I so cannot wait! In production right now is, "G-String Mother" based on the book "Gypsy and Me: At Home and on the Road with Gypsy Rose Lee" by her son, Erik Preminger. This is a terrific book. Erik is your usual teenager, sneaking out to drink, smoke a cigarette or get laid. Gypsy is so not your usual mother. Strict and demanding, her son's antics are not well received. Gyp needs money and is uber cheap so that when she plays out of town, she drives there herself! She's got her kennel of chinese cresteds (and Erik detests them) and everything but the kitchen sink crammed into the Rolls. I know Sigourney Weaver will do a fabulous job as Mom, but they'll never be able to fit all the great stuff in that memoir into the movie.
I watched the two available pieces of Gypsy video at the Museum of TV and Radio in NYC a few years ago. Both clips were from "The Gypsy Rose Lee Show". One was a promo with Judy Garland and Robert Goulet. (That had been on Youtube, but is now gone..grr.) The other was a segment from the show with Gyp's only guest, Ethel Merman. It was fascinating watching Ethel and Gypsy interact. If only Gypsy's show had been filmed. Betch you'll never guess what her TV show's theme song was?
Remember near the end of the film "Gypsy" when Harvey Korman (who was uncredited) comes into Gypsy's dressing room after she and Mama have had another quarrel? Korman's character turns to Natalie Wood and says, "Come on Gyps, show us your talent!" and Gypsy turns to the photographer and comes alive. In the film, Louise is presented as having no apparent talent until burlesque knocks on her door. Do you get what's bugging me? Here she has finally found her talent, she's a rising star in burlesque. Why would her agent (Korman) say that? I wonder, where did this come from? Gypsy's own memoir? Was this line in the stage production? Is it merely there as a judgement on striptease? Am I an idiot for posing this question?
