“If you’re Gypsy Rose Lee, all you have to do is keep your strength up so you can carry your money to the bank” – Gypsy Rose Lee
In 1959, Eleanor Roosevelt, President Roosevelt’s ‘First Lady To the World’ and active civil rights campaigner, wrote to Gypsy Rose Lee, the burlesque superstar.
![Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D Roosevelt, arriving at London Airport, April 3rd 1959. (Photo by J. Wilds/Keystone/Getty Images)](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-585326013.jpg)
Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D Roosevelt, arriving at London Airport, April 3rd 1959. (Photo by J. Wilds/Keystone/Getty Images)
Lee’s fame was at its apogee. Her 1957 memoir Gypsy had been turned into the eponymous Broadway musical, which opened on May 21, 1959 at The Broadway Theatre,
![1941 publicity photo for Gypsy Rose Lee’s first novel, The G-String Murders. | from Books for Victory: Burlesque Star Gypsy Rose Lee Boosts WWII Book Drive](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/rose-lee-1941.jpg)
1941 publicity photo for Gypsy Rose Lee’s first novel, The G-String Murders. | from Books for Victory: Burlesque Star Gypsy Rose Lee Boosts WWII Book Drive
Not all of Rose Lee’s books were equally successful. Although her 1941 pulp fiction murder mystery The G-String Murders formed the basis for the silver screen’s Lady of Burlesque (1943).
Here’s an extract:
“Finding dead bodies scattered all over a burlesque theater isn’t the sort of thing you’re likely to forget. As long as I live, I’ll remember seeing that bloated, bluish face, the twisted, naked body, and the glitter of a G-string hanging like an earring from the swollen neck.”
That book also inspired the 1978 wonder Neon Woman, starring the essential Divine:
And so to the telegram, from one heroine of American freedom to another:
“May your bare ass always be shining”
![27th July 1951: US actress, entertainer and writer and infamous striptease artiste, Gypsy Rose Lee (born Louise Rose Hovick, 1914 - 1970). (Photo by Stroud/Express/Getty Images)](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GettyImages-3252318-762x1024.jpg)
27th July 1951: US actress, entertainer and writer and infamous striptease artiste, Gypsy Rose Lee (born Louise Rose Hovick, 1914 – 1970). (Photo by Stroud/Express/Getty Images)
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