Reviewed by Ruth Latta
This review contains some spoilers.
The Third Gilmore Girl
by Kelly Bishop
SQUARE PEG
November 2024, Paperback, 256 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1529944938
At eighty years old, actress/dancer Kelly Bishop has written a memoir: The Third Gilmore Girl. Although she’s not a mother, two of her roles as mothers have made her famous: that of “Baby’s” mother in the movie, “Dirty Dancing,” (1987) and then as the formidable matriarch, Emily Gilmore, in the TV comedy-drama series, “Gilmore Girls”. “Time Magazine” rated “Gilmore Girls” among the hundred greatest TV shows of all time. It ran from 2000 to 2007 and is one of the most -watched shows on streaming platforms ever since it became available on Netflix in 2014. “Gilmore Girls” has entertained three generations of women in my family. We talk about the characters as if they were neighbours.
As her memoir shows, Kelly Bishop (formerly “Carole”) brought years of experience to the role of Emily. Those of us who were entertained by this determined fictional character will find Kelly as resolute in real life as she was in that role. Her lifelong pursuit of her dream is inspiring.
Her story opens in medias res, as she gets a major acting role in the Broadway production of “A Chorus Line” in 1975. Aware that the physical demands of dancing would eventually be too hard for her, she was eager to build an acting career. To her astonishment, she found that a song she sang in this musical, “At the Ballet,” was uncannily like her own story.
She was born in 1944 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to a father who was an alcoholic, bully and philanderer, and a mother who had grown up poor yet managed to win scholarships and graduate from the University of Colorado. Mrs. Bishop was a hardworking homemaker who talked to young Carole like a friend as well as a daughter (like Lorelei and Rory in “Gilmore Girls.”) Carole, her mother and brother were “safe, happy and peaceful in their little brick one-story house” as long as their husband and father was away.
Thanks to her mother, Carole learned some basic ballet at home. Then, in exchange for Carole’s lessons, Mrs. Bishop played piano at the Denver dance studio of the internationally known Dimitri and Francesca Romanoff. After the Bishops divorced, Kelly and her mother moved to California so that Kelly could continue lessons with the Romanoffs, who had relocated to the San Jose Ballet School.
At eighteen, Carole left California for New York City to audition for the prestigious American Ballet Theatre. Instead, she was hired by Radio City Music Hall’s corps de ballet (not to be confused with the Rockettes.) In 1967, at twenty-three, she got her first Broadway role, as “Cat Girl” in “Golden Rainbow.” Next, she was a chorus dancer in another Broadway show, “Promises, Promises.”
During these years she dated several men, and at twenty-six, married a charming but seriously flawed man who drained her emotionally and financially. Despite domestic angst, she worked as a singer in a dinner-theatre tour of “West Side Story.” After their break-up, she got the role of “Sheila,” a sexy, hard-edged character in “A Chorus Line,” and won a Tony Award for it in 1976.
It may surprise readers that Kelly (who changed her name around this time) never wanted to be a star, but merely to work at what she loved to do and get paid for it. As a child, she equated stardom with Marilyn Monroe, who was dazzling on screen but was often dismissed as a “dumb blonde” by people who didn’t grasp that she was more than her roles. Fame seemed to be about getting laughed at, no matter how talented you were as a performer, so Kelly decided to be a performer but never a star.
Consequently, she was willing and eager to take guest spots on daytime serials, roles in regional theatre, and bit parts in movies, including “An Unmarried Woman.” While some actors think soap operas are beneath them, Kelly found that her guest spots helped her hone her craft. She developed a deep respect for the hardworking actors, crew and writers who created five episodes a week. She had to memorize a lot of dialogue, had little time to prepare, and, as a guest, not a regular, she had “no idea what the storylines were, whom I was talking to in any given scene, or what we were talking about.”
Kelly finally found true love. She was married for thirty-seven years to a man who “knew [her] better than anyone else on earth and loved [her] anyway,” until he died in 2018. He was with her during her greatest successes, including the role of Emily in “Gilmore Girls.”
In the series, thirty-two year old Lorelei Gilmore, a single mother who manages a village inn, can’t afford to send her bright teen-aged daughter, Rory, to a private school which will prepare her for an elite university. She goes to her wealthy, estranged parents (Kelly Bishop and Ed Herrman) for a loan. Their tense rapprochement is key to the plot. Kelly found that the role of Lorelei’s mother, Emily, reminded her of her own maternal grandmother, and this insight allowed Kelly to make the character Emily multi-dimensional.
“I was always convinced that Emily loved Lorelei as much as she loved Rory,” writes Kelly. “She just didn’t have a clue how to connect with her, and her frustration over that only added to her icy disapproval.”
What Kelly Bishop liked best about the show was that there was no one star; the cast was an acting company. Her memoir lets us get to know someone special in that memorable ensemble and also provides insights about surviving bereavement and dealing with illness and old age.
Recently, watching a young dancer in a musical, she thought sadly, “That used to be me up there.” Then suddenly, a wave of joy and gratitude came over her and she thought, “That used to be me up there! Don’t cry because you think your best days are gone. Smile because you have them in the first place.”
About the reviewer: Ruth Latta, a “Gilmore Girls” fan, writes historical novels. her most recent is “A Striking Woman,” a novel about true love and trade union organizing. (see info@baico.ca)