Hope Dare was a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl who fell in love with a married mobster
She was born Rose Luetzsinger on October 9, 1909 in Fairfield, Ohio. After her parents divorced she was sent to live with her grandparents. Then she moved to Las Vegas with her mother and stepfather. Hope attended the Immaculate Conception School and took dance lessons. When she was seventeen she moved to Los Angeles and married David Swing Ricker, a forty-seven year old promoter. She was named "Miss Southern California" in a beauty contest and danced in the Fanchon & Marco stage shows. Tragically her husband David died following an appendectomy in 1929. Soon after Hope moved to New York City and appeared in the Broadway show Melody. The beautiful redhead also starred in the 1932 film She Wanted A Millionaire. In 1934 she started dancing with the Ziegfeld Follies. She fell madly in love with Richard "Dixie" Davis, a married mobster.
When Dixie was indicted in the summer of 1937 he and Hope went into hiding, They spent some time in Las Vegas before moving to Philadelphia. The police found them in February of 1938 and they were both arrested. Dixie agreed to a a plea deal and served a year in jail. Hope waited for him and his wife finally agreed to give him a divorce. They were married in August of 1939. The couple had two children and opened an ice-cream store in Los Angeles. She filed for divorced in 1943 but they reconciled. In December of 1969 two robbers broke into their home. They tied up Hope and her grandson while they stole thousands of dollars worth of jewelry. When Dixie found them tied up he suffered a heart attack and died. Hope later moved to Henderson, Nevada. On March 31, 1999 she died at the age of eighty-nine. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
