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Dixie
Evans, by Michelle Carr
This
interview was originally published
in the June 22, 1999
Velvet Hammer souvenir programme.
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Velvet
Hammer: What about Zorita?
Dixie Evans:
Zorita! Ah yes, she was very, very famous. I only worked with
Zorita once or twice in Miami. She worked with boa constrictors.
One time I worked with her at Minsky’s and she was posing
for photographers, coming down the staircase with her big boa.
I’m talking about a boa constrictor! All of a sudden, she’s
got this strange look on her face, see the boa got in the iron
staircase and started pulling! She started screaming and the photographers
were just snapping away and I couldn’t tell what the hell
was going on.
Velvet Hammer: When you were in New York,
did you ever meet Irving Klaw?
Dixie Evans: No, but I did meet Bettie
Page and a few gals who worked with him.
Velvet Hammer:
What was Bettie like?
Dixie Evans:
Well, I just met her very briefly. A photographer had to meet
me in a restaurant in New York and she was with him. Bettie worked
an awful lot. The photographers really got their money’s
worth with her. That girl could just pose, pose, pose, real quick,
boom, boom, boom. God I’ve seen so many of her, cachet after
cachet. Photographers that I would work for would say, ‘Hey
, you wanna see these?’ I was just amazed. Pretty soon it
would be ‘Hey I got work to do, let’s go.’
Velvet Hammer:
Were you ever involved in carny dancing or bally girls?
Dixie Evans:
When you are in New York and you’re working in the night
clubs and drinking a lot it’s very exciting, then, all of
a sudden, you realize it’s just too much. I’d call my
agent and ask ‘Can you get me on a carnival or something?’
We‘d call ’em still days. You’re like 10 days in
one place. Now you work, like, 20 shows a day, but you’re
so tired when you get home, you just get some Chinese take-out,
soak in the tub and go to bed. When you get back to New York,
after three months of that, you’re lean and mean and you’ve
got a bank roll. You have no place to spend your money and if
anyone asks you out, you wouldn’t go ’cause you’d
be too damn tired after dancing at these shows all day long. We
had good acts on these carny circuits too. There was always a
burlesque girl or a stripper or a chorus line, or a little midget
team.
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Velvet Hammer:
Did you ever see Monroe dance?
Dixie Evans:
Do you mean as a stripper? It’s been rumored that she played
a couple of places in Los Angeles. It’s possible, I’m
the exact same age as Marilyn and she was living there at the
Studio Club in Hollywood. You know, when Marilyn died, I went
into a deep depression, not only did I truly adore her, I knew
she really disapproved of my act. But I kept on doing it. I wasn’t
making fun of her, but towards the end I felt like I couldn’t
stop because if I did, that meant her career was really over in
a way. Bridget Bardot was the new hot starlet and Marilyn was
just self-destructing. She was on her way out, so even though
she disapproved, I felt as though I should continue. Oh, but the
guilt, when she died. I died when she died. No one wanted to touch
me with a 10 foot pole, it was very strange. It was a bleak period
in my life. You must have respect for someone who has been there
and done it and made it.
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