Audiences responded favorably to this new kind of striptease act, which was more 'tease' than 'strip,' more tantalizing than tawdry. So Louise, just 15 at the time, stepped on stage, wearing not much more than a grass skirt, and slowly and teasingly. Rose, never one to pass up an opportunity, volunteered Louise for the job. Sometime during their stay there the star stripper was not able to go on for a performance. Eventually, Rose, Louise and company had to take a job in a burlesque house. However, there was one form of vaudeville that still drew crowds: burlesque. Still, vaudeville continued to die out, which hurt the act. Called Rose Louise and Her Hollywood Blondes, she and her chorus girls performed slightly risqué musical numbers, and were moderately successful.

This time she formed a new act, centering it around Louise. June resented it, and finally she married one of the chorus boys in the act (she was still only 13) and ran away with him. Rose, however, still chased after her dream, and still made June up to be a cute baby. By this time it was clear that vaudeville was a dying art form. At the end of the decade June was 13 and had been re-christened Dainty June. Despite these rumors, June and Louise's act continued to be successful throughout the 1920s. There were also rumors about Rose during this time, about how she had to dodge the police, who enforced strict child labor laws, and even about how she may have murdered a man she thought was pestering her children. There are many who believe that Rose was squandering the money. The act was making $1500 a week, but the family was not exactly living in high style, having to scrimp and save much of the time in order to buy food, and often in debt. June was, of course, the star, and Louise was put in the chorus, though she did get an occasional moment in the spotlight. By the time Louise was seven and June five, they had put together a very successful act, Baby June and Her Farmboys. Rose thought June was much more beautiful, photogenic and talented than Louise apparently could ever hope to be, which soon caused her to pack up her two children and search for a career in vaudeville (she divorced her husband when he objected to a career in show business). Born Rose Louise Hovick in Seattle, Washington, in 1911, but called Louise from early childhood, Gypsy Rose Lee was the daughter of a mild-mannered businessman and a restless, fiery young woman named Rose, who was determined to get out of Seattle and make a life for herself and her daughter in show business.

The real gpsy rose lee