Gypsy

If Larry Adler can be highbrow on the harmonica or Andres Segovia on the guitar, what's wrong with an accordion? To prove there was nothing wrong, a slight, pretty accordion player with gold loops in her ears took the stage at Manhattan's staid Town Hall.

Gypsy Markoff, the 27-year-old Town Hall debutante, was after cash as well as kudos. She wanted to begin to pay off some $40,000 in medical bills. She had had 17 operations since the night in 1943 when the Yankee Clipper, filled with U.S.O. entertainers, crashed near Lisbon, leaving her with two paralyzed left-hand fingers.

Gypsy's demonstration was a success. With two good fingers and a thumb, she played Liszt, Chopin, Ravel. To mollify Town Hall officials (who swallowed the accordion but balked at her accustomed gypsy spangles), she appeared in a demure marquisette dress.

Gypsy has traveled the theatrical road since 1917, two months after she was born in Milwaukee. Her Russian musician father and Egyptian mother--gypsies both --took her to China, India and Europe (where on cold nights Gypsy slept with the bear cubs). At 14 she was playing a secondhand accordion in a Chicago nightspot. She has played in Paris, in Sweden (before King Gustaf), in Egypt (before Farouk), in Washington (for President Roosevelt).

A moody girl, Gypsy frankly prefers the society of Siamese cats to men. Both devout and practical, she offers up one prayer daily to the Virgin to "keep me pretty" and another to St. Anthony to "pay my bills."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.