People who read poetry have heard about the burning bush, but when you write poetry, you sit inside the burning bush.
The real Rose Hovick was seriously mentally disturbed; June Havoc called her a beautiful little ornament that was damaged.
I came upon a telegram from Eleanor Roosevelt herself to Gypsy Rose Lee that read, 'May your bare ass always be shining'. That was the clincher; I had to write about this woman.
I spent three years researching American Rose, research that included connecting with Gypsy's sister, the late actress June Havoc (I was the last person to interview her) and Gypsy's son, and also spending countless hours immersed in Gypsy's expansive archives at the New York Public Library. I became obsessed with figuring out the person behind the persona.
A half-century before Madonna, Gypsy [Rose Lee] understood how to make performance out of desire, how to exploit the very human and eternal instinct to always want most what we'll never have.
Leave the fireworks for those who cast no spark of their own.
Female spies typically represented one of two extremes: the seductress who employed her wiles to manipulate men, and the cross-dresser who blended in by impersonating them.
Passion Of Mind movie is one of my rare romantic things. I'm ready for another. Shooting that, I remember France. We were in the south of France, and Paris. That's the first thing that comes to mind for that. I just remember that that was a beautiful place to be when we shot it.
North American society could not have reached its state of high development and modernity had it not been an open society.
The best form of flattery is to be admired, imitated or respected. I've always felt proud our fans look up to us or feel we are inspirational.
You have all this stuff going on in your head, like, 'I can't believe seven years has gone by, and I'm going to miss all these people. ' And I'm like, 'Oh, by the way, Mick Jagger is to my right, and I just danced a waltz with him. ' So there's that.