November 5, 1911 - July 6, 1998
**Roy Rogers Biography**
Born Leonard Franklin Slye on November 5, 1911, in Cincinnati, Ohio, he moved with his family on a house boat to Portsmouth, Ohio while still a baby. Roy's family built a modest home on Duck Run about twelve miles outside Portsmouth and moved there when he was about eight years old. Roy grew up there and attended McDermott Schools. In 1930, while still a teenager, he and the family moved to California. After several jobs, he decided to try his luck as a western singer. He performed with several groups, and in 1933 formed the Pioneer Trio that became the Sons of the Pioneers in 1934. In their first recording session for Decca Records, they recorded 'Tumbling Tumbleweeds" which became their trademark theme song.
Republic Pictures signed Len Slye to a movie contract in 1937 for the sum of $75 a week. He changed his name to Roy Rogers in 1938 and went on to make more than 100 films, 87 for Republic.
Roy Rogers and Dale Evans first worked together in 1944. Roy and Dale were married in 1947. They rose to glory as one of America' most famous couples. They continued working together as a team in movies, live performances, and on television.
At the top of his career in 1950, he and Dale made a decision to include a religious song in each of their many live performances. They made this momentous decision after all their advisers counseled against it. When threatened with the cancellation of their lucrative contract at the huge Madison Square Garden World Championship Rodeo, if they didn't delete the religious segment from their show, Roy stood firm for what he believed was right. While he would have been disappointed, he was fully prepared to walk away if necessary rather than compromise his beliefs. Eventually management relented, and Roy and Dale enjoyed one of the most successful engagements and largest grosses in the history of the Garden.
Roy starred in 87 musical Westerns for Republic Pictures, and for 12 consecutive years in the 1940s and ' 50s he was the number one Western box-office star.
There was a great need for family value programs in the then new medium of television. Roy and Dale moved from movies to NBC Television in 1951 to become one of the first successful family oriented programs of the 1950s. They continued on NBC until 1957 and made more than 100 episodes. The program was put into syndication, and it is still seen today in the USA and several foreign countries around the world. Roy and Dale then moved to CBS and continued the show until 1961.
His 16 TV Specials on NBC attracted higher ratings than his competition, the "Jack Benny Show" and the "Alfred Hitchcock Show."
His radio show on Mutual Network aired on more than 500 stations and was heard by more than 20 million people each week. In the 1950s, the Sears Catalog carried more than 400 Roy Rogers licensed products.
Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers rode the range and sang many great western songs around the campfire. The Sons were the first country and western musical group to achieve national stardom. At one time, Roy and the Sons were selling more than 6,000 records per week.
Roy's picture appeared on 2.5 BILLION boxes of Post cereals. Roy Rogers comic books sold more than 25 million copies each year, and his newspaper comic strip reached more than 65 million readers each week.
Roy was the only performer to be elected the Country Music Hall of Fame twice. He has four stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one each for movies, radio, records, and television. Roy and Dale were also well known for their charitable appearances, more than 6,000 in all. More than 12 million people saw Roy in person in rodeos that played cities throughout America. He set all-time single day records at New York's Madison Square Garden and other arenas and stadiums, and once sold out the Garden an incredible 29 straight nights. He holds the record for the largest crowd to ever see an indoor rodeo (46,884 in the Houston Astrodome). He twice attracted more than 100,000 people to rodeos in the Los Angeles Coliseum.
Roy was a loving husband and proud father of nine children, with 15 grandchildren, and 33 great-grandchildren. He and Dale truly had an International family, adopting Dodie, an American Indian girl, Debbie, a Korean American girl, and Sandy, a little boy from Kentucky, who had been severely abused. Marion , a foster daughter from Scotland, came to live with them as a teenager. Roy and Dale loved children and spent a lifetime devoted to children and children's charities, including the Happy Trails Childrens Foundation for severely abused and neglected children. Through the years, they made hundreds of visits to children's hospitals and orphanages all over the country. Roy made many long-distance phone calls at his own expense to sick and dying children.
He was not a stranger to sorrow and tragedy. He lost his first wife, Arlene, one week after Dusty was born, leaving him with an infant and two small girls, Cheryl and Linda. He and Dale lost their only biological child, Robin, who was buried on her second birthday. Debbie, their adopted Korean American daughter, died in a church bus crash when she was twelve years old and Sandy, their little Rebel from Kentucky, died while serving in the Army in Germany.
Roy's enormous popularity transcended all forms of entertainment, from live performances to movies, records, radio, and television. If you had asked Roy what was most important to him, he would have said, "My God, My Family and my Country". Roy and Dale raised nine children and had sixteen grandchildren.
Roy is truly an American legend and was one of the best known and most beloved persons in the rich heritage of Western entertainment and culture. Roy died at his home in Apple Valley, California, July 6, 1998. He is buried at Sunset Memorial Park, Apple Valley, CA.
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October 31, 1912 - February 7, 2001
**Dale Evans-Rogers Biography**
Born Francis Octavia Smith on October 31, 1912, in Uvalde, Texas.
At age fourteen, Dale eloped with her high school sweetheart. A year later, she found herself in Memphis, Tennessee a single parent, pursuing a career in a field she had always loved music! She landed a job with local radio stations (WMC and WREC, for all you trivia buffs) singing and playing piano. A brief stint at radio station WHAS as staff singer proved a landmark event as it was here she became Dale Evans. Initially, she used her married name; Frances Fox then changed to Marian Lee. Marian Lee was rather like a "Nom de Song" used by young singers just getting started. The station manager, a man by the name of Joe Eaton, thought the name trite and trendy. He informed her that he was changing her name to Dale. She protested that this was a boy's name but he told her of a beautiful actress of the silent film era whom he had admired named Dale Winter. He wanted her to have the name in honor of her. The surname, Evans, came about as Joe Eaton felt it was "euphonious" and would roll easily from the lips of announcers.
As Dale Evans, she ultimately reached Chicago, home of great music and talented bands. She became a vocalist with a number of different "big bands" and was featured soloist in such notable hotels as the Blackstone (Balinese Room), the Sherman (Panther Room, along with jazz legend, Fats Waller), the Drake (Camellia Room) and the Chez Paree Supper Club. Anson Weeks hired her as vocalist for his orchestra just as they began a major tour to the West Coast. After a two-month stand at The Coconut Grove, Dale left the Orchestra and returned to Chicago where she was hired as staff singer for radio station WBBM, the local CBS affiliate.
Talent scouts from Paramount Studios discovered her and arranged a screen. test in Hollywood for the movie, "Holiday Inn", starring Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby. Dale's dancing wasn't quite up to Astaire's, so she didn't get the part. Her agent, however, showed her screen test to 20th Century Fox studios where she received a one-year contract. This resulted in only small parts in two pictures, "Orchestra Wives" and "Girl Trouble". Dale then signed with the top ranked "Chase and Sanborn Show" which was broadcast nationwide. Featured as regulars with Dale were Don Ameche, Jimmy Durante, Edgar Bergen (Candice Bergen's father) and Charlie McCarthy. Weekly guests read like a Who's Who of the entertainment industry. This exposure caused Republic Studios to sign her to a one-picture contract (Swing Your Partner) with a one-year option. The option was exercised and she was cast in several contemporary movies and one John Wayne western in which her singing was featured.
Herbert Yates, head of Republic Studios was inspired by the successful stage play, Oklahoma, and decided to expand the female lead in westerns and adopt this format for one of his biggest stars, Roy Rogers. Dale, he reasoned, had a large following and reputation as a singer and, being from Texas, could surely ride 'n rope. His reasoning proved correct on the former but somewhat suspect on the latter. Nevertheless, history was made and destiny seemingly fulfilled in 1944 with release of "The Cowboy and The Senorita", the first of 28 films she and Roy would make together.
This on-screen team of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans became an off-screen team on New Year's Eve, 1947. They were married on the Flying L Ranch in Davis, Oklahoma, where they had just completed filming "Home in Oklahoma". The owner of the ranch, when he learned they were to be married, offered the ranch as a wedding site. An instant family was formed by these two terrific people. Dale had her son, Tom, and Roy had an adopted daughter, Cheryl, and birth children Linda Lou and Dusty, from his first wife, Arline, who had died after Dusty's birth. Roy and Dale had one child together, Robin, whose death from complications associated with Down's Syndrome inspired Dale's classic book, Angel Unaware. The family swelled with the addition of Mary Little Doe (Dodie), of Native American heritage: John David (Sandy), a battered child from an orphanage in Kentucky; Marion (Mimi), their foster child from Scotland; and Debbie, a Korean War orphan whose father was a G.I. of Puerto Rican ancestry. The family lost three of the children tragically: Robin (as mentioned above), Debbie, in a church bus accident when she was twelve, and Sandy of an accidental death while serving with the military in Germany.
In 1950, Roy and Dale developed their own production company and began producing their half-hour television series, The Roy Rogers Show, that ran until 1957. These episodes have been translated into every major language and, at any given time, are likely being shown somewhere in the world. The same is true of their movies. They have set appearance records in virtually every major arena in the world, including Madison Square Garden in New York City, the Houston Fat Stock Show, Los Angeles Coliseum, Chicago Stadium, Harringay Arena in London, Toronto's Canadian National Exhibition, and many state fairs and rodeos.
Among the many honors of which Dale was most proud are: California Mother of the Year (1967); The Texas Press Association's Texan of the Year (1970); Cowgirl Hall of Fame (1995); Cardinal Terrence Cook Humanities Award (1995); and her three stars on The Hollywood Walk of Fame. Full retirement proved an elusive concept for Dale, as she and Roy were as visible as ever, despite accepting only an extremely limited number of engagements. Dale continued as a best selling author and always seemed to have at least one book in development. There was also her weekly television show "A Date With Dale" for Trinity Broadcast Network. It, too, was translated into all the major languages and shown worldwide.
And then there was The Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum, first in Apple Valley, then moving to Victorville, California which vividly chronicled their lives, and the values and ethics that represent the basis of their worldwide appeal Her "quality time" was spent as matriarch to a small nation of sixteen grandchildren, 30+ great-grandchildren.
Dale is truly one-half of an American Legend Duo and was one of the best known and most beloved persons in Christian ministry and the rich heritage of Western entertainment and culture. Dale died at her home in Apple Valley, California, February 7, 2001. She is buried along side her "King of the Cowboys", Roy Rogers at Sunset Memorial Park, Apple Valley, CA.
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By: Joel "Dutch" Dortch
