American burlesque artist, actress and writer Gypsy Rose Lee was BOTD in 1911. Born Rose Louise Hovick in Washington, she grew up in the shadow of her younger sister June, a child vaudeville star whose career was ruthlessly promoted by their mother Rose Thompson Hovick (nicknamed “Mama” Rose). After June eloped with a dancer in their act, Mama Rose attempted unsuccessfully to rebuild the act with Lee, a reluctant singer and dancer. After a wardrobe malfunction during a performance, Lee shifted into burlesque (again aggressively encouraged by Mama Rose). Billing herself as a “high-class stripper”, Lee combined a casual stripping style with a sharp, self-knowing sense of humour. Changing her name to Gypsy Rose Lee, she became the star of Minsky’s Burlesque, and was frequently arrested during police vice raids, adding to her popular appeal. She appeared in five Hollywood films in the late 1930s, returning to New York during World War One, where she became doyenne of “February House” in Brooklyn, a queer artists commune with housemates Carson McCullers, W. H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, Paul and Jane Bowles, Erika, Klaus and Golo Mann, Lincoln Kirstein and Leonard Bernstein. An active political lefty, she also raised funds for the Spanish Civil War effort, and was investigated by the FBI for her support of Communist organisations. After Mama Rose’s death, Lee published a memoir, a frank and often unflattering portrait of her mother’s show-business aspirations and life in the vaudeville and burlesque circuits. The book became the basis for the 1959 musical Gypsy, originally starring Ethel Merman as Mama Rose, followed by a 1962 film starring Rosalind Russell. In the 1960s, Lee hosted a popular TV talk show, with guests including Judy Garland, Agnes Moorehead and Woody Allen. Married and divorced three times, she had affairs with director Otto Preminger (with whom she had a son) and McCullers. She died in 1970, aged 59.