Dale Evans Rogers (born Frances Octavia Smith; October 31, 1912 – February 7, 2001) was an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She was the second wife of singing cowboy film star Roy Rogers.
Early life and career
Evans' childhood home in Uvalde, TX
Evans was born Frances Octavia Smith on October 31, 1912, in Uvalde, Texas, to Bettie Sue Wood and T. Hillman Smith. She was raised in Italy, Texas. She started singing at the community's Baptist church whe she was 3. [1][2][a] 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 career in music. She took courses in business and landed a job at a bus company and later an insurance agency.[4] After her boss overheard her singing, she landed jobs with Memphis radio stations (WMC and WREC), singing and playing piano. In 1930, she moved to Chicago, Illinois to expand her career. She was diagnosed with malnutrition shortly after. Divorced in 1929, she took the name Dale Evans while working at radio station WHAS (Louisville, Kentucky) in the early 1930s under the names Frances Fox and Marian Lee. 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.[5]
Early career
Evans' embroidered white leather gauntletsEvans' pink rhinestone cowboy boots
After beginning her career singing at the radio station where she was employed as a secretary, 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. She gained exposure on radio as the featured singer for a time on the Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy show. From 1936 to 1938, she landed a job as a singer for Dallas, Texas radio station WFAA.[6]
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.[7]
Joint efforts
Evans married Roy Rogers on New Year's Eve 1947 at the Flying L Ranch in Davis, Oklahoma, where they had earlier filmed the movie Home in Oklahoma.[8] The successful marriage was Rogers' third and Evans' fourth; the two were a team on- and off-screen from 1946 until Rogers' death 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. Her life inspired 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 honor. She went on to write a number of 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.[7] Evans and Rogers adopted four other children: Mimi, Dodie, Sandy, and Debbie.[9]
From 1951 to 1957, Evans and 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. In addition to her successful TV shows, more than 30 films and some 200 songs, Evans wrote the song "Happy Trails".[10] 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.[10]
Joining Evans and Eisley at the Project Prayer rally were Walter Brennan, Lloyd Nolan, Rhonda Fleming, Pat Boone, and Gloria Swanson. Evans declared, "It's high time that all America stood up to be counted. Let our children learn of the Lord and be free." Eisley and Fleming added that Rogers, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Mary Pickford, Jane Russell, Ginger Rogers, and Pat Buttram would have attended the rally had their schedules permitted.[11] In the 1970s, Evans recorded several solo albums of religious music. 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.
Evans died of congestive heart failure on February 7, 2001, at the age of 88, in Apple Valley, California. She is interred at Sunset Hills Memorial Park in Apple Valley, next to Rogers.[13][14]
Cheryl Rogers-Barnett, a daughter of Roy Rogers and step-daughter of Evans, co-authored Cowboy Princess: Life with My Parents, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans with Frank Thompson.[19]
^For unknown reasons, the doctor who attended the birth recorded the baby's name as Lucille Wood Smith, a fact of which she was unaware until the 1950s, when she needed a copy of her birth certificate in order to obtain a passport.[3]
^Brooks, Patricia; Brooks, Jonathan (2006). "Chapter 8: East L.A. and the Desert". Laid to Rest in California: a guide to the cemeteries and grave sites of the rich and famous. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press. pp. 235–37. ISBN978-0762741014. OCLC70284362.
