Roz Russell On Singing Momma Rose...(I find this interesting)

Okay, I just started reading Russell's autobiography (no, not the average book someone my age is reading lol) So I decided too skip to the sections I'm most interested in. Once I got to where she speaks about Gypsy.. I found this REALLY interesting.

We know most of Roz's singing was dubbed by Lisa Kirk. But we hear Roz on MR GOLDSTONE, ROSE'S TURN, and SMALL WORLD (Reprise.) But from Roz says in her book, is a little different. Let me give some quotes.

At first I was only to act the part; Rose's singing was dubbed by a professional with a big trained voice. When I heard it, I got sick. "It isn't me", I said. "I'm bad but I can't stand to hear that. Everybody knows I don't sing operatically, it throws the balance off." Warner Brothers agreed and rescored the picture, and I sang my own part. People still say I didn't, but that's Roz and nobody else as Rose on the soundtrack of GYPSY.

Now this is just wow too me. We know Roz got to sing her own tracks, we have the outtakes. But in the movie we know those aren't Roz's outtakes. So why is she insisting we hear her in the movie on everything? We hear her on a few songs, but not the whole score. So why does she claim she sing the whole movie?

I found this amusing. Any comments from Roz/Gypsy experts?

Updated On: 7/29/05 at 11:54 PM

Thank you for the reply. I haven't read the whole thing yet. So I found this GYPSY singing part shocking. So based on what you say - I take it she enhances some things.

I still love this woman though.

Roz's memoir was also published after she died. Freddy Brisson, her husband/manager who had his detractors and was nicknamed 'The Lizard of Roz', over-saw the final text. Everything in it has to be taken with a grain of salt.

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It's wonderful to read Roz's book, then compare her tales with the other ones out there. Her version of Gypsy is contrary to tales told by Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim, Lisa Kirk, even Ethel Merman (Who, obviously, also needs to be taken with a shaker full of salt.)

The "Auntie Mame" stuff is even better, considering that she claims to have added lines, business and characters to the Play of Auntie Mame that were actually taken from the Book Auntie Mame.

In one Merman bio I read, they claimed that Ethel had been given Roz's original recordings for the movie of Gypsy and liked to play them at parties, to raucus laughter all around.

It is a wonderful play, but monstrously expensive to produce: HUGE cast, hundreds of costumes, a dozen big sets. And seeing as how Plays never can do the kind of business that a musical can, I think it's natural to look to "Mame" for a revival instead.

Roz was dubbed by Lisa Kirk and another singer. That's why the soundtrack is like "The Three Faces of Momma Rose."

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JoeKv99: Thanks for the Merman playing the soundtrack at parties story. I can just picture it and then I chuckle out loud (at the office). :)

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I could very well be all wet on this but do you think many of the stars of her day held on to their mythological biographies and denied the truth to the public, thinking it would work?

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yes, Glebb, I think the stars did indeed do that. I've read hundreds of biographies of the silent and golden age stars, and I swear some of the stories match word for word what was written in those "fan" magazines of the 1930's!

The most disturbing biography story I ever read was Gloria Swanson's - she had written this volume in the 1960's I believe. The disturbing part?

She was a die hard follower of Gaylord Hauser's health and diet techniques. Not too bad, until she wrote about an illness she had in the 1920's following the birth of her daughter. She and Hauser believed sunlight was an energy healer. Follwoing the birth, she had some...uh.....trouble down south. She claims she healed herself by going into the backyard daily, having her legs ..uh....held asunder and tied apart and the sun....uh.....shone where it usually didn't shine. She claims she was healed in days, instead of dying as the doctor told her she was going to.

I cannot watch any of her films without that vision in my head and that is just wrong.

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Geez!
I love Gloria Swanson.
Nothing will get in the way.
Funny story though.
Remember her on The Beverly Hillbillies?

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Thank you all for posting. You have just inspired me to watch the movie, GYPSY.

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That story makes Ethel sound bitter towards Roz because she got to play her in the movie. Maybe Roz should've shown clips of some of Ethel's movies to get people laughing at parties. Ethel might be a powerhouse on stage, but she couldn't act worth a damn. Yes yes, throw tomatoes at me for that comment, but I've seen "There's No Business Like Show Business." I wish I could say otherwise.

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Well, from the sounds of this thread, Roz sounds like she has a very high opinion of herself.

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