June Havoc (1913–2010)

June Havoc was an actress on stage, screen and radio, later a writer and director, but a show business personality almost from the day she was born. A vaudeville child-star who sometimes earned up to $1500 a week, some will remember her as Baby June, Gypsy Rose Lee’s younger sister, who was characterized in the musical, Gypsy.

The story opens after Havoc has run away from home at the probable age of sixteen. (June’s mother constantly adjusted her daughter’s birth date to meet the show more requirements of a contract or the law, so June was never entirely sure of her age.) It’s the Great Depression, and June is struggling to become a legitimate actress, but first she has to feed and clothe herself. So she enters the bizarre and often brutal world of the dance marathon. While giving us a fascinating picture of this strange craze that hit the US during the 1920’s and 1930’s (an interesting parallel to today’s competitive reality shows), Havoc skillfully provides flashbacks to layer in the story of her unusual childhood. June Havoc comes off as a witty, wise-cracking, self-effacing but charming character. She survives crisis after crisis, but is plucky and determined, never bitter, seldom angry, always managing to sidestep self-pity while recounting the astonishing events of her childhood and adolescence in the most matter-of-fact way.

I read this memoir when I was fifteen. Forty years later – still remembering it vividly – I wrote Miss Havoc a fan letter. I received an autographed copy of the book, and set out to reread it. I began in trepidation, worrying that it would no longer pack the same punch so many years later. After all, I’m older, wiser, and considerably more critical of the books I read. As it turned out, being more critical simply helped me appreciate it more.

Havoc, who had limited education and never attended school as a child, wrote every word of this book herself, and her skill as a writer is impressive. Instead of simply recounting her experiences, she provides the dialogue, the people, the events and the settings in specific detail, as though imagining them for the screen. The result is the recreation of a time and place so vivid that the first passage – a description of a hot dog vendor creating her breakfast on a New York City corner – would probably make even a vegetarian salivate. I came away with even greater respect for this indomitable young woman, and the talented lady she grew into. show less

The book from which both 'Gypsy' and "They Shoot Horses Don't They" could have been scripted from.