Bombshells: Glamour Girls of a Lifetime Page 2

  Dixie gathered more valuable experience in the late 1940s as a chorine traveling with the Moonie Dancers (later the Orchid Moons) along the West Coast for almost two years. Finally, when the troupe performed in Mexico City, she quit. “I met a bareback rider in the circus and we fell in love. So I joined the circus, riding elephants.” This provided Dixie with her only mainstream movie role. In The Greatest Show on Earth, the 1952 Cecil B. DeMille epic, Dixie played a harem girl in several scenes to pad out the number of circus performers.

  After quitting the circus, Dixie worked as a theater page, until the show went broke in San Francisco. With no money to return to Los Angeles, she went down the block to a nightclub, the Spanish Village, and was hired as a stripper. “When I found out what a stripper made (two hundred dollars a week), I quit trying to be a page and stayed with burlesque. The place was a bit of a dive and the whole thing was terrifying. But I was finally in show business.”

  In early 1952, she found her way to the El Rey theater in Oakland — home base for emerging striptease legend Tempest Storm. Pete De Cenzie, owner of the El Rey, became Dixie’s manager. For the first time, Dixie sampled the real world of burlesque. “Boy, was there a difference from the nightclubs. This was big business. The tympany drumrolls, the musicians, the orchestra pit, comics, singers. Suddenly there was no kidding around—I was a headliner. So I acquired a professional attitude. I invested my money in props, costumes, and jewelry. You had to learn quickly.”

  Being a headliner meant a lot of travel across the major burlesque circuits. It was Harold Minsky who introduced Dixie to the Midwestern and Eastern circuits where most of the top strippers worked. “All the girls tried to do something a little unique — you had to have a gimmick or you couldn’t be a headliner.”

  Initially, Dixie’s gimmick was incorporating her dancing into a story: an aspiring starlet trying to crash the movies. She would enter the stage clad in a smart suit, a pillbox hat, chiffon scarf, and dark glasses, looking every inch the sophisticated movie star. She would explain to the audience how difficult it was to get started by knocking on casting directors’ doors. As the orchestra played “You Ought to Be in Pictures,” she walked through a studio door and performed a strip as a screen test. After seducing a producer through a suggestive mime as the band played “You Are My Lucky Star,” Dixie would cover her naked body with a fox fur.

  The most unforgettable episode of Dixie’s early years in the business was the time she became the first and only stripper to take it all off at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria in 1952. Dixie had been booked as a novelty act, not a stripper. She launched straight into her starlet act, oblivious to the shocked gestures of the stage manager. By the time she removed her gold lame dress, it was too late for management to do anything. “I thought I’d made it,” she recalls with a laugh. “But of course it was all a big mistake. They were great about it, though. ‘If we’d known you were a stripper, we’d have put you on last,’ they told me.”

  It was a good act, but Harold Minsky felt something more was needed. He told Dixie that she looked just like Marilyn Monroe, who had just made her big motion picture breakthrough in Niagara. And so the gimmick that would make Dixie Evans a star was born.

  The Marilyn Monroe of Burlesque

  It was at the Minsky-Adams Theater in Newark, New Jersey, in 1952 that Minsky billed Dixie for the first time as “the Marilyn Monroe of Burlesque,” accompanied by a vigorous publicity campaign. That night, she duplicated her act with Monroe in mind. Having practiced Marilyn’s walk and talk before a mirror all afternoon, she dazzled the audience. “My fees went from $250 to $400 a week within months. I didn’t feel that I had a lot of talent, so I felt secure with a Marilyn billing. It really worked for me.”

  During the next several years, Dixie would develop routines built around scenes from Monroe’s movies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Bus Stop, and The Prince and the Showgirl, as well as her nude calendar photo session. She had mannequins made of Marilyn’s male costars and used them in her routines.

  The insecure beauty was a star, one whom promoters depended on to open top clubs around the country. “It was a big responsibility. You were a star who had to project glamour. People paid five dollars a seat to see me, and that was a lot of money. I was booked two years in advance.”

  Dixie traveled the circuit via Greyhound buses during the mid-1950s. The “Kane circuit” provided the focal point of her journeys, with burlesque houses in Dayton, Cleveland, Youngstown, Buffalo, Chicago, Norfolk, and Boston. Typically, Dixie spent two weeks in each theater before moving on to the next booking. “You never had a chance to build up long-term friendships. It was always going on to the next show.”

  She followed the grueling schedule of three shows a night, the first at 9:00 P.M. and the last at 4:45 A.M. In the first two shows she would do her regular Hollywood number. For the early-morning crowd, Dixie would do a quicker strip, usually to “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” with the lyrics rewritten to fit the Monroe persona.

  Dixie was keenly aware of the changing times that would ultimately doom burlesque. “We were struggling to keep burlesque alive. There were fewer clubs to play, and girls like Jennie Lee [”the Bazoom Girl“] were trying to promote us through the Exotic Dancers League. But our little burlesque world was going to die.”

  With the rise of television and the decline of business, theaters cut costs by reducing bands from five members down to a piano and drums. Corners were cut at every opportunity, further driving away patrons. The Kane burlesque circuit and the Columbia circuit in the north were breaking up. With fewer theaters, strippers began to concentrate on nightclubs. The elaborate shows to which the top strippers had been accustomed became only a memory, except for a few superstars such as Lili St. Cyr. The emphasis was now on the strip, not the show, and girls were under pressure to do more explicit acts to keep the audiences coming.

  By 1955, Dixie was at the peak of her fame. She began a three-year stay in Miami to recuperate from the hectic traveling. Her Monroe act had incorporated a routine based on Marilyn’s recent divorce from Joe DiMaggio. Dressed in an abbreviated Yankee uniform and swinging a gold-plated bat, she would wail, “Joe, you walked out and left me flat,” accompanied by a crash of drums and cymbals as she did an exaggerated bump. At the end of the bit, she would plant a kiss on the two baseballs she held in her hands, and toss them into the audience.

  While performing at the Place Pigalle in Miami Beach, Dixie was informed before the show one night that Joe DiMaggio himself was in the audience. Overcome with panic, she didn’t want to perform the routine until DiMaggio came backstage to tell her of course he wanted to see the act — “I’ve traveled so many miles just to see it.”

  Dixie went onstage and did the full Marilyn-Joe number, this time directing it straight at DiMaggio in his ringside seat. He loved it, and even came up onstage to applaud her. About two hours later, after she finished changing, she found DiMaggio waiting patiently for her alone on the sidewalk, and they went on a late-night date. “You’re a nice girl, you remind me of Marilyn,” he said. “Joe was a real gentleman,” Dixie recalls. “He was very refined. I took him home after we’d been out for breakfast, and introduced him to my mother. She was thrilled.”

  In 1956, Marilyn’s lawyer, Irving Stein, wrote Dixie a letter threatening to sue because her act was allegedly damaging the star. “I was just a young girl trying to earn an honest living in show business.” notes Dixie. Eventually the threat was dropped, but not before Dixie had received still more valuable publicity. It did not diminish her admiration for the woman who had become central to her own career. By the outset of the 1960s, Dixie felt her popularity was waning and her billing was down; she linked this with the new sex symbols who were threatening the Monroe legend. “I wasn’t making fun of her, I was just trying to make a living in my own crazy way. I adored her. I hung on to Marilyn out of loyalty when these new girls came along like Bardot and Jayne Mansfield. It was as though Marilyn and I had been thrown into t
he slag heap. I was really hurt.”

  Her bond with Marilyn was such that sometimes, when Dixie would see a picture that she thought was of Marilyn, she discovered it was actually of herself; their identities had virtually merged. “I had this strange feeling of being tied together, yet torn apart.”

  While preparing to go onstage one night in 1960, she turned on her dressing-room TV and was startled to see Marilyn on a stretcher being admitted to the hospital after a miscarriage. “I just felt sick to my stomach.” At the club owner’s demand, Dixie went onstage, but sent a heartfelt letter to Marilyn wishing her a speedy recovery. Three weeks later she received a reply:

  “My dear, dear Dixie,

  Among all my many friends and acquaintances over the world, your telegram has been of the greatest comfort to me at this time.’

  Dixie felt elated and honored. “I did want to meet her, throw my arms around her and hug her. But I didn’t want her to think I was getting too familiar, so I didn’t write back.”

  For years, her contracts had stated that she must do the Monroe act that was her claim to fame. But after fulfilling her contractual obligations, she decided to drop the routine. “I refused to impersonate a sick girl.” As a result, Dixie couldn’t get a booking for six months.

  In 1961, Dixie married Harry Braelow, once the world’s fifth-ranked middleweight boxer, who had seen her perform at the Place Pigalle. They divorced about seven years later.

  Marilyn’s death in 1962 devastated Dixie personally and professionally. As she commented two years later, “When she died, I felt my own career died, too.” She was in depression for months, and began to drink heavily. “I was mourning the loss of my career in remorse for poor Marilyn. I didn’t know what to do or where to go.”

  After returning to the stage, Dixie, often disguised in black wigs, tried a series of different acts, including routines built around the films Irma la Douce and Cleopatra. She also modeled lingerie for exclusive clients and did afternoon strips in seamy nightclubs and bars. But it wasn’t working. One nightclub owner cruelly told her: “Without your Marilyn act, you’re as dead as she is.” Dixie was barely scraping by. “It was the end of the line.”

  It was in late 1963, now living in New York, that the most troubled period in her life ended. She went into therapy to overcome her emotional problems, lost weight, and emerged a new person. “I wasn’t this blonde, brassy showgirl anymore … . It was like a snake shedding its skin.”

  Then, around early 1964, former stripteaser Shirley Day came to Dixie and said she needed a headliner to open her plush new club on the Upper East Side. Dixie took one look at the Orient Nightspot and was immediately struck with visions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. With three days to spare, she put together a new act featuring interpretations of Marilyn’s most famous musical numbers, including “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” and “Running Wild.” However, there was a crucial difference from her old act: this was not a comic impersonation, but a loving, heartfelt tribute.

  The show’s immediate success grew after Dixie spent three months with a New York drama coach and thousands of dollars with dressmakers to duplicate Marilyn’s clothes. “A Portrait of Marilyn” became one of the greatest triumphs of her career.

  Many an observer would come up to her after a show and tearfully tell her that she had brought Marilyn back to life onstage. Walter Winchell wrote in his syndicated column: “The Broadway play After the Fall [by Arthur Miller] leaves a poor impression of Marilyn Monroe. For a wonderful, wholesome lasting impression, though, catch Dixie Evans.” After playing to standing ovations for six months, Dixie finally felt released from the Monroe legacy. She retired from full-time performing in 1967.

  From 1969 to the mid-1970s, Dixie was part owner and sales manager of the Bimini Hotel off the Miami coast. It wasn’t until the early 1980s that she became involved in the world of burlesque once again after returning to California upon her mother’s death. Jennie Lee had founded Exotic World: the Strippers’ Hall of Fame and Museum, and as her health began to fail in middecade she called upon burlesque friends like Dixie to help run the museum.

  Since Jennie’s death in March 1990, Dixie has served as president of the Exotic Dancers League of North America and of Exotic World. For any fan of burlesque, the museum is a delight — although its remote location in Helendale, California, makes visiting a challenge. There are hundreds of framed and autographed photographs of burlesque immortals from the 1930s to today. Strippers’ memorabilia (gowns, G-strings, etc.) abound, and in May 1995 a small movie theater was added, showing vintage films of strippers in performance to help keep the memories alive.

  But beyond question the museum’s greatest asset is Dixie Evans herself. She greets scheduled visitors at the door and leads them through the museum while providing a running commentary on the history of burlesque. And her Marilyn impression is still devastating. It is Dixie’s boundless enthusiasm, energy, and good humor that make each visit a treat.

  Dixie takes her responsibility seriously. Virtually every day is devoted to keeping the flame alive. She makes frequent appearances on talk shows like Joan Rivers and Jenny Jones; responds to requests from producers to ensure that movies such as Blaze or TV shows featuring old-time burlesque are historically accurate; arranges strippers’ reunions and special events; and constantly plans new improvements for the museum. In 1996, she was featured on the cover of Holding On, a book by David Irsay and Harvey Wang about “dreamers, visionaries, eccentrics, and other American heroes.” Dixie’s vision shines like a diamond in the California desert.

  “I get letters from all over the world. It’s wonderful to know that people do still care about you. I still feel important, because we are a vital part of Americana which should be preserved.”

  Joy Harmon

  The starlet syndrome is one of the unchanging facts of life in Hollywood, but never was it more evident than in the sunset years of the studio system in the 1950s. An actress came to town, was signed to a studio contract, got a promotional buildup through cheesecake poses, and gradually ascended the starlet ladder from B movies to featured roles in A films. Only a fortunate few would crack the barrier to full-fledged stardom, and even those who succeeded sometimes wondered if it was worth the price. As Jayne Mansfield’s career began its downward spiral in 1963, she said poignantly, “Once you were a starlet. Then you’re a star. Can you be a starlet again?”

  Joy Harmon symbolized for many the eternal fifties Hollywood starlet. A classic blonde bombshell in the Mansfield mold, she built a devoted following through hundreds of TV appearances, scores of magazine layouts, and several stage roles, plus a handful of featured movie performances. Never quite a “star” despite being responsible for one of the most unforgettable scenes in modern movie history in Cool Hand Luke, Joy nevertheless was — and remains — an unforgettable personality.

  Joy was born on May 1 in St. Louis and grew up in suburban New York and Connecticut. Her introduction to show business came early, because her father handled publicity for New York’s famous Roxy Theatre for more than a dozen years. By the time she started going to school, showbiz was in her blood. “I couldn’t wait to get out of high school,” she admits. “I knew exactly what I wanted to do.”

  Joy’s voluptuous figure blossomed around age thirteen or fourteen. She says she was never uncomfortable about her curves, but there were drawbacks. “I wasn’t popular in high school. It was really my own fault. I would wear tight sweaters to school, and the guys would all look at me — of course they would, because of how I dressed.

  “My idol was Marilyn Monroe, and I went to all her movies. At the theater, when I went out to get candy for my mom and dad, I would wiggle right out the way Marilyn did, and show myself off. When I was fifteen, I went to Miami at the Fountainbleau Hotel and did a show impersonating Marilyn. We had come to Miami for a family vacation, and when I saw the sign advertising the show, I just walked in and auditioned.” In the show, Joy performed “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Be
st Friend” in a slinky red dress. “I had her down perfectly. Later, a lot of times when I got a role I’d have to be careful or else I’d be doing Marilyn — it just became second nature to me.

  Joy Harmon on Broadway in “Make a Million”

  “I wouldn’t know what to do when the guys stared at me, but I liked the idea. I wouldn’t talk to them because I was too shy, but they probably thought I was stuck-up. And I didn’t have any girlfriends, because I’m sure they thought, ‘Who does she think she is? How cheap!’ I can’t blame them, when I was wiggling around school in tight skirts. My mom helped me use my figure in a positive way, so that it was all comedy and not offensive.”

  A frequent beauty contest winner, her biggest honor was placing as the runner-up in the Miss Connecticut pageant and earning the right to attend the Miss America event at Atlantic City. After one pageant victory, Joy made her first national TV appearance on The Steve Allen Show. For her second TV appearance, in early 1957 on the Garry Moore program, she simply walked across the stage in a tight skirt and said: “I have a message from Jayne Mansfield.” Moore, with a quick glance at her fulsome chest, replied: “I get the message.” “I made those kinds of appearances on a lot of TV shows,” says Joy, giggling. “I was always billed as Miss Something-or-Other and came out in a skimpy outfit, just being the dumb blonde. I loved that!”

  Broadway Bombshell

  Joy’s big break came at age seventeen when she landed the ingenue lead in the Broadway comedy Make a Million starring Sam Levene as an advertising executive. The show opened around the end of 1957. “I played a ding-a-ling secretary. The biggest laugh in the whole show came when I was standing there in a tight sweater just as the idea man for the TV show came in with two basketballs, saying, ‘I’ve got a great idea for a new show,’ and we got stuck in the door. It was a laugh that we could just milk — very corny, but funny.”