Biography for
Dale Evans (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

31 October 1912, Uvalde, Texas, USA

Date of Death

7 February 2001, Apple Valley, California, USA (congestive heart failure)

Birth Name

Frances Octavia Smith

Nickname

Queen of the West
Queen of the Cowgirls

Height

5' 4" (1.63 m)

Mini Biography

American leading lady of musical westerns of the 1940s. Born Frances Octavia Smith in Uvalde, Texas. She was raised in Texas and Arkansas. Married at 14 and a mother at 15, she was divorced at 17 (some sources say widowed). Intent on a singing career, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and worked in an insurance company while taking occasional radio singing jobs. After another unhappy marriage, she went to Louisville, Kentucky, and became a popular singer on a local radio station. There she took the stage name Dale Evans (from her third husband, Robert Dale Butts, and actress Madge Evans). Divorced in 1936, she moved to Dallas, Texas, and again found local success as a radio singer. She married Butts and they moved to Chicago, where she began to attract increasing attention from both radio audiences and film industry executives. She signed with Fox Pictures and made a few small film appearances, then was cast as leading lady to rising cowboy star Roy Rogers. She and Rogers clicked and she became his steady on-screen companion. In 1946, Rogers' wife died and Evans' marriage to Butts ended about the same time. Rogers and Evans had been close onscreen in a string of successful westerns, and now became close off-screen as well. A year later she married Rogers and the two become icons of American pop culture. Their marriage was dogged by tragedy, including the loss of three children before adulthood, but Evans was able not only to find inspiration in the midst of tragedy but to provide inspiration as well, authoring several books on her life and spiritual growth through difficulty. She and Rogers starred during the 1950s on the popular TV program bearing his name, and even after retirement continued to make occasional appearances and to run their Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Victorville, California. Following Dale's death, the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum moved to Branson, Missouri.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Beaver

Spouse

Roy Rogers	(31 December 1947 - 6 July 1998) (his death) 2 children
R. Dale Butts	(1937 - 1946) (divorced)
Thomas Frederick Fox	(1927 - 1929) (divorced) 1 child

Trivia

On September 22 1996, Dale Evans was presented the Women in Film/Dallas' Legacy Award at the 10th Annual Topaz Awards in Dallas. The award was accepted by her daughter Cheryl Rogers-Barnett.

Her horse's name was Buttermilk. Wrote the song, "Happy Trails", which became her and Roy Rogers' theme song.

Hospitalised in October 1999 with heart problems.

12 October 1999 - Underwent heart surgery to replace a pacemaker battery.

Inducted (with her husband Roy Rogers) into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1976.

When she sent for a copy of her birth certificate in 1954, which she needed to get a passport, it read that her birth name was Lucille Wood Smith and that her birthday was Oct 30, 1912. However, her mother swears that they made a mistake and that her name was Frances Octavia Smith, with a birthdate of October 31, 1912.

She and husband Roy Rogers are the adoptive parents of Little Doe Rogers.

Wrote the spiritual, "The Bible Tells Me So.".

She 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.

Personal Quotes

[speaking in 1992 of husband Roy Rogers] We hit it off together because he's so much like my brother. I mean, Roy's like I am, and that's it.

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