American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee by Karen Abbott

seventeen. Aunt Hilma and her husband went out one evening and came home to find Helen in a pool of her own blood—a freak menstrual hemorrhage, the doctors concluded—and they were overjoyed at the idea of taking Louise in.Rose enrolled Louise in the local public school and told her she could stay in Helen’s room. She and June would send for her just as soon as they landed either a string of movie deals or a long-term circuit contract, and they would all troupe together, across the country, hoping, ultimately, to perform at the Palace Theatre in New York City, the heart of vaudeville in the heart of everything.
    Forty years later, when Gypsy Rose Lee told the story of little Louise, her old self, the identity she traded in with the hope of trading up, she said that living in Seattle with wealthy relatives sounded justfine. She explored her cousin’s things while a neighborhood girl, Helen’s best friend, provided narration. This silver mirror and matching comb came from “Tiffany’s in New York,” and here was a “real pearl necklace,” to which a new gem was added on each birthday.
    “Mother says you’re the luckiest little girl in the whole world,” Helen’s friend said. “Everybody doesn’t get a chance to be adopted into such a nice family.”
    At that, Louise felt the comb slip from her fingers, and informed the girl that she wasn’t going to be
adopted
. She was merely staying for a visit, “until Mother gets back on her feet.”
    “Oh no,” Helen’s friend insisted. “I heard my mother and father talking about it after dinner. They said the papers are all drawn up and all your mother has to do is sign them.”
    In the doorway stood Mother and Aunt Hilma. Rose blew her nose, poked a tissue at her eyes.
    “Louise, dear,” she said, “you’re old enough now to know how hard life has been for me these past few months, what a fight I’ve had just to keep our heads above water. It might be years before June is where she belongs in the theater. Years of hard work and struggle …”
    “But if I’m adopted I won’t be yours anymore,” Louise said. Her mother must not understand what “adoption” truly means, she thought. That was the only explanation. “I’ll work harder in the act, Mother. I’ll practice every day, honest I will. I’ll do anything but, please, don’t let me be adopted.”
    After a moment Rose sighed, crumpled the tissue in her palm, and ordered her daughter to get her coat. Outside, Louise turned her face upward, willing her mother to look down.
    “I’ll make up for it some way,” Louise promised. “You’ll see.”

    B y now, Rose figured June had been to Los Angeles enough times and scored enough film cameos to merit another moniker: “The Hollywood Baby.” The Hollywood Baby was a natural, perfect at taking direction, with a face that could reflect anything you wished to see. Onone visit, for instance, June was in competition for a part along with five hundred other “beribboned, beflowered, overbleached, overcurled moppets.” Rose noticed the director looking their way. “Smile, baby,” Rose instructed, and pinched June’s cheeks until she whimpered.
    The director, Hal Roach of “Our Gang” fame, approached and asked June if she knew any rhymes. June launched into a song:
    Nobody knows me number
    Nobody knows me name
.
    Nobody knows where I gets me clothes
    But I gets them all the same
.
    “She’ll do,” he said. “Stop slapping her face for color. She’s right as she is. She plays the part of a hungry, beat-up waif.”
    Rose was furious but accepted the job on the Baby’s behalf. June would do it because June did it all; clearly, her younger daughter had inherited her work ethic and drive. Hal Roach loved the Baby, booking her for film after film, many of them silent, so all June had to do was let those sad eyes work for her. Before each take, Rose bent down and leveled her face with her daughter’s.
    “Darling,” she said, “your dog has