Back to:-      Smaller Memorial Parks           Celebrity Graves

" Final Resting Place of Roy Rogers & Dale Evans"

   

Roy Rogers (Leonard Franklin Slye)  5th November 1911 - 6th July 1998
Dale Evans (Francis Octavia Smith)  31st October 1912 - 7th February 2001

Husband and Wife western stars who appeared in over 30 films with their famous horses Trigger and Buttercup. Had many country hit records and TV shows in which their horses and dog Bullet appeared. Roy became known as the King of Cowboys and Dale as the Queen of the West.

Sunset Hills Memorial Park
24000 Waalew Road, Apple Valley, San Bernardino County, CA.

Photos Courtesy of Randall Todd of Oak Hills, CA.

Roy Rogers (Leonard Franklin Slye), was a singer and cowboy actor. He and his third wife Dale Evans, his "golden palomino" Trigger and his German shepherd "Bullet" were featured in over one hundred movies and The Roy Rogers Show which ran on radio for nine years before moving to television from 1951 through 1964. His productions usually featured two sidekicks, Pat Brady (who drove a jeep called "Nellybelle") and the crotchety bushwhacker Gabby Hayes. Roy's nickname was "King of the Cowboys". Dale's nickname was "Queen of the West." For many Americans (and non-Americans), he was the embodiment of the all-American hero.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Roy Rogers has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a second star for his contribution to radio, and a third star for his contribution to the television industry.

Roy and Dale were inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1976 and Roy was inducted again as a member of the Sons of the Pioneers in 1995. Roy was also twice elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, first as a member of The Sons of the Pioneers in 1980 and as a soloist in 1988.

Dale Evans was the stage name of Frances Octavia Smith, a writer, movie star, and singer-songwriter. She was the wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers.
Born Lucille Wood Smith in Uvalde, Texas, her name was changed in infancy to Frances Octavia Smith. She had a tumultuous early life, eloping at age 14 with her first husband Thomas F. Fox. She bore one son, Thomas F. Fox, Jr. when she was 15 years old. Divorced in 1929 at 17, she married August Wayne Johns that same year, a union that lasted until their divorce in 1933. She took the name Dale Evans in the early 1930s to promote her singing career. She then married her accompanist and arranger Robert Dale Butts in 1935.
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. 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 1945, and her development as a cowgirl co-star to Roy Rogers at Republic studios. Evans married Roy Rogers on New Year's Eve, 1946. 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, over 30 movies, and 200 songs, Evans wrote the well known songs "Happy Trails" and "The Bible Tells Me So".
In the 1970s, Evans recorded several solo albums of religious music. The 1980s saw Roy and Dale introducing their films weekly on The Nashville Network. In the 1990s, Dale hosted her own religious television program.

For her contribution to radio, Dale Evans has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame She received a second star 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.