FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Cameron Krainin, left, and Euphrosyne Rushforth put the finishing touches on their stripper guise prior to rehearsal for "Gypsy," opening tonight at Richardson Theatre.
A brush
with burlesque'Gypsy' star Shari Lynn sang
for the strippers in the waning
days of burlesque theater
'I'm a perfect 36," Shari Lynn informed me as I slid into the booth at Big City Diner.
She paused, waiting just long enough to ensure she had my mind going where she wanted it, then dropped the punch line: "12-12-12!"
'Gypsy'
Presented by Army Community TheatreWhere: Richardson Theatre, Fort Shafter
When: Opens 7:30 p.m. today; continuing 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Sept. 20
Tickets: $8 to $17
Call: 438-4480
OK, that joke may have been new a century ago when stand-up comics were working Vaudeville and guys in baggy pants were killing time between the fan dancers and strippers in burlesque halls, but it set the tone for our late-morning rendezvous better than I knew. I was meeting Lynn to talk with her about her second time around as the star of "Gypsy," the classic late-'50s Broadway musical based on the memoirs of a famous burlesque hall stripper.
Little did I know that Lynn actually worked for several months in one of the last old-time burlesque halls back in the final days of traditional burlesque revues in San Diego. She was 17 when a friend of her teacher and mentor offered her a job there in the late '60s.
Not as a stripper!
"The Hollywood Theatre was where all the Navy guys would come to see burlesque during World War II; it was just hanging on by a thread, but they were still doing (the old comic bits) and they were still stripping," Lynn recalls.
"My mother rode down on the train with me from Pasadena, and I did 11 shows a weekend but I didn't go on stage. I stood behind the curtain with the band and sang while the strippers stripped. And then one night the "talking woman" didn't show up and they go out on stage and do the bit with the comic. After that, with my mother's permission, they let me go out on stage."
Lynn got her first sequined gown, and her first -- and last -- taste of old-time burlesque shows.
So, although she didn't strip or do the fan-dance, Lynn is bringing some first-hand impressions of the milieu that provided Gypsy Rose Lee with her ticket to celebrity status decades earlier. In "Gypsy," however, Lynn has the starring role of Rose, the future stripper's overbearing and manipulative mother.
Rose is determined to determined to bulldoze her way to wealth and success by pushing the career of her younger daughter, June. June eventually gets fed up with her mother's tactics and strikes out on her own, and Rose then turns her attention on June's less talented older sister, Louise, who Rose eventually makes-over as burlesque hall stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.
LYNN HAS HAD plenty of experience with "stage mothers" and child stars as well. In recent years she's observed them as a teacher and entertainer, but she's been the one in charge of own career since the age of 10, when she informed her mother of her show biz aims.
FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Shari Lynn recalled her firsthand experience singing and meeting all the characters in a burlesque theater to recreate the role of Mama Rose in Army Community Theatre's production of "Gypsy." She's pictured with fellow cast member David C. Farmer.
Lynn says that her mother was supportive but never pushy or exploitative; Lynn wanted voice lessons, mom agreed, and one opportunity led to another.
It only took a few days for Lynn to meet Jean Kunkel, her first teacher and mentor, who she remembers as "the Mama Rose of Southern California," a former fan dancer who had made the move into talent management and adopted her daughter, Beejee Kunkel, with the objective of making her a star.
At the age of 3, Beejee was dancing on toe and had her own radio show. By the time Lynn became one of Kunkel's students, Beejee was a teenager and teaching the younger girls singing, dancing and how to perform on stage. Jean Kunkel's husband, Bill, taught Lynn and the other members of the small group how to play piano.
Lynn commuted to the Kunkel home three times a week for five years for lessons. Within a year she was going "on the road" with the troupe, performing throughout Southern California, and several years after that, played the burlesque hall.
Lynn says her mother almost always encouraged her, although there was some static when she returned home after two weeks on the road with the Kunkels and mom noticed that the 14-year-old had come back 10 pounds lighter and with her eyebrows plucked into fashionable arches.
THROUGH EXPERIENCES with old-time booking agents, band leaders and show-biz types who bluntly told her to "getta a nose job," booking agents, and bandleaders, Lynn pretty much learned all she needed to know about how things were back when Mama Rose was pushing her daughters toward stardom.
FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Shari Lynn got a healthy dose of the stage life beginning at the age of 10, but unlike Gypsy Rose Lee, she didn't have to deal with a stage mom. Lynn directed her own career.
"Back in 1982 I actually could have played Gypsy Rose Lee, but nobody invited me," Lynn said. Seven years ago she played Rose when Leeward Community College presented "Gypsy" with Liz Schaller as Louise/Gypsy. This time, Jakara Mato is playing Louise/Gypsy, and Lynn, who is working with director Glenn Cannon for the first time, is taking a fresh look at Rose.
"There should be infinitely more depth to the character (this time) because the longer you live, the more you can add," Lynn said.
"I'm drawing on every major star I've ever seen, read, or heard about. Here's my motto, and it may be a bad one: 'Steal from the best!'
"No matter what field you're in, you're going to look for mentors, you're going to look for the people who know how to do what they do best. That's how you learn," she explained, going over a list of old-time stars, starting with Ethel Merman, who originated the role of Rose on Broadway.
"If you are interested, you learn from watching these people, and if a little of that seeps in -- I wouldn't ever consciously copy anybody, but I would just hope to be able to rise to a higher level. Every time I perform I want to increase the audience's enjoyment and increase my ability. That's the whole goal."
Lynn has been sharing her knowledge of theater and the nuances of performance as a teacher at La Pietra. Two of her students are in the cast, and while it's "Ms. Lynn" on campus, everybody is on a first-name basis back stage at ACT.
There's also a role for a dog in the show, and Lynn's beloved bichon frise got the part. I wondered afterward whether Lynn had steered the conversation around to the dog as the set up for another Vaudeville-era joke.
"I need a husband for her because she's coming into heat. I'm Jewish, and when the mother is Jewish the children are Jewish, so when she comes into heat she's a kosher hot dog!"
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