Dancing with Dixie: Vaudeville Star Still Shines

Dixie Roberts

Broadway and vaudeville performer, specialty tap dancer, musical comedienne, and self described “health nut,” Dixie Roberts, danced her way to vibrant wellness through most of the 20th Century.

Born on April 5, 1919, her first professional dancing job was with the Tommy Dorsey Band in 1935, when she was 16. Billed as the dancer who “taps with a Southern accent,” she was featured in ads for 7-Up and Clairol. Today, Dixie enjoys her retirement in Florida, as a wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.

Dixie danced her way across the U.S. in a host of clubs and houses of entertainment from New York City’s Copacabana to Chicago’s Chez Paree to San Francisco’s Orpheum. She often made a memorable entrance, sliding onto the stage in an athletic burst of panache to appreciative applause! She opened shows for, and shared the stage with some of the biggest stars of the day, including Danny Thomas, Henny Youngman, Pearl Bailey, Jimmy Durante, and Benny Goodman.


Dixie Roberts

After a performance at the La Martinique dinner theatre in 1946, a fan made his way backstage to tell her what an exceptional dancer she was. They dined at New York’s Armondo’s afterwards, and he tried to convince her to go to Hollywood. But she stayed on the East Coast, turning down both Hollywood—and Gene Kelly!


Gene Kelly and Dixie Roberts

During one USO hospital tour, Dixie tap-danced with Peg Leg Bates, the renowned, black, one-legged tap dancer. She recalls that he was a very cheerful fellow, and “danced far better with one leg than almost anyone else with two!”


Dancing in "Dream with Music", 1943.

Dixie was also a specialty performer in the Broadway show, “Dream with Music” (1943), in which she was the featured dancer in several numbers, and also danced with legendary choreographer, George Balanchine’s wife, Vera Zorina.


Dixie Roberts, Swim Champion

The picture of health, Dixie was also a prizewinning athlete: A.A.U. Swimming Champ, expert riflewoman, and New York State Cue Champion. As a teen she was invited to train for the U.S. Olympic swim team. When her father refused to let her participate in such scandalous activity, she "showed" him—she went into “show biz”, instead!

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