Belgian postcard by Nieuwe Merksemsche Chocolaterie S.P.R.L., Merksem (Antwerp). Photo: Republic Pictures.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 596. Photo: British Lion Republic. Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and Trigger.
A productive career as a jazz, swing, and big band singer
Dale Evans was born Frances Octavia Smith in 1912 in Uvalde, Texas, to Bettie Sue Wood and T. Hillman Smith. She had a tumultuous early life. She spent a lot of time living with her uncle, Dr. L.D. Massey MD FACP, an internal medicine physician, in Osceola, Arkansas.
At age 14, she eloped with and married Thomas F. Fox, with whom she had one son, Thomas F. Fox Jr., when she was 15. A year later, abandoned by her husband, she found herself in Memphis, Tennessee, a single parent pursuing a music career. She landed a job with local radio stations (WMC and WREC), singing and playing the piano.
Divorced in 1929, she began her career singing at radio station WHAS where she was employed as a secretary. She took the name Dale Evans after the station manager suggested it because he believed she could promote her singing career with a short pleasant-sounding name that announcers and disc jockeys could easily pronounce.
Evans had a productive career as a jazz, swing, and big band singer that led to a screen test and contract with 20th Century Fox Studios in 1942. She gained exposure on radio as the featured singer for a time on the Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy show.
Throughout this early period, Evans went through two additional failed marriages, first with August Wayne Johns from 1929 to 1935; then with accompanist and arranger Robert Dale Butts from 1937 to 1946. Neither marriage produced children. During her time at 20th Century Fox, the studio promoted her as the unmarried supporter of her teenage 'brother' Tommy, actually her son Tom Fox, Jr., a deception that continued through her divorce from Butts in 1946 and her development as a cowgirl co-star to Roy Rogers at Republic Studios.
Vintage postcard, no KF 36. Photo: Republic Pictures.
Two icons of American pop culture
At 20th Century Fox, Dale Evans did not get good parts. She was barely visible in her film debut Orchestra Wives (Archie Mayo, 1942) She had to settle for leading roles at Republic Studios, a 'B' factory. She wasn't keen on Westerns, but Westerns were what she got.
In 1944, she was cast as the leading lady to rising cowboy star Roy Rogers in Cowboy and the Senorita (Joseph Kane, 1944). She and Rogers clicked and she became his steady on-screen companion in such films as The Yellow Rose of Texas (Joseph Kane, 1944), Don't Fence Me In (John English, 1945), and My Pal Trigger (Frank McDonald, 1946). The two would become icons of American pop culture.
In 1946, Rogers' wife died and Evans' marriage to Butts ended about the same time. Roy and Dale married on New Year's Eve 1947 at the Flying L Ranch in Davis, Oklahoma, where they had earlier filmed the film Home in Oklahoma (William Witney, 1946). The marriage was Rogers' third and Evans' fourth but it was successful; the two were a team on- and off-screen from 1946 until Rogers died in 1998. Shortly after the wedding, Evans ended the deception regarding her son Tommy. Roy had an adopted daughter, Cheryl, and two biological children, Linda and Roy Jr. (Dusty), from his second marriage. Together they had one child, Robin Elizabeth, who died of complications of Down syndrome shortly before her second birthday.
Their marriage was dogged by tragedy, including the loss of three children before adulthood. In 1965, son John David died at the age of 18 while in the army and stationed in Germany. Daughter Debbie, originally named In Ai Lee, who was of Korean and Puerto Rican ancestry, died in a bus crash in 1964. Her life inspired Dale Evans to write her bestseller 'Angel Unaware'.
Evans was very influential in changing public perceptions of children with developmental disabilities and served as a role model for many parents. After she wrote 'Angel Unaware', a group then known as the 'Oklahoma County Council for Mentally Retarded Children' adopted its better-known name 'Dale Rogers Training Center' in her honour. She went on to write several religious and inspirational books, and she and Roy appeared many times with Billy Graham in Crusades all over the country, singing gospel songs and giving their testimony. Evans and Rogers adopted four other children: Mimi, Dodie, Sandy, and Debbie.
British Real Photograph postcard. Photo: Republic Pictures. Caption: Greetings from Dale Evans.
Vintage postcard, no. 3498. Photo: Republic Pictures.
Happy Trails
From 1951-1957, Dale Evans and Roy Rogers starred in the highly-successful television series The Roy Rogers Show, in which they continued their cowboy and cowgirl roles, with her riding her trusty buckskin horse, Buttermilk. Alice Van-Springsteen served as a double for both Evans and Gail Davis, the actress who starred in the syndicated series Annie Oakley, often performing such tasks as tipping over wagons and jumping railroad tracks.
In addition to her successful TV shows, more than 30 films, and some 200 songs, Evans wrote the well-known song 'Happy Trails'. In later episodes of the program, she was outspoken in her Christianity, telling people that God would assist them with their troubles and imploring adults and children to turn to Him for guidance.
In late 1962, the couple co-hosted a comedy-western-variety program, The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show, which aired on ABC. It was cancelled after three months, losing in the ratings to the first season of The Jackie Gleason Show. The couple's headquarters became The Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum in Victorville, California near their Apple Valley home which chronicled their lives.
In the 1970s, Evans recorded several solo albums of religious music. In 1976, Roy and Dale were inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. During the 1980s, the couple introduced their films weekly on the former The Nashville Network. In the 1990s, Evans hosted her own religious television program, A Date with Dale.
Dale Evans died of congestive heart failure in 2001, at the age of 88, in Apple Valley, California. She is interred at Sunset Hills Memorial Park in Apple Valley, next to Roy Rogers. Following Dale's death, the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum moved to Branson, Missouri. Dale Evans was awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Radio at 6638 Hollywood Boulevard and for Television at 1737 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
American postcard by Mike Roberts, Berkeley / Inland Distributing Co., Lancaster, CA, for the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum, Victorville, Calif., no C27256. Caption: Roy and Dale.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Jim Beaver (IMDb), Donald Greyfield (Find A Grave), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
This post was last updated on 23 February 2024.
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