In 1960, a group of well-attired men from the Seattle World’s Fair planning committee gathered in a downtown office. With the fair only two years away, people were starting to pitch their business ideas and on this day, some lady wanted to meet with them to do the same. At the scheduled time, the door opened and in walked a woman of stout proportions and a rather gaudy style, who, despite appearances, carried herself with an elevated level of confidence. She introduced herself as Gracie Hansen. The gathered men exchanged furtive glances with one another, not sure what to make of this person. Then came her proposal. She wanted to open a Las Vegas-style cabaret, complete with topless dancers, and operate it at the upcoming exposition.

This elicited a dismissive round of snickering and eye rolling. While she promoted her idea with a commendable level of enthusiasm, the room full of civic planners found it difficult to take her too seriously. There had been talk about offering adult entertainment at the fair, however, so her proposition was not entirely off the mark. Rather than dismissing Hansen outright, the organizers simply assigned her what they thought to be an impossible task. They said that if she could raise $100,000 in funding, then they would consider including her cabaret. She left their office with a confident stride, but as soon as the door closed behind her, the group enjoyed a good laugh before returning back to its official duties.

Months later, when Hansen waltzed back into the office with the full $100,000 in hand, the World’s Fair team stared at her in disbelief. Suddenly, this oddly dressed woman was no longer such a laughingstock. The planners, impressed with such a “can-do” spirit, offered her a deal.

While Hansen would eventually become a local celebrity, she started life as a small-town girl from Centralia. Living in a cramped apartment above a movie theater, she had always dreamed of being in show business. After high school, she married and moved to the nearby town of Morton, where she began organizing and producing a series of variety shows that became known as the “Morton Follies.” With Gracie at the helm, these shows often veered into risqué territory, which led them to be shut down.

Rather than being dissuaded, Gracie realized she had a true knack for this kind of show business, which eventually led to her meeting with the World’s Fair organizers. Now that she had actually talked her way into such a colossal event, she knew that she needed to prove herself. And prove herself she did.

Seattle’s official introduction to Hansen would take place in December 1961, when she welcomed a small crowd for the ground-breaking ceremony at her enticingly named Paradise Pavilion. Wearing a mink coat and feathered hat, she wielded a large novelty shovel and, with newspaper cameras clicking away, dug up some imitation jewels that had been planted there as a photo op. Always the source of a good quote, she quipped, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but I’ll never knock rubies, emeralds, or pearls.” She was a larger-than-life character—part Mae West, part Phyllis Diller—and the local press loved her.

The Paradise Pavilion was Hansen’s lavish 700-seat dinner theater offering showgirl revues featuring dancers in skimpy costumes, performing to a ten-piece orchestra. “It will be a daring show with some nudity, but all in good taste,” she told the Seattle Times. “There will be nothing lewd about it.” Her building featured an attention-grabbing neon sign shaped like an apple with a missing bite (an obvious allusion to the “original sin” story from the Bible), and was located on Show Street—a small but titillating complex of buildings in the World’s Fair that offered various adults-only attractions including cocktail lounges and burlesque shows.

During the fair’s run, Hansen’s show became a crowd favorite. Each performance would open with Hansen greeting the crowd with her trademark, “Hi-ya, suckers!” This was followed by a racy monologue full of double entendres, as well as a song or two. She would then introduce the dancers, who came slithering on stage to provide the evening’s true entertainment.

Before long, Hansen was hailed as “The Queen of the World’s Fair.” All the local TV stations fell over themselves to interview her, and any public appearance she made was guaranteed to draw a large crowd. When not holding court with the press, she could be seen racing around town in her gold Cadillac convertible.

After the fair closed, Hansen worked for a television station in Tacoma before moving to Oregon where she ran a 500-seat dinner theater in downtown Portland. She would also unsuccessfully run for governor of Oregon with the slogan, “The best governor money can buy.”

She remained fairly active until her passing in 1985. Since then, a book and documentary have both been made about her life story, and a stage play, Gracie: A Musical Adventure, opened to wide acclaim in 2012. In the end, the small-town girl with stars in her eyes eventually fulfilled her dreams and proved to the world that there can only be one Gracie Hansen.

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Brad Holden is an amateur historian and the author of two books: Seattle Prohibition: Bootleggers, Rumrunners and Graft in the Queen City, and Alfred M. Hubbard: Inventor, Bootlegger and Psychedelic Pioneer. Check out his Instagram page  @seattle_artifacts for more interesting tidbits about Seattle’s history.