'Gilmore Girls' Revelations in Kelly Bishop's New Memoir

Long before she took on the now-iconic role of Emily Gilmore in Amy Sherman-Palladino’s beloved dramedy “Gilmore Girls,” Kelly Bishop had an impressive resume. From the mid-1960s onward, Bishop appeared in numerous Broadway shows, winning a Tony Award for her performance as Sheila in the first revival of “A Chorus Line.” In the ’80s, she appeared as Frances “Baby” Houseman’s mother in “Dirty Dancing” and in the years that followed lit up daytime television on “One Life to Live” and “All My Children.”

Yet for all her career highs, Bishop will probably remain best known for her sharp, complex portrayal of the wealthy New England matriarch on “Gilmore Girls” from 2000 to 2007, a period she chronicles beautifully in her new memoir, “The Third Gilmore Girl.”

In candid, matter-of-fact prose, Bishop, 80, recalls her early years as a trained ballet dancer, her move to New York and entry onto the Broadway scene (then under her birth name, Carole Bishop), her audition for Woody Allen’s one-act play “Central Park West,” her transition to film in Paul Mazursky’s Oscar-nominated 1978 drama “An Unmarried Woman” and her meeting Sherman-Palladino, with whom she went on to work on “Bunheads” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”

“There was no pretension about it [Sherman-Palladino]“There was no guile, no political flattery, no double-crossing,” Bishop writes in her book. “Just a woman who knew the value of her work and the quality of her project and was very clear about how it should be done.”

Below are a few more revelations about “Gilmore” from Bishop’s memoir, now available.

Sorry, Jess and Dean fans: Bishop is Team Logan

For as long as “Gilmore Girls” has been part of the cultural conversation, viewers have been divided over which of Rory Gilmore’s (Alexis Bledel) suitors was the best, an argument that carried over into Netflix’s 2016 revival of “Gilmore Girls.” Usually, the fight comes down to Team Jess (Milo Ventimiglia), an emotionally evasive but well-read “bad boy” who becomes a self-actualized published author, and Logan Huntzberger (Matt Czuchry), Rory’s Yale classmate who’s being groomed to take over the family publishing empire. Then there’s Dean (Jared Padalecki), Rory’s first boyfriend, who is kind, stable and communicative but periodically acts threatened by Rory’s Ivy League aspirations. Not to mention, he cheats on his wife with Rory.

“I was always Team Logan,” Bishop writes in her memoir. “All of the young actors on ‘Gilmore Girls’ were fantastic, on and off screen, but while several of them seemed boyish, Logan took a more masculine approach that I think worked perfectly as Rory’s sidekick.”

As for Lorelai's romantic arc, Bishop is Team Luke.

Fans have also argued over which of the two was the better love interest for Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), who began the series dating one of Rory's high school teachers, Max Medina (Scott Cohen). She later bounces between Rory's unreliable but charming father, Christopher (David Sutcliffe), and Luke (Scott Patterson), the local diner owner with a gruff exterior and an unquenchable passion for Lorelai.

“I was definitely on Luke’s side,” Bishop says. “It wasn’t just that Luke genuinely loved her. He also understood that he was dealing with a very peculiar and specific woman, and he understood her. I loved watching them together.”

Bishop's favorite insult toward Emily was directed at Logan's mother.

One of Emily's defining characteristics was her seemingly endless supply of scathing insults. While most of Emily's attacks were reserved for her mother-in-law, her husband, and her daughter, in the season six episode “We've Got Magic to Make,” she went on a rampage against Logan's mother, Shira (Leann Hunley), upon learning that the Huntzbergers had told Rory that she wasn't “well-bred” to date Logan.

Bishop writes: “I kept a smile on Emily’s face so that from a distance it looked like she was complimenting Shira on her dress and asking who designed it, while in reality she was saying lines like, ‘You were a cheap gold digger fresh off the bus from Hicksville when you met Shira. ’” [Logan’s father] Mitchum in any bar you've ever been in… Now, enjoy the event.'

“It was an absolute masterpiece from Amy and it was a pleasure to present it, not only because Emily was at her most powerful, but also because it was another example of her fierce love for her granddaughter.”

Kelly Bishop as Emily, left, Lauren Graham as Lorelai, Alexis Bledel as Rory and Edward Herrmann as Richard in a scene from the WB's “Gilmore Girls” in 2002.

(Mitchell Haddad/The WB)

The bishop didn't like the final season of 'Gilmore Girls'

Very few “Gilmore Girls” fans think highly of its seventh and final season, which ran from 2006 to 2007. Due to a breakdown in contract negotiations, Amy and her husband, co-writer and producer Dan Palladino, left the show after the sixth season. Although Warner Bros. hired a new writing staff, Bishop recalls that “Gilmore Girls” “seemed to grow sleepy and tired from one week to the next, like the air was slowly deflating from a big, shiny balloon, and we could sense that the party might be ending, although no one wanted to say it out loud.”

The bishop also says: “As far as I know, Amy has not yet seen a single episode of [Season 7].”

However, she loved the controversial Netflix series 'A Year in the Life'.

When “Gilmore Girls” arrived on Netflix in 2014, it experienced an extraordinary surge in popularity. “Not only did its original viewers jump to enjoy it again, but entire new generations came to know it and fell in love with it as well,” Bishop recalls.

Renewed interest led to a 15-year reunion panel at the ATX TV Festival in 2015 and, a year later, a revival on Netflix. Though the four-episode “A Year in the Life” brought the Palladinos back, the reception was decidedly mixed. Critics generally favored the miniseries, but fans “were frustrated by the loose ends they felt were left,” as Bishop writes.

One of those loose ends was Rory's infamous “last four words” to Lorelai: “Mommy?” “Yes?” “I'm pregnant.” Cut to black.

“Those mysterious ‘last four words’… I found them more interesting than outrageous, as they opened up debates among viewers to decide who Rory was pregnant with and what the repercussions would be. Personally, I think it was Logan’s, by the way.”