Frances Octavia Smith, an American actress, was born in Uvalde, Texas. Raised in Texas and Arkansas, she married at the tender age of 14 and became a mother at 15. After a divorce at 17, she pursued a singing career, moving to Memphis, Tennessee, where she worked in an insurance company and took on occasional radio singing jobs.
After another unhappy marriage, she relocated to Louisville, Kentucky, where she gained popularity as a singer on a local radio station. It was during this time that she adopted the stage name Dale Evans, inspired by her third husband, Robert Dale Butts, and actress Madge Evans.
Following her divorce in 1936, Dale moved to Dallas, Texas, and continued to make a name for herself as a radio singer. She married Butts and the couple relocated to Chicago, where she began to gain recognition from both radio audiences and film industry executives. She signed with Fox Pictures and made a few small film appearances before being cast as the leading lady to rising cowboy star Roy Rogers.
Dale and Roy clicked on-screen, and their partnership led to a string of successful westerns. As their on-screen chemistry grew, so did their off-screen relationship. After Roy's wife passed away and Dale's marriage to Butts ended, the two married in 1947, becoming an iconic American couple.
Despite facing tragedy, including the loss of three children before adulthood, Dale found inspiration in the midst of hardship and even wrote several books on her life and spiritual growth. She and Roy starred together on the popular TV program "The Roy Rogers Show" during the 1950s and continued to make appearances and run their Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Victorville, California.
After Dale's passing, the museum relocated to Branson, Missouri, where it remains a testament to her enduring legacy as an American leading lady of musical westerns.
