All hail the King of Cowboys! If you’ve watched any show or film from the mid-’30s to the ‘80s, you’ve seen Roy Rogers, no questions asked, and hopefully you’ve also heard his melodious voice. He was adored by an entire country, but was his family life as comforting? How did tragedy put him on the path to lifelong romance? The answers will pull at your heartstrings for this toughened cowboy.
It’s time for an inside look at the personal life of Roy Rogers, whose list of credits spans many mediums and brought joy to a lot of lives. But only his kids can say if that extended to his own family, and in this particular case, the results are just as joyful. Without further ado, let’s make like a tumbleweed and skedaddle.
What race was Roy Rogers?
Rogers hit the ground running with a very unique upbringing. The building in Cincinnati where Rogers was born? It later became Riverfront Stadium, a fact that Rogers loved to joke about by saying he was born on second base. But wait, it gets even more wild. His dad wasn’t happy with his big city life, so he did what we all do, and built a houseboat.
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Then when this aquatic, nomadic lifestyle got to be too much, the family bought a plot of land to build an actual house on. That sounds almost normal. Then, the infamous Great Flood of 1913 actually made it perfect to sail the houseboat right onto their new plot of land, and they had their new home!
His mom, meanwhile, provided a very meaningful layer to Rogers’s identity. Rogers has Native American ancestry on his mother’s side, specifically Choctaw. Part of this affected his appearance; his eyes were very expressive, but Roy’s granddaughter Julie revealed that some industry leaders didn’t like the shape of them and put him on prescription eyedrops to relax his muscles. They wanted him to look like Clark Gable, but when his eyes changed shape, fanmail poured in demanding to know what happened, and let the man look how he really is!
This detail about Roy’s background sometimes flew by the wayside, but would be a pretty influential force in his life – and in the lives of many others.
What was Roy Rogers’s estate worth when he died?
Roy’s early working life looked nothing like how it ended up. His family struggled a lot with money, to the point where his dad’s income just wasn’t enough and Rogers, only into his second year of high school, joined his dad at the factory. Rogers wanted to keep up his studies during night school, but he got picked on for falling asleep during class. The whole thing was so hurtful, he dropped out and never came back.
The family moved around, and father and son took whatever jobs they could land. At one point, Rogers worked at a labor camp, and if you’ve read Grapes of Wrath, you know exactly what that was like. The Great Depression hit hard and it hit everywhere they went, with no end in sight, just day after day of hard labor. That is, until his sister suggested he try out for a radio show. The problem was, this freshly-bullied workaholic was kind of shy, but sissy helped him out and made him a cowboy outfit. Rogers conquered his fears and came away with an invitation to play in a local band, the Rocky Mountaineers!
From there, he transitioned between music and film, usually combining his singing talents, and you’ve probably seen him before you realized since he used his original name, Leonard Slye. Before long, the archetype of the singing cowboy had two favorites: Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.
Once, his family struggled every day to stay afloat. Then, the shy factory worker became a sensational cowboy who was ranked as one of the Top Ten Money-Making Western Stars for 16 years in a row. It’s a joy to report that, that unlike other stars who squander it all, Rogers made smart choices through and through, so at the end of his life, his estate was worth a whopping $150 million. Talk about rags to riches – and Rogers would help other people have the same exact happy ending too.
Was Roy Rogers married when he met Dale Evans?
Before Roy Rogers and Dale Evans became one of the most iconic Hollywood power couples to date, they weren’t even on each other’s radars, they were too busy swimming upriver from heartbreak. Dale, herself a powerhouse in the Western scene, first got married when she was just 14, gave birth to a son a year later, and ended up abandoned by husband #1.
Twice more she’d marry, and Rogers married twice as well, first to an admirer of his, but the marriage just lasted three years. Then, a radio caller named Grace promised to bake Rogers a pie if he sang “The Swiss Yodel.” They also got a spouse out of the arrangement, and the two adopted a daughter named Cheryl. Grace also had a biological daughter, Linda. Then, tragedy. In 1946, Grace gave birth to a son, Roy, Jr., but sadly she ended up dying of complications related to the pregnancy.
Rogers had actually met Dale back in ‘44, not long after Linda’s birth the year before. Nothing happened between them until after both ended up single, but they did fall in love very quickly. By 1947, the two married on New Year’s Eve, ringing in the new year with the ultimate kiss.
The two became such an electrifying pair, they were dubbed the King of Cowboys and the Queen of the West. Of course, there were some hiccups in their kingdom, as daughter Cheryl can easily recall.
Part of her dad’s success stemmed from his unfailingly great one-liners, and Cheryl revealed, “Those one-liners saved his life with my mom when she was exasperated with him.” Apparently, a favorite was, “You can take the kid out of the man but you ain’t got much left.” Gotta remember that one.
He was also a bit of a packrat, but man, is it a collection of stuff any nostalgia nut would love to see: film memorabilia, costumes, photos, movie posters, sports merch, you name it.
His cowgirl queen wasn’t as excited, as Cheryl said, “Mom would pitch a fit and call Bekins [Van & Storage] to take it away.” If it seems like Dale was the more assertive one, that’s because she was. Cheryl confirmed, “Mom was the outgoing one. She would zero in on you and she would look you in the eye.” That didn’t leave a ton of room for humor, but she did appreciate a good joke, and she loved a heated debate.
If you ever want to see their unbeatable chemistry, you’ve got a ton of options to choose from, since this dynamite team appeared on screen together a lot. They’re in Don’t Fence Me In, Rainbow Over Texas, Man From Oklahoma, and Bells of Rosarita, to name just a few – and that’s not even counting The Roy Rogers Show and their “Happy Trails” duet. It’s a refreshing change compared to the constant breakups between Hollywood couples these days. Nobody did it quite like them, and that relentless love and support would help them when they lived every parent’s worst nightmare.
Were all of Roy Rogers’ children adopted?
Rogers would also be part of one of the first and most successful blended Hollywood families. Of course, he was a father to Cheryl, Linda, and Roy Jr. from his previous marriage. Then he and Dale started a family of their own, and lovingly Cheryl was kept close through it all.
Roy and Dale proudly welcomed daughter Robin Elizabeth into the world. But they had no time to celebrate this spectacular day. Doctors outright told the couple to avoid getting emotionally close to Robin. They told the couple that Robin had been born with a heart defect and Down Syndrome. So, the doctor’s advised, “visit her as little as possible because she’s never going to know you.”
Daughter Cheryl saw her parents completely defy these words and love Robin with their whole hearts. She said, “Mom and Dad said God had a reason to give them Robin, and they brought her home.” Mom and Dad loved baby Robin for nearly two heartwrenching years before the little girl died just before her second birthday. The cause is attributed to complications from mumps.
It’s the worst thing a parent can imagine, and unfortunately, it’s something other parents have gone through. So, while dealing with their own grief, Dale wrote Angel Unaware: A Touching Story of Love and Loss, one of the very first memoirs about a parent whose child is special needs. That was pretty revolutionary at the time, and very much needed in the world.
But the couple wasn’t done turning their heartbreak into healing for others. They turned to adoption, They adopted another kid named Sandy who had been abused, along with a war orphan named Debbie.
They also adopted a 7-month-old Choctaw girl, with whom Roy was connected through their cultural heritage. The significance of Rogers, his fame, and his presence within the culture had several western tribes name him Outstanding Indian Citizen of the Year in ‘68.
Marion had been born in the throes of World War II. When the couple performed in Edinburgh, they visited an orphanage. There was Marion, who spent her whole life in different homes. But these two brought her to a sold-out concert of theirs, Marion enjoyed a view from the wings, and Roy and Dale initiated the adoption process. Even with Marion joining the family as a teen, she would say, “When we were in the house we were just a family, they weren’t Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, they were mum and dad.”
Roy Jr. pretty much summed it up when he said, “We had a Korean girl, a Native American girl, a gal from Scotland, so we were an international blended family which was unusual in the ’50s.”
What was the cause of death of Roy Rogers?
Whatever trauma Rogers touched, he turned to something heartfelt and uplifting. He experienced just about every hardship a person can face, from the timid nerves of stage fright to the worst kind of loss out there. But he faced it all and left us with some pretty remarkable advice: “If there were no valleys of sadness and death, we could never really appreciate the sunshine of happiness on the mountaintop.”
Sadly, time would prove the final, unbeatable foe. Rogers was a respectable 86 years old when he died on July 6, 1998 surrounded by family members; cause of death: congestive heart failure.
His wife appeared in public less and less after he passed. Very chillingly, his beloved Dale Evans would die of the same exact thing – only three years later. It’s said she died blaming herself for Roy’s death. Husband and wife hid their own battles with congestive heart failure as long as they could, even as they felt their health decline in the final years of their lives.
But, just as they’d want, she was buried beside her husband in California’s Apple Valley, watching over the west in their eternal sleep.
Far too rarely do we get to just how good things were behind the scenes for our favorite stars. More often than not, pulling back the curtain reveals all sorts of dark secrets – and there certainly was grief and hardship, but learning more about Roy meant finding out he was even better than we could thought.
Which were your favorite of his movies and songs? His favorite one-liner? Share your fondest memories in the comments, we read every one! In the meantime, happy trails to you!
