 When the real-life Rose Hovick looked around at her life in Seattle in the early 1920s, what she saw was in confinement. In "Gypsy," Rose mirrors that story, packing up her two small girls, one of whom was genuinely talented, and heading out to find any lodge hall, church basement or vaudeville theatre where she could get them on stage. She is everyone s best example of the world s worst mother. One daughter abandons her, and the other becomes the world s highest-paid burlesque stripper, Gypsy Rose Lee. Show business creates larger-than-life characters, and none is larger than Rose ... Momma Rose, Madame Rose ... a woman who pushed her children into the spotlight, and in the process, cast a shadow over the rest of their lives.