| Author | Topic: Vanity Fair on the newstands |
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 moljul
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Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
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| posted: 2/5/2003 at 5:57:51 PM ET
I just picked up the March Vanity Fair. The article is quite lengthy and appears to be about the actual story behind Gypsy. Gives the history of Rose, Louise and June. There is one rather small picture of Bernadette  . I wish it was more of a spread on her but you gotta take what you can get. 
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Bwaybaby
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3/10/2001 | posted: 2/5/2003 at 6:08:54 PM ET
I figured it'd be in NYC before it was here. It definitely wasn't on newstands when I went to get coffee early this afternoon.. arg! LOL Too bad they didn't use more pictures...it was a pretty lengthy and involved photo shoot
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moljul
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Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 2/5/2003 at 6:14:13 PM ET
There are quite a few pictures of the real Rose, Gypsy and June. I've only skimmed the article but it seems they mention the new revival in the last paragraph and that is it.
I'll take a picture of the picture with BP and sent it to Kevin to post if some of you would be interested in that. It appears Bernadette has on a two piece leotard (which I know doesn't really make it a leotard) and then a see through dress over that. Sam Mendes is fond of showing lots of skin. lol Something tells me Gypsy is really going to strip it all off in this production. One interesting thing I have read so far ... Rose was only 16 when she had Louise. I guess all those who feel Bernadette is too young looking to play this role can be forever silenced.
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moljul
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Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 2/5/2003 at 7:22:14 PM ET
Wow! I just got done reading the article. I won't give anything away but next to the real Rose, Mama Rose looks like the blessed Virgin Mary. Frightening!
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Bwaybaby
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3/10/2001 | posted: 2/5/2003 at 7:25:49 PM ET
I haven't gotten a chance to read the autobiography that June Havoc wrote( I've seriously been meaning to for a long time now)but from almost everything I've heard Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents say...yes, the idea of this show came from the real life story of these people's lives however a lot of what is now so widely known as Gypsy The Musical was "made-up" or created by Arhtur and Stephen. Here is an exceprt from one of those articles:
He[Arthur Laurents] was given a book by Gypsy Rose Lee...and then he interviewed her. And June Havoc wrote a book, too. And their views of what happened in their childhood were exactly the opposite, as one would expect. And Arthur realized the only thing he could do was make up a story. And once he decided that, he thought, 'I don't want to tell a backstage story.' And then he thought, 'I know who the central character is: it's the mother, not the daughters.' And once he made that decision - which seems like an obvious choice now, but not when you're sitting down with a book that is written from a daughter's point of view -everything seemed to fall into place."
-Stephen Sondheim
I think maybe the reason women in the 40s and 50s have been cast in the role is because #1 the first woman to play it onstage, Ethel Merman and the first woman to play it on TV, Rosalind Russell were both in their 50s...sorta setting the "standard" for all other productions to follow. And #2...it is a very demanding role...one that would be pretty challenging for a less experienced performer.
The same could be said for Annie Get Your Gun...in real life Annie was about 19 or so( can't remember her exact age off the top of my head now...) when the show supposedly took place. However, they used women all in their 40s and 50s to play the role.
The thing to remember is there is always more than one side to every story....two people could live through the same exact experience and will have two totally different explanations of what happened...doesn't necessarily mean one is right and one is wrong...just goes to show you how many perceptions of one single event people can have! I think its rather sad that such an unhappy and such a short fragment of their life being publicized ( eventho much of it is fiction)is what made them famous. Very few people even know that June was on Broadway in ANNIE with Andrea McArdle and many other shows or that June Havoc isn't even her real name...its Ellen Evangeline Hovick.
Don't get me wrong tho...I LOVE the story Sondheim and Laurents have created!
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moljul
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Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
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| posted: 2/5/2003 at 7:41:10 PM ET
According to the article, Gypsy wrote to entertain not to necessarily tell the truth so much of her "memoir" is fabricated so it being the basis of Gypsy would explain why the real June had so many problems with it. June's book were based more on fact. When Arthur Laurents was writing Gypsy he asked her how she came up with her stage name. Her response, "I've written 14 versions of it of my own". Laurents wrote his own version. Interesting tidbit, what we think of as their real names were not their real names. They were both named Ellen June Hovick on their birth certificates. A fact they themselves didn't know until 1949! That was also the year they found out how old they truly were. I'm still in shock at the real Rose. To say the woman was extremely mentally disturbed would be a huge understatement. I'm wondering if more of this "real Rose" will be part of the new revival?
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Bwaybaby
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3/10/2001 | posted: 2/5/2003 at 8:00:56 PM ET
That is correct..as I recall "Mama" Rose added a few years to the girls ages when they were touring with their vaudeville act. They got a date in Canada where you had to be 12 to perform and June was only 9.
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 Christine-NYC
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Fav. BP Song: With So Little to be Sure Of
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| posted: 2/6/2003 at 2:40:28 PM ET
Which is funny, because in the stage/movie versions, Mama Rose takes years off of the girls ages.
That was a very interesting post Cindy; now I want to get the books written by both daughters and read them.
And I had no idea that June was in Annie with Andrea McArdle! Do you know what role she played?
I figured that June had to be a stage name, but I thought Gypsy's real name was Louise!
It's sad really, that Rose was like that. It seems like she was just so mentally ill that she herself just didn't even know it; and back in those days, nobody really understood those conditions or had medications to treat them.
<3CMH<3
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moljul
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Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 2/6/2003 at 2:50:56 PM ET
Yes, the show/movie seems to only deal with one of the age altering schemes though adding more would probably have added confusion to the show. But I guess their birth certificates were regularly doctored to make them younger so they could get cheaper train fares, etc. and then making them older to accommodate child labor laws, etc. The story of Gypsy states that June was 13 when she ran off and got married and June herself thought she was but she was probably actually about 16 when it happened. Both "girls" admitted that in today's world Rose would have been probably institutionalized or at least heavily medicated for her problems but in those days no one knew how to deal with it. You have to get the Vanity Fair article as soon as you can and read just how psycho Rose really was.
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Bwaybaby
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3/10/2001 | posted: 2/6/2003 at 6:29:40 PM ET
Ok, I got VANITY FAIR  I haven't had time to read it yet because I just got home from work, but I'm sure I'll post after I've read it. I did want to let everyone know that there is also a small picture of Bernadette towards the front of the magazine ( unrelated to the article). Its a picutre of Bernadette at the DKNY Vanity Fair Concert.
I believe June played Miss Hannigan in ANNIE.
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moljul
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| posted: 2/6/2003 at 6:35:05 PM ET
Really. I had looked at some of the articles toward the back of the magazine but not the front. I'll have to check it out.
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Bwaybaby
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3/10/2001 | posted: 2/6/2003 at 8:38:01 PM ET
Ok, I read the article. Boy, was it long! LOL Anyways, it focused much more on June and Gypsy( Louise) then Rose.
I don't really know how much of a say Sam Mendes had in this photo shoot. The dress she is wearing in that picture is a Donna Karan dress...so unless Anthony Ward and others involved who have a say in costume design are planning on making a copy of that dress, we probably won't see Bernadette wearing that in the show. Too bad that's the only photo they decided to have in the magazine! From what I've heard they took a lot of other very beautiful photos that day! I figured they'd atleast use one with the taxi(since it was a central prop for the shoot) and the Ghurka bags(which weren't even around until the 1970s) since both must be pretty expensive to rent( or whatever) for a shoot.
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Christine-NYC
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Fav. BP Song: With So Little to be Sure Of
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Fav. BP CD: Bernadette Peters Loves Rogers and Hammerstein
| posted: 2/7/2003 at 12:58:22 PM ET
OK, I went through the entire magazine last night (before I read these message boards) and I had seen the pic of Bernadette that is in the article, the smaller one in the credit listing, and a mention of the show beginning previews on March 31 in the Fanfair calander.
Then, after I read Cindy's post, I went back and looked for the one of her at the DKNY Vanity Fair Concert. I couldn't find it...and I went through that entire magazine twice. ?
<3CMH<3
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Bwaybaby
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3/10/2001 | posted: 2/7/2003 at 5:26:26 PM ET
Its about 50 or so pages into the magazine (where there is all those ads) its right after the few pages that are much thicker then the others. Hope that helps
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Christine-NYC
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Fav. BP Song: With So Little to be Sure Of
Fav. BP Show: Gypsy
Fav. BP Character: Marie (insert last name) lol There's a few
Fav. BP CD: Bernadette Peters Loves Rogers and Hammerstein
| posted: 2/7/2003 at 9:40:07 PM ET
Ohhh, ok! LOL Thanks Cindy. I don't know how I missed it; the pages must have been stuck together.
<3CMH<3
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 Jenny_loves_
bernadette
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6/6/2002
From:
London | posted: 2/8/2003 at 3:54:36 AM ET
just a bit of irony here - Gypsy with Russel and Wood, is on British TV tomorrow. What a coincidence!
they say bernadette's wonderful..........and she is
xx Jenny xx
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