| This page is dedicated to the memory of Audrey Hansen, actress, model, poet, bon vivant; maternal grandmother of Beck and Channing, mother of Bibbe Hansen and the only woman crazy enough to have a baby with Al Hansen. She was a great broad. |
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| The following is her obituary as published in the Village Voice in August of 1968 in the column "Hubcaps" by Daniel List. |
| August 15, 1968 BIBBE'S MA, AUDREY by Daniel List Last week my good friend Al Hansen, the happenings man, laid on me the dreary news that his former wife, Audrey "Nikki" Hansen, onetime star belle of the Village's beatnik days, had died suddenly in Greenwich House over on Barrow Street. Pixie-size Audrey, who lived a life that might burn up any two other people, lasted just 37 years. In recent years after several marriages, a brief tv career, and the birth of lookalike daughter Bibbe by Al, she had finally come to roost in the West Village where she had fallen in with an assortment of scurves, hop heads, and, unaccountably, some angels including among the latter, the original "Auntie Mame," still alive and well. Life being the shit house that it is, the scurves won out over the good guys and Audrey just plain burnt out. While we were driving up to Valhalla to lay her to rest after the services at rock-rib St. Peters on West 20th Street I had a chance to rap with her brother who had lost track of her over the years. Between Al and me, we hipped him on what a great spirit she had been back in the days of the old Waldorf Cafeteria on Sixth Avenue. At that time incidentally, while we all lived together in lofts this side of the Bowery we found sustenance along 8th Street. Audrey at that time had dyed all her hair green, poet Maxwell Bodenheim was holding forth strongly in the San Remo, and the biggest deal going was a Ted Joans party on St. Marks Place, then terra incognita for Villagers of every stripe. It was pretty hot stuff by the way, and quite usual for someone to produce a real joint of "gage" like the musicians used on 52nd Street; but our scene was booze, the cheaper the better, and Charlie Parker. It was a red wine world and fundamentally pretty harmless. Well here we are on the highway and all kinds of dipshits are cutting in and out of the funeral procession, something you wouldn't and I couldn't have believed possible in semi-civilized White Plains. At the site I counted 15 noses including the preacher in his white cassock, and as he scattered on the ceremonial handful of earth, the scheduled skies opened and drenched the whole scene. It was really very poetic, an antic touch was provided by a dizzy green beach umbrella we unfurled. It was a gasser. Audrey would have loved it. |
| Some Poems by Audrey |