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Roy's and Dale's LegacyRoy Rogers and Dale Evans entertained Americans for more than sixty years and, in so doing, created their own special image of the mythic American West, one that was musical, lighthearted, and carefree. They filled their romantic West with singing cowboys and beautiful heroines who overcame tough villains in a majestic setting of prairies, plains, mountains, and deserts. Several generations of Americans absorbed these images as they listened to the couple's music and radio programs, read their comic books, viewed their films and television series, or attended one of their numerous public appearances. Roy and Dale presented a positive and enduring West, one that was vitally important to the American persona. While Rogers, in that West, depicted himself as the stereotypical and romantic American cowboy with his six gun, horse, and guitar, Dale Evans provided a more complex image. She played Roy's deferential sidekick, fitting the era's idea of women behind men. At the same time, she portrayed an independent heroine who often acted on her own. Her roles as a self-reliant woman set her apart from traditional western heroines and undoubtedly gave hope to her female fans that they could break out of the mold that American society defined for them. Roy, a strong but understanding hero, and Dale, a spunky and independent heroine, created a combination that added appeal to the romantic and mythic American West. Rogers and Evans's exceptional success arose in part from the fact that they were a team. While they were individually talented and professionally successful, as a couple they achieved a level of success that would otherwise have been unlikely. The charm of Rogers and Evans's relationship, apparent from their first appearance together in 1944, made them appealing to the public. When marriage brought them together in a permanent bond, their relationship intensified. Continuing their fictional roles while dealing with domestic and professional realities became a pattern for their half-century of marriage. Truly, the merger of their personal and professional lives helped them to achieve a status in the entertainment field that few performing couples attain. In that success Roy and Dale provided a symbol of the nation's frontier past. The generation of the 1930s and 1940s looked back with nostalgia to those simpler days. Like many other western performers of the period, Roy and Dale created a bridge to the past, which helped twentieth century Americans move with ease from the rural past into a century of swift technological and cultural changes. Their fantasy performances permitted Americans in their real lives to adapt to change and at the same time remain connected to the nation's historical frontier. Even before Roy and Dale became partners, Rogers contributed to this frontier nostalgia with the organization of the Sons of the Pioneers. From the time that he began to perform professionally in southern California in the early 1930s, Rogers worked to develop a singing group that would achieve a style and perfection of its own. The Pioneers' music, with its commercial style, appealed to the nostalgia of Americans about their past. Roy Rogers's foresight and determination in organizing and promoting the Sons of the Pioneers stands as one of his most significant contributions to the myth of the romantic West. He and the Pioneers, like Gene Autry and Tex Ritter, through their Westerns and recordings spread the popularity of country music to a national audience. Roy Rogers's role in that nationalization was indeed fundamental. He was a seminal figure in country and western music before he reached the age of thirty. If Roy Rogers was essential to the development of modern country music, Dale Evans made a contribution to American popular music, primarily as a songwriter. The number of songs that Evans composed is uncertain, but the total is significant. Her compositions over the years ranged from pop tunes and inspirational music to western melodies and children's ditties. The music that she created represented, in some form or another, every phase of her career. Moreover, "Happy Trails," perhaps her best-known composition, has become a musical icon and symbolic of her and her husband's careers. The song is universally recognized and brings the couple immediately to mind whenever it is performed. Its appeal and significance is evidenced by the fact that musicians ranging from Randy Travis and Van Halen to the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra have recorded it. Roy and Dale together advanced the image of the mythic American cowboy and things western. Rogers worked hard at developing his cowboy persona, refusing movie parts that might tarnish it. He enjoyed his work and liked the western character that he and Republic molded for his pictures. William Savage, author of Cowboy Hero (1979), says that the cultural significance of the cowboy comes from the fact that his image is marketable. Rogers and Evans took advantage of that marketable aspect of the cowboy and things western by organizing a business that sold millions of dollars of western theme merchandise. The couple and their business managers capitalized on the nostalgia that they helped to create. In marketing themselves the two stars reinforced the image that they were an inseparable western team that represented wholesome American values and the mythic American West. In blending their personal lives, Rogers and Evans worked to incorporate their family into busy professional careers. Even though the family may not have been typical, the couple paid close attention to their children, carefully instructing them in values and spiritual matters. And when opportunities arose, Roy and Dale made the children a part of their public performances. Even with the closing of Rogers and Evans's professional careers, their children and grandchildren carry on the Rogers's legacy with its pure image of the mythic American West. This strong sense of family originated with Rogers and Evans and fit their conception of how an American family, perhaps a frontier family, should operate. Just as important was the fact that their incorporation of spiritual and family values into their visionary West had a special appeal to the parents and children of the baby boom generation. Certainly, Christianity occupied a core position in the Rogers's family life and within a short time after the couple's marriage, they deliberately made it a part of their professional performances, along with strong doses of patriotism and family values. The nation's postwar ideological culture blended religion with love of country, a civil piety that fit easily into the country's Cold War conflict with the Soviet Union. Truly, part of being a loyal American was being religious. In their recordings, radio programs, television scripts, and public performances, Rogers and Evans determinedly expressed their Christian beliefs. This evangelical outreach to the Christian audience fit the times and, in effect, made the couple the moral right arm of the West. Just as nostalgia about the frontier past helped Americans move easily into the twentieth century, it also helped them with the international uncertainty of the Cold War. This nostalgia in the 1950s reassured Americans of their national identity, giving them strength to deal with the country's global responsibilities. Rogers and Evans with their merchandising took the nostalgia to the youngest members of society and made it a part of their fantasies and their real lives. Ten-year old Americans, sleeping in Roy Rogers-Dale Evans pajamas and carrying their colorful Roy Rogers-Dale Evans lunch boxes to school, were never far away from a secure and mythic West. Rogers and Evans's sixty-year accumulative record of films, recordings, television shows, comic books, songs, and public appearances impacted mightily the idea of the mythic American West. They as much as any two western performers of the twentieth century placed a special stamp on that romantic West, one that Dale Evans's composition, "Happy Trails," seemed to epitomize. |
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