Dixie Roberts

Dixie Roberts was a vaudeville tap and specialty dancer, who also danced in chorus lines and performed musical comedy. A member of the Ziegfeld Follies, she was often billed as the dancer who “taps with a Southern accent,” although she was born in upstate New York, where she grew up and was an accomplished athelete.

Early life

Dixie Roberts was born April 5, 1919, in Elmhurst, NY.^[1]

A professional dancer at age 16, Miss Roberts’ first job was at the Paramount Theatre in New York, dancing with the Tommy Dorsey Band in 1935. She and her partner were one of the five acts on the bill with the band. She danced with Horace Nichols, with whom she had earlier won the title, “King and Queen of Shag” at the Paramount Theatre, N.Y.

Dixie was also a prizewinning athlete, New York State Cue Champion, and expert riflewoman. An A.A.U. swimming champ, Dixie was invited to train for the Olympic swim team, an offer her father did not let her accept. In 1943, Physical Culture magazine reported that, as a youngster in upstate New York, Roberts was “the best feminine baseball player in the county, and was hard to beat at tennis, basketball and swimming.”^[2] Similarly, the Sunday Mirror reported that 22-year-old Dixie, “once had a run of 93 in three cushion billiards, bowls a neat 200 and finished last season batting .405 … and has the trophies to prove it … She has won 11 plaques for excellence in sports since she’s been in show business, and her accomplishments range from swimming and track to stud poker. There’s a popular belief that men don’t like athletic girls, but Dixie belies it. She’s probably the most popular dame in the show, in a cast of 50 expensive stunners.”^[3]

Early dancing career

Dixie took dancing lessons from Dorothy Fitch in Peekskill, NY, while she attended Carmel High School. She taught dance after school, charging 25 cents an hour, often walking the five miles home after she finished teaching.

In 1939, at age 20, Dixie taught and performed on weekends at Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel, which was the inspiration for “Kellerman’s Resort” in the movie Dirty Dancing.

Dixie was on “Showboat” on NBC Television, in 1939.

Between shows at the Earle Theatre in Philadelphia , she shot pool with Buddy Berrigan, “the greatest white trumpet player who ever lived,” according to Louis Armstrong.

Ziegfeld Follies

Miss Roberts performed with the Ziegfeld Follies of 1943, at the Winter Garden Theater, where she danced with Penny Edwards, Mary Ganley and Patricia Hall. In one number, she partnered with Milton Berle, and later was a guest on his NBC Television show.

When she was in the Zeigfeld Follies, she played pool with Milton Berle after matinees.

Later career highlights

Dixie was a specialty performer in the Broadway show, “Dream with Music”, in which she danced with Vera Zorina, wife of George Balanchine. (1944)

She opened shows for such notables as Artie Shaw, Jimmy Dorsey, Danny Thomas, Henny Youngman, Ben Blue, Charlie Spivak, Joe E. Lewis, Pearl Bailey, Jimmy Durante, Steve Allen, Woody Herman, and Benny Goodman. Dixie often made a memorable entrance sliding onto the stage.

During her career, Miss Roberts also performed on Broadway, at the Copacabana (N.Y.), the Troika (Washington, D. C.), The Rainbow Room (N.Y.), The Chez Paree (Chicago), the Orpheum (San Francisco), and other venues.

She also performed in USO tours, for the Marines and the Flying Tigers.

During one USO hospital tour, she tap danced with Peg Leg Bates. She said that he danced better with one leg than anyone else could with two.

Famous columnist Walter Winchell singled Dixie out appreciatively on a number of occasions, once as “one of the lookers in the Ziegfeld Follies.”

Life outside of dancing

After her stage career, Dixie often worked at parties for Marjorie Merriweather Post, giving dance performances, lessons, and dancing with the guests. Post, mother of actress Dina Merrill, and married to E.F. Hutton, was society’s grand dame at the time.

Bandleader Ray Conniff proposed to Roberts. She turned him down, and he married her best girlfriend, Emily Imhof. Today, Dixie enjoys her retirement in Florida, as a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

References

^ For example, this is where you would put a source for this fact.
^ Physical Culture, Dec. 1943
^ Sunday Mirror, Magazine section, Aug. 15, 1943

Bibliography

Sarasota Herald Tribune, Mar. 17, 1988;
Toledo Blade, Feb. 12, 1953;
The Herald, Montreal, Aug. 21, 1950;
Miami Herald, Feb. 18, 1950;
MIami Daily News, Feb. 16, 1950;
Jacksonville Journal, Dec 31, 1949
The Washington Daily News, Nov. 8, 1949;
Miami Daily News, Jan. 5, 1948;
Screen Stars magazine, Oct. 1946;
New York Journal-American, May 26, 1946;
New York Journal-American, May 24, 1946;
Morning Star Miami Beach, Feb. 22, 1946;
NOW in Greater Miami, Jan. 26, 1946;
NOW in Greater Miami, Jan. 19, 1946;
Chicago Sunday Times, Oct. 21, 1945;
Chicago Daily Tribune, Oct. 2, 1945;
Chicago Herald-American, Sept. 8, 1945;
The Chicago Sun, Sept. 6, 1945;
Chicago Herald-American, Sept. 5, 1945;
The Billboard, Sept. 1, 1945;
The chicago Sun, Aug. 25, 1945;
Akron Beacon Journal, Aug. 3, 1945;
The Windsock, June 16, 1945;
San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 25, 1945;
Los Angeles Examiner, Apr. 11, 1945;
Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 31, 1945;
Philadelphia Daily News, Mar. 30, 1945;
The Evening Star, Wash. D.C., Nov. 23, 1944;
Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Sept. 11, 1944;
New York Daily Mirror, column: Walter Winchell in New York, Mar. 15, 1944;
Physical Culture magazine, Dec. 1943;
Sunday Mirror, Magazine section, Aug. 15, 1943;
Brooklyn Eagle, June 2, 1943;
New York Daily Mirror, column: Walter Winchell in New York, May 1943;
Phil Daily News, Mar. 6, 1943;
The Boston Record, Jan. 15, 1943

[1] For example, this is where you would put a source for this fact.

[2] Physical Culture, Dec. 1943

[3] Sunday Mirror, Magazine section, Aug. 15, 1943

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