The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop – 5⭐

“I found my passion when I was a child and was blessed to be good enough at it to make it my career. I don’t think about the many times I fell nearly as often as I think about the many times I got back up.”

Well I never expected Kelly Bishop to be such a badass, but she is! I mean I knew she was a ballerina so that should have been enough knowledge for me to guess at her being a badass but it wasn’t. It took me reading this delightful book to gain this knowledge. Kelly Bishop has lived a life and she has lived it unapologetically.

“You know those rare people you’re introduced to for the first time and instead of saying, “Nice to meet you,” you’re tempted to say, “Oh, there you are!”? It’s as if you’re not new to each other, you’re actually old friends who’ve just been waiting for a chance to reconnect. That’s how I felt with Lauren Graham, who was playing my daughter, Lorelai, and Ed Herrmann, who was playing my husband, Richard.”

Anyone who has ever watched even one episode of The Gilmore Girls will know who Bishop is, I personally first met her in Dirt Dancing, and when I started watching The Gilmore Girls back when it was airing on TV, I actually referred to her as Baby’s mother. Her acting was the tip of the iceberg for her when it came to her career though. She was an original member of the cast of A Chorus Line, (for which she won a Tony award) and my mind was actually blown to discover that ‘At the Ballet’ was inspired by her life. What a legacy!

She also made no bones about the fact that she took absolutely zero shit from anyone, as was demonstrated with her retelling of the story where she told off Michael Bennett for laughing at her behind her back.

Unfortunately her taking no shit in her career didn’t always extend to her taking no shit in her personal life. I was absolutely livid on her behalf when she lost her penthouse apartment in New York because of her ex-husbands gambling debt. What an asshole! She also had a few relationships after her divorce that didn’t seem to fill her cup, but those just led to her finding the love of her life. Her relationship with her husband, Lee Leonard, was really very beautiful, my heart breaks for her that he is gone, but they seemed to have such a wonderful marriage. I hope that the memories she has of the time they had together bring her some comfort. Even though I would class myself as ‘witchy’ and I love tarot, I am very skeptical of mediums who claim they can talk to lost loved ones. It always feels like it is a grift and the ‘mark’ is someone who is grieving. I think in this case though, Bishop getting such comfort from this medium probably outweighs the negatives. And that goes for anyone who turns to them in times of grief I guess, as long as whatever is shared with those grieving isn’t harmful I suppose it’s for the greater good.

“Don’t cry because you think your best days are gone, smile because you had them in the first place.”

Something else I wasn’t expecting, and was a nice surprise, is the fact that Kelly Bishop is also childfree by choice and very vocal about it, and women’s right to choose. Her sharing her experience with abortion was so generous. Like with Viola Davis in Finding Me, Bishop was very matter-of-fact about the experience. It’s unfortunate that in the year 2025 we still need to be praising women for talking about basic women’s healthcare but here we are. Women like Kelly Bishop and Viola Davis talking about their abortion helps with the stigma attached to abortion, and it’s never been as important as it is now, as women’s rights are being rolled back in a number of countries, most notably the United States.

This was the perfect non-fiction choice for my birthday month. It was inspiring and poignant. It was made even better by the fact that September is Gilmore Girls season, so rewatching that while reading this was good fun. Every time I rewatch that show though I like Lorelai and Rory less and less, and I start to see things from Emily’s point of view more and more! She really is The Third Gilmore Girl 😀

Reading this also makes me want to make another childfree queen my October pick, Ina Garten on deck!