(I first heard of The Exotic World Museum when I read about in a must-have book called Bizarro L.A. Seemingly out in the middle of nowhere, This small museum houses tons of photos and artifacts of the "age of burlesque." An age that seems to be rising again with more girls opting to bring tease and imagination back into striptease rather than take off every bit of clothing, sway back and forth a little and spread their legs for creepy guys who won't even look at their faces. Our own cover star this month is a modern burlesque dancer who we met at the Miss Exotic World competition (special thanks to Rich Polysorbate who hooked us up).
When you first arrive (after making reservations), the sign asks you to honk and Dixie Evans (known as the Marilyn Monroe of burlesque back in the day due to her strong resemblance to the film star) comes out to greet you. She brings you into the museum and raises her barker cane into the air and goes into an amazing spiel detailing the history of burlesque peppered with stories from her own experience in the business.
After our first visit to the museum, Kelly and I knew we had to return to do an interview. After some time we made the arrangements and Kelly manned the video camera while we sit down for a conversation with Dixie in the museum's auditorium.
C=Chris, D=Dixie, K=Kelly
C: Dixie, tell the No-Fi kids who you are and what you do.
D: Ok, well, I am the curator of a burlesque museum. We have Sally Rand's fans and Gypsy Rose Lee's trunks. Lots of things from an era you're not familiar with. You see there actually was a world out there before television. Hard to believe that I was in that era before television...and what did young fellas do in those days? Well, they would shoot marbles and kick the can, but come Friday or Saturday night if they had 12 or 15 cents, they could go to a burlesque theatre...if they were 17. So what we have tried to do here is preserve an era that is gone...and you will hardly ever get this era anywhere else except in this museum. We have thousands of photographs...thousands that aren't even up yet,...of entertainers from the 20s, the 30s, the 40s, and the 50s. Also there are costumes and memorabilia and a lot of the tourists are elderly people, but you know what? I get busloads of college students, because they are studying art, they want to go into costume designing...so designers if you want to come, you're going to see some beautiful costumes and some beautiful girls. We had two beautiful girls just come through here yesterday. They didn't want to do the "pole dancing" or the "lap dancing"...not that I put those girls down, because they are lovely and beautiful girls trying to make a living, BUT there are those girls that say "You know, I want to do something different" and they do. They have their own conception of how to disrobe. Speaking of disrobing,...this is really funny,...I get calls all the time asking if there is a strip tease school in Los Angeles...and a couple other girls say they don't know how to take their clothes off and it's amazing, but it's really true. (We all laugh.) We have one girl who has a video out and it's called "How To Striptease" and it has beautiful video of the things that girls wear. Mostly I try to tell them just get in front of your mirror, some intimate wardrobe and the best music that you can dance to and just emote, but everything must be taken off very very coy, 
slow, cute... There are some fellows, of course, that know we live in the fast lane...and if a girl is trying to do a real beautiful act and she's gonna take 5 minutes to take off her glove they say, "Hey! Huh? C'mon!" You will get those people. But you DO get, and I know because they've come to the museum, young fellas that just get so excited when they see the corsets and the bustier and the old fashioned strip tease... When I say old fashioned, I don't really call the 50s old fashioned, I mean it's hip, it's really hip. A lot of people are reaching back into the grab-bag with wardrobe, with costumes, with music and they get a little bit of something from the past that "Hey, they weren't so corny and stupid after all." (she laughs) We weren't corny and stupid, believe me. We had good shows. We really did.C: When did you start the museum?
D: Ok, Jennie-Lee, a very famous uh... twirler... (She twirls her fingers in front of her chest. We all laugh) The tassels on her bazooms...a WHOLE lot of bazooms on her... and on her derriere doing big cartwheels with all these tassels going. Oh, yeah. She'd stand up and they'd scream and she'd do more cartwheels and, boy, they'd still be spinning. She had a little bar in San Pedro called the Sassy Lassie's Beer Bust Bar. It was on Pacific Coast Highway. Her husband owned the Blue Viking, another bar. She became ill with cancer. Cancer...big time. No insurance in those days. So they had to find a piece of property way out in the middle of nowhere that was inexpensive and this was a defunct goat farm. The museum over there was a goat shed. Now getting back to your original question... (she laughs) So there were all these pictures all over the bar in San Pedro, but she had to bring them all in boxes up to this dessert. It was in the mid-eighties and she lived and hung on for a long time. I've known Jennie Lee since 1951. I've known her husband who owns the 40 acres out here since 1962. So 1962 is coming along and we got the lowest pay you ever got which was 250 dollars a week. And then you went to 400, 500, 600... Tempest Storm went to 10,000 a week... Blaze Starr, big money... Then one day you go to the theatre and there's a big sign out front, "Amateur Night"... Oh oh... Now here's a bunch of real young gorgeous girls backstage coming out to the latest music... Of course our music was a little corny too at that time. They're really movin' and shakin' and the bosses are checking us out and saying "look at these real young beautiful girls...19, 20,..." You know. Well, we gave them 75 dollars a week. It happened all the time. Chorus lines are out of the show. We had the best musicians in the world! They could play those trumpets and those saxophones. I mean if no one knew how to dance to the music we had which just drove you on,... there's something wrong with'em. Well anyway, so now you gotta drop the musicians off....and you go around in a circle again and again until you got one little fella with 
glasses on his nose and he's playing the piano and beating the drums and he's going, "doot doot doot"... And it was over...in the fifties...the late fifties. Also the musicians used to get 55 to 65 dollars a week. The patrol union demanded 125 dollars a week. They were all worth it, but for a theatre to hold on to the tradition and the band...and try to fight television...there was no way. So the theatres just closed, but burlesque went down hanging, hanging, hanging. (laughing) Because it was a tradition...it's an American tradition! That's the message I'd like to get across. It wasn't just a bunch of crazy girls and everything out there stripping. Oh, no. The big curtain would open up and there would be 30 or 40 girls marching forward to the latest song of the day. There would be a beach ball number. The girls would have bathing suits on and do real cute numbers and bounce the beach balls. And then the comedians and comics would come out in bathing suits and sing, "WE ARE THE SONS OF THE BEACHES," you know and do crazy things. The opening could last 10 minutes. Then you'd see a Latin dance team or a novelty act and it was always a little upbeat and cute and then you'd have strip-tease dancers. Now you got your big production number. Oh boy! BEAUTIFUL big production numbers! A house singer all in a tuxedo and so forth. And then of course you would have your finale, which could easily last 5 or 6 minutes too. It was a wonderful training ground for young people, you see because you must learn to respect the stage hands,...the electricians,...which you were near first in the business and you would start off for the first time, "Oh, they're just electricians working back there." Ah, you learn sooner or later as they put that big candle down on your head when the shows over... I learned a lot of things. I remember I was doing a Marilyn Monroe number... There was that song "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" The band and the audience was going "Shake, Rattle, and Roll!" and I was shakin' and I see them in the wings doing something and I'm just having a wonderful time out there. Well, when I got off that stage... When the front of the house greets you backstage it's not to say it was a great show, no. Uh-uh. Something's wrong. Mr. Minski said, "Do you know how much money you cost me?!?" Well, if the show comes down five minutes after, they'll allow that, but if it's six minutes...(smacks the table) time and a half! Money! And you just feel so horrible going to your dressing room, "my god, I didn't know that." Well, it says in your contract 10 minute, six-minute act and I
just had a couple girls from the studios here a few days ago and we were all joking about that. You know, you can NOT make fun of those stagehands and those electricians. They're all part of the show. But see these are the things that you, yeah, learn in the burlesque the first couple times. It's a company. It's a corporation. Everybody tries to help you look good. But you must be courteous to stage hands and electricians. For a long time you want to lump them into something else...no, no. They are just as much a part of the show as anyone else and they demand and they deserve that respect. Cause I know I've had the camera dropped on my head a couple times. (she laughs, we make squeamish sounds) Yeah, yeah when the finales over and the big stars come out and we're taking our bows and the movies goes on. You see for the price of 25 cents in the afternoon at the burlesque show, you get to see a first-run movie. They didn't just herd you into a little box and just close the door and get out, no, you could stay there all day and have lunch and all kinds of things. So, getting back to the question... (laughs) So Jennie Lee moved out here. They bought this ranch and these 40 acres. Very reasonable. I don't know the price. The museum where all the artifacts are was a goat shed. This building was not here. We just moved the trash from one room to the next. I had this one girl here a while ago and she said, "Dixie, I remember when we sat in that one little room in the goat shed on an apple box." It's not just me. People are wonderful out there. They mail me things. They send me artifacts and things from old tabloids. So, anyway, when Jennie passed away,...I came out before she died to sort of help out with her life, putting bandages on her, and... she died. I was here just the night before and her husband called me saying "The telephones are ringing and I don't know anything about Jennie's business and striptease." He didn't know the difference between Blaze Starr and Tempest Storm. He used to get them mixed up. Well, geez they were both redheads and big names...and big boobs. (We all laugh) Oh, yeah, beautiful girls with big boobs. At any rate, I moved out here and I was tickled to death to leave a boring old dumb job. We do get lots of wonderful people who come through. I can't begin to tell you the celebrities and young starlets running out here. They got a part in an old 50s movie or want to know about costumes and they're just tickled to death to come here.C: (Whew!) Who are some recent celebrities that have been by?
D: (laughing) Oh, I wish you didn't say that. I can't think of any right now. Mostly just starlets who are starting out. The fella who produced Roswell... He was here. A tall thin man wondered through here and had me sign an autograph and he was one of the producers of Waterworld. The director of Days Of Our Lives was here with his wife. I had two girls come by who WORKED for Madonna. These two little farm girls came by and were so excited that they met somebody who worked for Madonna. A few weeks later the farm girls show up with a poster of Madonna telling me that I should have this just in case I meet Madonna. We didn't get Madonna YET. The producer of Law And Order was here and that was a big deal because she's the daughter of Jayne Mansfield and we have Jayne's big heart shaped couch. I had a photographer come in and shoot a great picture and I'm going to get it framed and mail it to her. She was probably very little when somebody gave me that couch from her house. So anyway, we are out in the middle of the dessert and we don't get many people, but we DO get quality. We get a lot of people making the route 66 run. It is a part of Americana. We have those flags out there that all represent a country that have been here. Paris, France was here and I said "Why? You have the most beautiful museums in the entire world and the best shows...and you came here!" They said they didn't have anything like this in Paris. We he said that I was like, "Was that a compliment or what?" (she laughs) We had Mexico City last year and I told you, The London Times. They rented Harleys and made the route 66 run. On the overall picture, a lot of tourists, but we just haven't gotten there yet, but we have to keep going. We got too much money invested here...and nowhere to go. (laughing)C: Have you ever done any films or shorts?
D: Well, I've done a lot of those documentaries. I did a great one for England. I did not realize in this day and age that they had those elaborate shows in those great music halls in Paris. Oh, god, they're gorgeous. More glamorous and the numbers are totally spectacular. Those are the best dancers I've ever seen.
C: I just went to Paris last year and walked by the Moulin Rouge and there was a huge line to get in.
D: Oh, the Moulin Rouge! When they do the can-can, that is the most difficult dance to do. You have to be absolutely fabulous to leap way up in the air and come down in the splits. Oh no. It's difficult. I was booked into the Doledo De Paris in 1952 and 3 and I was so terrified, I wouldn't go. Because I thought I was going to get to do my little Hollywood number and they said "No no no no no. They are going to build a show around you because you look like Marilyn Monroe. You're just going to come down some stairs and they'll show you what to do. I got terrified because backstage at Minski's they said a chorus line got booked in Paris and they were told to get ready for the finale and the owner walked in and said, "you're going on MY stage in THOSE costumes?" He just canceled them out. No money. Had to scramble to get back to the United States. And then I heard one horror story after the other. Then I got to thinking all musical directors would say, "No!!! She can't dance!! She can't do this! She can't do that!" I know how it would be. Because I can't follow instructions on dance and things. I just sorta do my own little act my own way. Those chorus girls and those dancers are good dancers and they've been trained since they were three years old. I just said I'll go into burlesque and make up my own steps so they can't say "Oh, look! She doesn't know how to dance." "Of course not! That's MY step! I made it up!" (big laughs)C: "You can't steal MY dance!"
D: (laughing) I just had to keep using my ingenuity and shuffle and scuffle and do everything I could. I did steal a step here and there and I told Mitzi,...I have an 83 year old former dancer with a stroke in the house, and she said, "That's all right Dixie. I did it too!" But that's the way you kinda do it. You pick it up from someone else and change it around a little bit and hopefully no one else will recognize what you're doing. It goes on even in the comedians and the comics.C: Did you ever get to perform for any famous people?
D: Well, I went out with Joe DiMaggio. I didn't perform for him. Frank Sinatra too. I don't know if you kids know about an old show called "Car 54 Where Are You?" Joe E Ross... I worked with him a lot back east even before he got famous. We was worried that he'd get up on stage and kids would say, "Where's Toody?" He never liked kids very much. I said, you know what? I got a tight blue skirt and a white blouse and I'll pin a big police badge on it and I'll come out and say
replacement for officer Toody!" Well, we drove leave out on the yard. Now my husband Harry was a professional prizefighter and he looked like a prizefighter and Joe is in the car with his police uniform and we have to make it and we're late. And Harry's driving really fast running in and out of traffic and we pass this car with a license plate that says #1 and I say that must have been somebody very important. So we pass them and we hit a roadblock and police yank out of the car and Joe tells them we had to make a show and they laughed and had us sign autographs and they told us that they got reports that there was a gun moll in the backseat and some crazy gangster driving the car and a police officer and we thought we had the police officer held. They' been getting stories all the way up from New York about this red convertible. They said they would give us a police escort into the park and they did and the park was just jammed with cars. We got in and did our little show. The kids just loved old Joe E Ross. Joe was just a crazy buffoon all the time. He was really really a funny guy. Oh, his funeral was a riot. (Kelly and I laugh) Oh, it really was. All the other stand up comics... He was really really fond of hookers and my husband used to say why don't you get a nice girl and Joe would say (in a husky voice), "No, I only like the 20 dollar kind. They're more earthy." He was such a character.C: What is the most favorite place that you've ever performed at?
D: Most famous place I've ever performed at?
K: Your favorite.
D: My favorite? (she lights up) The Waldorf Astoria. Can't get much better than that! (pausing a beat) Yeah, I was booked there by mistake...
(Kelly and I bust up laughing. She quickly joins us in our laughter.)
D: Yeah, it was a private banquet show. However, they had a lot of other big big acts. All of the sudden someone says, "well, what are you doing?" I was talking to the band and rehearsing and they say, "well, she's going to take her clothes off" and they said, "Oh, what? No, she can't do that." and it was too late the music was going on and the musicians got in the pit and on we went, yep. I had a royal blue little pillbox hat and a little robe and it stuck way out and a real tight skirt slit up and I did my little Hollywood number and I had to follow...oh, I always said I'd follow god, but I had to follow this great religious group. Here I am putting my body makeup on and they were all in these robes. They were nice and paid me and everything.
C: What is your favorite color?
D: Black (laughs)
