque troupes practice is, at its core, so playful and teasing and…

— 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…

— Karen Abbott

In Gypsy [Rose Lee] the musical, her mother, 'Mama Rose', is portrayed as a slightly eccentric, pushy, ambitious stage mother, but that…

— Karen Abbott

“He spent all of his twenty-three years operating at only one speed and in one direction, furious and forward, convinced that a…

— Karen Abbott

There is nudity, of course striptease is an essential component of burlesque but it's much more complex and intelligent than a display…

— Karen Abbott

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

— Karen Abbott

I came upon a telegram from Eleanor Roosevelt herself to Gypsy Rose Lee that read, 'May your bare ass always be shining'.…

— Karen Abbott

One of the biggest questions to me was whether or not Gypsy the person was capable of loving anyone or anything beyond…

— Karen Abbott

“Well, just remember this. When my ma got me, she picked what she wanted. But when your ma got you, she had…

— Karen Abbott

A half-century before Madonna, Gypsy [Rose Lee] understood how to make performance out of desire, how to exploit the very human and…

— Karen Abbott

The ideas and practices of Franz Anton Mesmer, an 18th-century Australian healer, had spread to the United States and, by the 1840s,…

— Karen Abbott

Her sister [June Havoc] said the musical portrayed who Gypsy [Rose Lee] wanted to be before the burlesque thing happened she wanted…

— Karen Abbott

If Lady Gaga and Dorothy Parker had a secret love child, it would've been Gypsy Rose Lee. Gypsy arrived for opening nights…

— 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…

— Karen Abbott