The marriage of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans produced one of the most financially successful couple in the history of recording, television and film. Their romantic coupling and financial empire had its roots in May 1944 "Cowboy and the Señorita," where Rogers and Evans appeared together for the first time on the screen.
"I knew that being the girl lead in a cowboy movie wasn't her greatest dream in life," remembered Rogers on his first day of filming with her, "but she never gave it less than her all. When we weren't rehearsing or filming a scene she made me feel comfortable because she was so easy to talk to." Evans added, "Mr. Herbert Yates, head of Republic Pictures, who was certain that with my real Texas background I was the right gal for the part of Isabel Martinez. I was supposed to be a raven-haired beauty, and as 'the senorita', I had to speak with a heavy Spanish accent. Mr. Kane used to kid me about my delivery, saying it sound like "Si, Si, you'all!"
In his ninth year in film, Rogers was one of Republic Pictures most popular actors. Having an uncanny business sense, he insisted in his contract to the rights of his name, likeness and singing voice. With Roy Rogers action figures, records and even a comic strip, the 'King of the Cowboys' had more items in his name at the time than any other living person besides Walt Disney. He was in the Top Ten Money-Making Western Stars sixteen years running beginning in 1939. Roy was happily married to Grace Wilkins, who had called the radio station he was singing on and said she would bake him a pie if he would yodel. In "Cowboy and the Señorita" Roy was partnered with actor Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams as Teddy Bear. They're down on their luck after they've been fired from a restaurant job. The two are accused of kidnapping Chip (Mary Lee), a runaway teenager who knows where her late father's hidden treasure is located in a mine. Ysobel Martinez (Dale Evans), Chips older sister, hires the two accused kidnappers, who want to straightened everything out.
Dale Evans was already a popular recording singer in her own right. Riding the coattails of her familiar voice, the Uvalde, Texas born Frances Octavia Smith had been in nearly a dozen movies beginning in 1942. "Sure I had liked cowboy pictures as a child, but that was as a child," Evans said when she heard she was appearing in only her second Western in "Cowboy and the Señorita." "As a professional actor, my goals were grander than that. I thought I wanted to be in a sophisticated musical comedy something debonair, urbane, and adult." Evans, 32, was on her third marriage raising a thirteen year old son. Eloping at age 14 to marry her first husband, Thomas Fox, she was blessed by a smooth singing voice which enabled her to get a radio job after her husband abandoned her at 17. The name Francis Smith didn't suit the radio manager, who decided to name her Dale Evans. "Dale's a boy's name!" Francis protested. "And what does Evans have to do with me?" "First of all," said her new boss, "the woman I like the most on the screen in silent pictures is named Dale. And as for Evans: Your name is concocted for radio announcers. It is a very euphonious name. It cannot be mispronounced, and it is hard to misspell it. So that is your name, Dale Evans."
The former Francis Smith rose to prominence as an orchestra singer while having a gig at a large Chicago radio station. She was asked to screen test for the lead in Bing Crosby's 1942 "Holiday Inn." She didn't get the part, but Republic Pictures came calling. "Cowboy and the Señorita" was the first of three films in 1944 Roy and Dale appeared together. "I got to like Dale right away, Roy said. "She was a person who always looked like she had just stepped out of the shower, real fresh and clean; and she was a good sport, too, carrying her weight in each and every scene and never complaining when we had to work long hours and do stunts that wore us out."
Dale took an offer to appear on a regular radio program with Garry Moore and Jimmy Durante in addition to her film work, causing a breakup with her third husband, Robert Butts, who divorced her in 1946. Meanwhile, Roy Rogers saw his wife Grace die from complications of a child birth of their son Roy, Jr. ("Dusty"). Roy and Dale continued to work together on and off for the next year. On an eight-week rodeo tour, Roy was sitting on his horse with Dale by his side about to enter the Chicago Stadium for their grand entrance when he took out a gold ring with a ruby and placed it on her finger, asking her to marry him. The woman who wrote Rogers' trademark song "Happy Trails," readily agreed.
"Roy is steady and dependable," described Evans late in life. "I am hasty and impulsive. He is such a quiet fellow, and he has a way of taking life as it comes. No one has ever accused me of being shy or easygoing. But the differences between us were all to the good; we each had strengths that were good for the other one. When we were together, I felt balanced." The partnership was one of Hollywood's most enduring marriages, ending when Rogers died of heart failure in July 1998 at 86, while Dale Evens, "The Queen of the West," passed away three years later of the same disease in February 2001, at 88.
