Dixie Evans, by Michelle Carr This interview was originally published in the June 22, 1999 Velvet Hammer souvenir programme.

Producing the Velvet Hammer has become so much more than coaxing our girlfriends into stripping in front of a, gasp, live audience and creating dreamy showgirl costumes. It has become a true history lesson in a long forgotten and often scoffed-at form of entertainment. Going to the burlesque house was a true rite of passage for a whole generation, a form of entertainment that the working class could enjoy because of its sheer irreverence and satire of the classes. We have been unbelievably blessed, and I do mean blessed, to have been given the delightful and thrilling opportunity to actually shoot the shit with such burlesque heavy hitters as Russ Meyer (Velvet Hammer ’96), Doctor Anton LaVey (Velvet Hammer ’97), and this year we are proud to present to all you lucky devils Miss Dixie Evans for the last Velvet Hammer of this century. Writing this, I can’t even believe it — the last true blue burlesque show of the century and we have all of these fantastic pioneering spirits to thank for it. Burlesque will forever be tattooed on our hearts and psyche as an overwhelming influence on our lives. Mushy-mush I know, but few things penetrate this ol’ charred rare heart o’ mine (sniff, sniff) and meeting the oh-so glamourous Dixie Evans and seeing her museum in the middle of quaint bumfuck Helendale sure did. Dixie Evans was known in her day as the Marilyn Monroe of burlesque. This means fellers could actually see the star immortal !

Dixie’s story is a lot like most of the ladies of burlesque. She was dirt poor and raised by a mother who was, how shall I put it, a Jesus-enthusiast. Seems as though Dixie had just about enough of prayin’ for her next meal. One evening her beau Tommy Hanaford, a bareback rider in the Clyde Beatty Circus, got some tickets to to go see the burlesque show. Now, back in those days it was common for couples to go to a burlesque house on a date. The feature dancer of the evening was Tempest Storm. Oh my stars and garters! Imagine what it must have been like for a young sweet Miss Evans to see Tempest on her first exposure to burlesque!

Dixie Evans: Tempest had on a lavender gown and, boy, that flaming red hair. Real thin and those boobs! She really had a lot of personality. She’d come out screaming to “Stormy Weather.“

Velvet Hammer: Tell us what your first show was like, did it go well?
Dixie Evans: When you hear that timpani roll, and you’re behind that curtain and hear, ‘And now from Hollywood, the star of our show!’ the first time, your lips curl up over your teeth, and you can’t get them down, because you have stage fright! It’s not what you’re going to take off, that’s got nothing to do with it. We don’t care about that much, but when you are in the spotlight and you don’t know how long you’ve been out there, you have no conception of anything because you are totally frightened and you really can’t get into it. You just can’t. You just go through the show, you don’t know how, and you just sit in the dressing room. You just can’t believe it. The first time is scary. You may be a stripper in burlesque but it’s still you up there, all alone, with an audience that has paid money to see you. It’s frightening.

Velvet Hammer: Do you remember what you were wearing the first time?
Dixie Evans: Yes, it was pink satin. One of my very favorites.

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