Rose Thompson Hovick

Notorious as the ultimate stage mother, Rose Elizabeth Thompson Hovick (b. August 31, 1890 - d. 1954)¹ was the mother of two famous performing daughters: the inimitable burlesque artist Gypsy Rose Lee and the actress June Havoc. Rose Thompson married her first husband, Jack Hovick, when she was a teenager. She gave birth to Rose Louise Hovick in Seattle, Washington and two years later gave birth to her second child, another daughter, Ellen, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Later in their careers, the two daughters would adopt their more famous stage names, Gypsy Rose Lee and June Havoc. Rose Thompson Hovick's drive to create a performing career for her daughters eventually led to the end of her marriage to Jack Hovick, who disagreed with her intentions for the girls .

Rose Hovick became known as the ultimate stage mother by way of the classic musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable, based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee. Originally staged in 1959, Gypsy - with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents - has since been performed in countless venues on stage and in film. It portrays Rose Hovick as a domineering, take-no-prisoners stage mother who will do anything to further the success of her daughters in show business. The character is often mistakenly referred to as "Mama Rose" (or "Momma Rose"), a sobriquet that does not appear in the script and adamantly dismissed by its book writer Mr. Laurents. In the musical Gypsy, the character is called Momma, Rose, or Madame Rose. The role has been portrayed on stage and screen by a number of notable Broadway and film stars, including Ethel Merman in the original 1959 Broadway production of Gypsy, Rosalind Russell in the Warner Bros 1962 film Gypsy; stage revivals have starred Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Betty Buckley, and Joyce DeWitt. A television movie starring Bette Midler premiered in 1993.

References

• ¹ Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History (accessed July 31, 2007)