King OF THE COWBOYS, ~een OF THE WEST Copyrighted Material A RAY AND PAT BROWNE BOOK Series Editors Ray B. Browne and Pat Browne Copyrighted Material King OF THE COWBOYS, f2.Eeen OF THE WEST Roy Rogers Dale Evans and RAYMOND E. WHITE THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS / POPULAR PRESS Copyrighted Material The University of Wisconsin Press 1930 Monroe Street Madison, Wisconsin 53711 www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/ 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU, England Copyright © 2005 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All righ ts reserved 3 5 4 2 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data White, Ray (Raymond E.) King of the cowboys, queen of the west: Roy Rogers and Dale Evans / Raymond E. White. p. cm. Roy Rogers's Filmography: p. Dale Evans's Filmography: p. Roy Rogers's Discography: p. Dale Evans's Discography: p. Dale Evans Rogers Inspirarional Books: p. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-299-21000-6 (hardcover: alk. paper) ISBN 0-299-21004-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) I. Rogers, Roy, 1911-2. Rogers, Dale Evans. 3. Acrors-United States-Biography. 4. Singers-United States-Biography. I. Tide. PN2287.R73W482005 791.4302 '8 '092273-dc22 2004025628 Copyrighted Material 'For I(qthryn Copyrighted Material Copyrighted Material CONTENTS III ustrations IX Preface XIII Chapter 1 Roy Rogers and Dale Evans: Symbols of the Mythic American West 3 Chapter 2 Radio Roundup: Roy Rogers and Dale Evans on the Air 24 Chapter 3 Waxing the West: The Recording Careers of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans 45 Chapter 4 Quick Draw: The Comics of Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and Trigger 67 Chapter 5 Adventures in Paradise Valley: The Television Careers of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans 86 Chapter 6 The Bible Tells Me So: Christianity in the Careers of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans 104 Epilogue 113 Appendix A Roy Rogers's Filmography 117 Appendix B Dale Evans's Filmography 166 Appendix C Log of Roy Rogers's Radio Appearances 174 Appendix D Log of Dale Evans's Radio Appearances 213 Appendix E Roy Rogers's Discography 230 Appendix F Dale Evans's Discography 300 Appendix G Roy and Dale's Song Compositions 340 Copyrighted Material Appendix H Roy and Dale's Comics 345 Appendix I Roy and Dale's Television Appearances 400 Appendix J Log of A Date with Dale 459 Appendix K Dale Evans Rogers's Inspirational Books 479 Notes 485 Bibliographical Essay: In Their Own Words 505 Index 517 Copyrighted Material ILLUSTRATIONS Stanley and Leonard Slye (Roy Rogers) with their instruments, somewhere in Southern California, circa 1931 7 Hugh Farr, Fuzzy Knight, Tim Spencer, Bob Nolan, Mary Carlisle, Leonard Slye (Roy Rogers), and Lillian Miles in The Old Homestead, 1935 8 Roy Rogers and Mary Hart (Lynn Roberts) from the Republic feature In Old Caliente, 1939 11 Roy, Dale, and The Sons of the Pioneers perform in Roll on Texas Moon, 1946 13 Roy and Dale in a publicity photo for one of their early Republic Westerns, circa 1944 15 Dale Evans with dark hair, Apache Rose, 1947 16 The Roy Rogers family in the late 1940s. Dale, Roy Rogers Jr. (Dusty), Roy, Linda Lou, Cheryl 17 Roy Rogers and Clay O'Brien team up as a drifting bronc buster and a homeless boy in Mackintosh and T.], Rogers's last feature film, 1975 22 Hugh Farr, Bob Nolan, Tim Spencer, and Leonard Slye (Roy Rogers) in radio publicity photo of The Sons of the Pioneers, circa 1934 25 The Sons of the Pioneers and the Randell sisters perform before a microphone, circa 1935 26 Dale Evans, as a vocalist in her first professional job, stands before the WHAS microphone in Louisville, circa 1935-36 28 Dale Evans performed as a vocalist on the Jimmy Durante-Gary Moore Show on CBS in 1946 31 A young Roy Rogers poses with unidentified performer for a publicity photo for CBS broadcast, date unknown 33 IX Copyrighted Material