Dale Evans
Dale Evans | |
|---|---|
 Roy Rogers and Dale Evans at the 61st Academy Awards in 1989. | |
| Born | Lucille Wood Smith |
| Other names | Frances Octavia Smith |
| Occupation(s) | actress, singer |
| Years active | 1942–2001 |
| Spouse(s) | Thomas Frederick Fox (1927–1929) August Wayne Johns (1929–1935) R. Dale Butts (1937–1946) Roy Rogers (1947–1998) |
Dale Evans was the stage name of Frances Octavia Smith (October 31, 1912 – February 7, 2001), a writer, movie star, and singer-songwriter. She was the third wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers.
Biography
MARY I TOLD YOU SO...........M
A songstress emerges
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.
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.). This deception continued through her divorce from Butts in 1946, and her development as a cowgirl co-star to Roy Rogers at Republic Studios.
Joint efforts
Evans married Roy Rogers at the Flying L Ranch in Davis, Oklahoma, on New Year's Eve 1947.[1] Rogers ended the deception regarding Tommy. Rogers and Evans were a team on- and off-screen from 1946 until Rogers' death in 1998. Together they had one child, Robin Elizabeth, who died of complications of Down's Syndrome shortly before her second birthday. Her life inspired Evans to write her bestseller Angel Unaware. Evans went on to write a number of religious and inspirational books.
From 1951 to 1957, Dale Evans and her husband starred in the highly successful television series The Roy Rogers Show, in which they continued their cowboy/cowgirl roles, with her riding her trusty buckskin horse, Buttermilk. In addition to her successful TV shows, more than thirty films and some two hundred songs, Evans wrote the well-known song "Happy Trails." In later episodes of the TV show 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 help.
In the fall of 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, another comedy-variety program, on CBS.
In the 1970s, Evans recorded several solo albums of religious music. During the 1980s, the couple introduced their films weekly on the formerThe Nashville Network. In the 1990s, Dale hosted her own religious television program.
Evans died of congestive heart failure, two and a half years after the death of her husband Roy.
Legacy
For her contribution to radio, Dale Evans has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6638 Hollywood Blvd. She received a second star at 1737 Vine St. for her contribution to the television industry. In 1976, she was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She ranked #34 on CMT's 40 Greatest Women in Country Music in 2002.
References
- "Dale Evans Biography". The Roy Rogers - Dale Evans Museum. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
- Zwisohn, Laurence. (1998). "Dale Evans". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 166–7.
External links
Further reading
- White, Ray. King of the Cowboys, Queen of the West: Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (University of Wisconsin Press).