Today would have been the 100th biirthday of “the Marilyn Monroe of Burlesque”, Dixie Evans. After her father’s death when she was 7, Dixie was raised during the Great Depression by her single mother and worked numerous jobs during her teen years. She dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star, though, and was soon performing with travelling shows and circuses, until meeting manager/producer Lillian Hunt and designer Gussie Gross in San Francisco and launching a career in burlesque.
Dixie performed throughout the 1950s and ‘60s, then retired from show business (for a while…) to manage a hotel in Bimini — where she promptly began producing a big show! Decades later, she came out of retirement again, this time carrying on on the work of her friend and fellow performer Jennie Lee. Jennie had created a museum of burlesque in the Mojave Desert called Exotic World, but she passed away in 1990. Dixie had come to Exotic World to care for Jennie in her illness, but stayed on to run the museum. In 1991, she launched the Miss Exotic World pageant, a burlesque competition intended to draw audiences out to the museum. Soon, Miss Exotic World became a pilgrimage site for the growing neo-burlesque movement, a place where the new generation of performers could learn about burlesque from the women who created it.
Dixie’s legacy continues in today’s Burlesque Hall of Fame, where her and Jennie’s collection continue to provide insight into burlesque’s history, and where the Miss Exotic World Pageant, now expanded into the 4-day Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender, continues to draw performers, producers, burlesque fans, and burlesque’s Legends every year. Dixie passed away in 2013, but her work continues to inspire performers around the world, and it is because of her that so much of its history is remembered.
Learn more about Dixie’s life and career: Dixie Evans (1926 – 2013)