Talk:Gypsy Rose Lee

Gypsy Rose Lee's birth name
The article claims that GRL's birthname was Ellen June. The typed in name on GRL's birth certificate is "infant Hovick". Karen Abbott claimed GRL's birth name was Ellen June in her book, American Rose, and she made quite a bit out of it. The only evidence for this claim is that somebody wrote Ellen June in script onto GRL's birth certificate. It is not known who did this, when it was done and for what purpose. I think that Karen Abbot overstepped what can be reasonably concluded from the limited evidence, perhaps as a way of making her point that after June was born, Rose pored her efforts into the new daughter. Whatever the case, I don't think the article should claim it as fact that GRL's birthname was Ellen June based on this limited evidence. This leads to the issue of what should be placed in the summary box as GRL's birthname. I agree with Thumperward's edit that it should list Rose Louise Hovick. This is the name GRL entered school under and it was her real name when she died. I think a mention in the article of Abbott's contention with regard to this would be appropriate. I think it is also worth noting that Nora Lee Frankel does not make the same contention in her book Stripping Gypsy. --Davefoc (talk) 02:01, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

An alternative explanation to Abbott's as to why Ellen June was written on to GRL's birth certificate is that Rose got access to the birth certificate, wrote the name in with the intention of claiming it as June's to back up her claim that June was older than she really was. This would also be consistent with Rose's attempt to claim that June was born in the US. This is all pretty much wild speculation, but it doesn't seem any more speculative to me than that GRL's birth name was Ellen June. The bottom line here, I think, is that Rose was messing about with the girls' birth documentation and claimed birth dates and that the absolute truth about any of this is unknowable at this time. --Davefoc (talk) 02:27, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

92.225.115.217 changed GRL's birth name to Rose Louise Hovick in the summary box. I agree with that edit for the reasons I stated above. I changed the text so that it makes note of Abbott's claim about GRL's birth name but changed the opening sentence so that it states that Rose Louise Hovick is GRL's birth name which is the more generally accepted fact. As a result of the recent edits about this I took a look at the handwriting used to write in Ellen June on the GRL birth certificate and the handwriting of Rose Elizabeth Hovick (presumably GRL's mother) on the passport image that I linked to earlier. They are very similar to the point that I think it is likely that GRL's mother was the person to write in Ellen June on GRL's birth certificate. I am not sure what to make of this but it suggests to me that Ellen June was probably never GRL's name in any sort of official way. Davefoc (talk) 07:02, 25 September 2013 (UTC)


 * If reliable sources present various versions of an article subject's birth name, then it is the responsibility of the encyclopedia to present them side by side, until scholarly historical work settles on one answer (if it ever does). It is not our place to add to the evidence, not even, really to select among possible lines of evidence—except insofar as deciding on the reliability of references is such a process. Finally, the process you describe, of looking at handwriting in sources, has to be considered "original research", and that is not something allowed. If a source reports such an analysis, and the source is reliable, report the handwriting analysis. Otherwise, our conclusions about whether they are same or different have no place here. LeProf   Leprof 7272 (talk) 21:24, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Early life section revised...
The opening paragraph was reworked to remove a sentence awkwardly inserted parenthetically, and the sentences lacking citations were marked. The issue may not be that the citations are absent. It is just unclear from their placement, what information was derived from which source. Leprof 7272 (talk) 21:24, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I was the person that added that awkward parenthetical comment when I reworked a few bits of the article that still claimed that GRL's birth name was Ellen June to be a claim that GRL's birth name was Rose Louise so that the article was consistent throughout on that. I agree some of what I did was awkward and I am not sorry to see the parenthetical comment removed. However there is a problem with what remains. The citation about what GRL's birth name is to Karen Abbott's book and she is the one author that claims GRL's birth name was Ellen June. She bases that on the name hand written onto GRL's birth certificate, which was Ellen June. No one will ever know what the facts are regarding this situation. GRL might have been originally named Ellen June as Abbot theorizes or she might have been named Rose Louise soon after her birth and the name hand written in, Ellen June, was just more of her mother's messing about with stuff for her own deceptive purposes. Rose Louise is the name GRL entered school under and Rose Louise Hovick was her real name when she died. Those are enough facts to make me think that the article should lean to the standard view that Rose Louise was her birth name as it does now. However, Karen Abott should be removed as the source for that claim as she doesn't support it. It would be helpful if a consensus on how the article should handle Abbot's claim about GRL's birth name could be achieved. And while we're on the subject of names I don't believe June Havoc's birth name was Ellen Evangeline. --Davefoc (talk)

Marriages?
According to the current article, she married her first husband a year before she was born and then married her second husband as a five year old. I'm guessing that's not correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.197.58.142 (talk) 12:05, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

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bisexuality
according to The Lonely Hunter, the Carson mcCullers biography, she may have had an affair with Carson mcCullers, so was possibly bisexual. Apparently, mcCullers bragged to her brother that she had once slept with Gypsy, but she never told any of her gay friends that. There may be evidence of bisexuality beyond the mcCullers possibility though. 92.41.131.56 (talk) 13:13, 12 July 2022 (UTC)