If names can influence destinies, Gypsy Wood was always meant to be a showgirl. Just as she was about to be born in a hospital in Sydney, Australia, her parents, who were theater people, came across a program for the musical “Gypsy.” This inspired them to name the baby after its subject, the burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee.

“Being very spiritual ’70s artists, they were, like, ‘It’s a sign!” Ms. Wood recounted. That Natalie Wood (no relation) played Gypsy in the movie only added to the sense of planetary alignment.

Ms. Wood grew up to be a dancer and cabaret artist with a wide streak of surrealist humor. She jumped out of dignitaries’ birthday cakes, did strip teases and magic shows and appeared on Australian television and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Eventually, she made her way to Las Vegas, where she joined an adult-oriented circus/comedy show hybrid — a “dirty circus,” if you will — called “Opium.” She played a nurse aboard a spaceship that transported visitors from Uranus to Las Vegas. Her longtime performing partner, Asher Treleaven, who was also her ex-husband, played the captain.

In the fall of 2023, the cosmos knocked again. Ms. Wood was in bed, recovering from a hangover from her 45th birthday party and moping over the end of a relationship, when someone making a Hollywood movie called “The Last Showgirl” got in touch.