Book Review: The Third Gilmore Girl

Title: The Third Gilmore Girl
Author: Kelly Bishop
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir

What It’s About:

Kelly Bishop was born in 1944 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as Carole Bishop. Her parents moved the family to Denver, and her mom had taught her some ballet before Kelly became a student at a Studio in Denver. She moved to California with her mom after graduating from high school to continue to study ballet, before picking up at 18 and moving to New York where she did what she could to get into the American Ballet Company. Not having any other choice as she needed to pay her bills, she went to work for the Radio City Hall Corps of Ballet, and over time made her switch to acting on Broadway thanks to friends in the industry who wanted to include her story. The first show she did was A Chorus Line, and then went on to win a Tony Award for her role with Ed Hermann that same night.

Kelly got married and then divorced, before she met her husband, Lee, who later passed away from his multiple year battle with different cancers in 2018. During her life she worked on some advertisements, and some movies, getting the role of the mom in Dirty Dancing by accident, before getting the role of Emily Gilmore that allowed her to explore her grandmother’s persona in her own way, making that character something a bit more personal for her, but also a role that she is very well known for.

My Thoughts:

I grew up watching Gilmore Girls when it first came out and it was such a brilliant show though I ultimately got tired of Rory and stopped watching it. But Emily as a character stayed with me all these years, because she has this balance of emotional distance, propriety and class, while also having a very sharp tongue with cutting commentary. So when I saw this book on the shelf at my local McNally Jackson’s, I knew that I wanted to read it and learn about Kelly Bishop’s life. And she did not disappoint! Written in Kelly’s no-nonsense approach to life as well as just her matter of fact statements were refreshing. She seems like such a down-to-earth and warm person who never sought the spotlight, but did end up in it out of the sheer love for her craft, that I felt like I could relate to her. While she did have difficulties, and she is honest about them, she shows her strength—both emotional and mental—when she chooses to not dwell on these things, but has come to accept the hardships and the difficulties as some of the lows in her life because without the lows, she wouldn’t have had some of the highs she did, and it all worked out in the end exactly how it should have. That’s her attitude, and I admire that about her—and her spunk as well to not give a damn about other people’s opinions of her, but continue to pursue her passion and be a better person.

Of course, she could have expanded on some of these moments in her memoir, going deeper by connecting a bit more with her emotions, and being nostalgic or dissecting it through a different lens of what could have been, and I am sure that some readers would like it if she didn’t flit from one thing to another, but I find that this is who she is—she is not someone who dwells; she’s someone who takes action and makes things happen, trusting that they will work out in some way. And for that, I admire her—the book inspired me in a way as well, to open myself up to opportunities and see what comes from them.

If you would love to read about Kelly’s life and have some good belly-aching laughs, I’ve linked the book here: The Third Gilmore Girl. Please note that by purchasing through this affiliate link, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you to help keep the blog running.