Karl Malden: Herbie Sommers

Gypsy

Herbie Sommers

Rose Hovick: [on remarrying] After three husbands, it takes a lot of butter to get you back in the frying pan.
Herbie Sommers: How much butter, Rose?
Rose Hovick: All depends on who's dishing it out.

Herbie Sommers: Now, Mr. Willis, don't give me that stuff about what the other salesman used to sell you. How much of his candy did you sell? Practically zero. He steered you wrong! You're not on the ball with your patrons, selling plain chocolate bars, Mr. Willis, it's like women wearing bustles. Now, this is an era of flaming youth. Of flappers, of shifters. It's a world that crunches! So, what should you sell? Crunchy Butterfingers. Crispy Baby Ruths covered with our nourishing milk chocolate - safe for a baby. I'm gonna put you down for a hundred gross, Mr. Willis.

Herbie Sommers: Say, it's that fashionable cocktail hour again, Rose. I would like to buy you a small booze and a bite to eat. Now, there's a local speak which has fair gin, but dandy chow mein, if you happen to go for Chinese food.
Rose Hovick: Is there any other kind?

Herbie Sommers: Lady, eh, Rose, the profession is making a buck the hard way.
Rose Hovick: Not if it's in your blood.
[opens her coat, puts her hand on her hip, Herbie gives her the once over]
Herbie Sommers: When you say that, you look like a pioneer woman without a frontier.
Rose Hovick: Is that good or bad?
Herbie Sommers: Oh, it's good. You've got what it takes. You won't let the world push you around.

Herbie Sommers: I had this candy bar proposition for a long time and I'm singing like a bird. I tip the fedora to you. Name is Sommers. Herbie Sommers.
Rose Hovick: Hovick. Rose Hovick.

Herbie Sommers: We had so many stage mothers there and I - and I hate to see mothers exploiting their kids.
Rose Hovick: Not me. I'm a mother first, and don't you forget it.

Herbie Sommers: I never married. You see, I had five sisters and the ugly one didn't get married till a year ago. She's pregnant now.
Rose Hovick: I don't like dirty talk.
Herbie Sommers: Oh, I apologize.
Rose Hovick: No need to. You're a gent and I like gents.

Rose Hovick: I like you, but I don't want marriage. You like me, you don't want show business.
Herbie Sommers: Well, that seems to leave you there - and me here.
Rose Hovick: Oh, now, that depends on how you look at it. You look at what we don't have. I look at what we do have.

Herbie Sommers: I knew you were a good mother. You wanna know something? I'm crazy for mothers.
Rose Hovick: Yeah?

Rose Hovick: June is already the showbiz whiz.
Herbie Sommers: She's a worker, all right.
Rose Hovick: I'd like to see her in a big flash act. A lot of scenery. And maybe six little girls behind her. All brunettes to show off her blondness.
Herbie Sommers: If you wanna show her off, Rose, you ought to back her up with some boys the way Ziegfeld does.
Rose Hovick: What does Ziegfeld know about vaudeville?

Herbie Sommers: I don't get you. You're so high and mighty with a suite at the Astor and you're still stealing the cutlery.
Rose Hovick: You got to grasp every opportunity.

Herbie Sommers: You don't always have to do what your Mama likes, do we, Louise?

Louise "Gypsy Rose Lee" Hovick: Herbie, I don't think you should call the cops. They'll scare June.
Herbie Sommers: It's gotta be against the law for a 13-year-old to be marrying.

Herbie Sommers: It's okay. It's all gonna be fine now, honey. Everything happens for the best.

Herbie Sommers: Can I use your phone? I've gotta call the police. This little girl, underage, who married a boy.
Station Master: How old are they. Mister?
Herbie Sommers: The girl's 13. The boy is 17, 18.
Station Master: Well, there's nothing illegal about that in this state. It's legal for a girl at 12 and legal for a boy at 16. This is pioneer country and we've never changed the law.