Mary Lee "Dixie" Evans (August 28, 1926 – August 3, 2013) was an American

burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.

stripper A stripper or exotic dancer is a person whose occupation involves performing striptease in a public adult entertainment venue such as a strip club. At times, a stripper may be hired to perform at a bachelor party or other private event. M ...

Career

Evans was best known for a burlesque

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...

she performed as

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

. Evans entered show-business as a model and later chorus girl before becoming a star dancer. By the early 1950s she was a headlining burlesque star on the

West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to: Geography Australia * Western Australia *Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia * West Coast, Tasmania **West Coast Range, mountain range in the region Canada * Britis ...

when approached by producer Harold Minsky with a promise of steady work in his chain of theaters if she adapted her stage persona to that of then-rising star Marilyn Monroe. At first Evans objected but soon agreed. Like other strippers of the time period (including Lili St. Cyr and Jennie Lee), Evans was extremely well known in nightclubs and was largely under-paid. Evans's Monroe-burlesque act was the dancer's gimmick. Several other dancers also parodied female stars and noted historic women. Her acts parodied Monroe's films and known aspects of Monroe's life. In real life Evans was three inches bigger in her

breast The breast is one of two prominences located on the upper ventral region of a primate's torso. Both females and males develop breasts from the same embryological tissues. In females, it serves as the mammary gland, which produces and secret ...

than Monroe: Evans (est. 40-26-34) and Monroe (est. 37-24-35). According to the reporters, Evans looked very like Monroe. When Monroe died in 1962, Evans prepared a tribute show which was well received by critics and audiences. Evans soon came to feel disturbed by being sometimes mistaken for the dead star and curtailed the act, replacing it with a parody of

Irma La Douce ''Irma la Douce'' (, "Irma the Sweet") is a 1963 American romantic comedy film directed by Billy Wilder from a screenplay he co-wrote with I. A. L. Diamond, based on the 1956 French stage musical of the same name by Marguerite Monnot and Alexa ...

. Evans was still a draw, but the burlesque she loved was drying up and as she entered her late thirties she retired from performing and helped run the entertainment at a resort facility. Upon the death of her close-friend and dancer Jennie Lee in 1990, Evans took over the annual reunion meetings of the Exotic Dancers League Lee had helped found and the burlesque collectible museum, ''Exotic World,'' later'' ''

Burlesque Hall of Fame The Burlesque Hall of Fame (BHOF) is the world's only museum dedicated to the history, preservation, and future of the art of American burlesque, burlesque. Located in the Las Vegas Arts district at 1027 S Main st. #110, BHOF is a tourist des ...

that Lee had owned and run. In 1991, Evans began to produce annual fundraising shows to support the museum and its holdings. The museum consisted of hundreds of items used in burlesque entertainers' acts over the years and was moved from its original location in 2005 and 2006. Evans had returned to modeling in the late 1980s and resumed performing during the first dozen years of the events, later limiting herself to on-stage addresses. Her last full-fledged Monroe impersonation may have been at the 2002 Tease-O-Rama event where she mimicked Monroe's performance of " Runnin' Wild" from the film ''

Some Like It Hot ''Some Like It Hot'' is a 1959 American crime comedy film directed, produced and co-written by Billy Wilder. It stars Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, with George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Joe E. Brown, Joan Shawlee, Grace Lee Whitney and N ...

''. She also gave numerous tours of the museum at its original location and would recite bits of her old Monroe acts in her uncannily accurate Monroe soundalike voice for attendees.

Death

Evans died in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the age of 86.

References

External links

Dixie Evans
at the

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, Dixie 1926 births 2013 deaths American female erotic dancers American erotic dancers Female models from California American burlesque performers 21st-century American women