Gypsy and Me: At Home and on the Road With Gypsy Rose Lee

When Gypsy Rose Lee decided to retire because at the age of forty-two she thought she was too old to be taking her clothes off in front of strangers, she had to come up with a new way to support her Manhattan town house, her Rolls-Royce, her two maids, her secretary, her menagerie of cats and dogs,and her twelve-year-old son, Erik. Beginning with the dramatic events surrounding Gypsy's last performance as a stripper, Erik tells the usually hilarious, sometimes tragic story of the years that followed as his remarkable, eccentric mother tried writing, summer stock, television, and a number of truly outrageous schemes in her efforts to earn a living. This is the story of not only a single woman's struggle to survive, is is also the story of an extraordinary mother-son relationship. Gypsy Rose Less was a liberated woman far ahead of her time, and no aspect of her life more reflected her independence than her approach to motherhood. When she decided that she wanted a child, she chose a genetically suitable father and then dismissed him as soon as she discovered she was pregnant. She raised Erik to hers and hers alone, even keeping from him the true identity of his father. Erik trouped with her from the time he was six months old and served as her dresser, her \"gofer\", her companion, and her confidant.