Dixie Evans
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Dixie Evans (August 28, 1926 – August 3, 2013), born as Mary Lee Evans, was an American burlesque dancer and stripper. Evans is probably best remembered for her burlesque parody as Marilyn Monroe. 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. Other dancers, like Lili St. Cyr dressed as a cowgirl and Jennie Lee dressed as Jayne Mansfield. In Evans's Monroe act, she dressed as Monroe and teased the audience. In real life Evans was three inches bigger in her breast than Monroe: Evans (est. 40-26-34) and Monroe (est. 37-24-35). According to the reporters, Evans looked very like Monroe and in some side-by-side photos you can't tell the two apart. When Monroe died in 1962, Evans saw her career to come to a sudden stop. The audiences were no longer attracted to the burlesque and the "easier" version of Monroe, if the real one was dead. Upon the death of her close-friend and dancer Jennie Lee, Evans took over the burlesque collectible museum, Exotic World, later Burlesque Hall of Fame. The museum consists of several items used in burlesque entertainers' acts. Even in her old age, Evans still performed although infrequently.
