“King of the Cowboys” 

When Gene Autry walked out on his contract, Rogers was given the starring role in Under Western Stars, which had been scheduled to be Autry’s next film. The tremendous success of Rogers’s first film, which was released in 1938, marked the emergence of a new star. By 1943, Rogers was the top western star at the box office. He retained this rank until he made the transition into television in the early 1950s. He also maintained a busy schedule of personal appearances, most of them featuring his beloved horse, Trigger, who received near-equal billing. 

In 1944, Dale Evans was cast as Rogers’s leading lady in The Cowboy and the Señorita. The chemistry between them was apparent to both audiences and the studio. Over the next five years, Evans was featured in Rogers’s next nineteen films. A little more than a year after the death of his first wife, Rogers and Evans married, on New Year’s Eve, 1947. A few years later, the couple launched their NBC network television series, which quickly became a favorite with Sunday night family viewers.

Personal Tragedies and Later Life 

Rogers’s success in films, radio, television, on records, and in personal appearances was dampened by a series of tragedies. His second wife, Arlene, the mother of his first three children, died a week after the birth of their third child, Roy Jr., in 1946. Robin, the only child born to Rodgers and Evans, suffered from Down syndrome and died in 1952, shortly before her second birthday.

Rodgers and Evans eventually adopted four children from different ethnic and social backgrounds, only to lose two of them tragically. Debbie, an orphan they adopted from Korea, died in a church bus accident. Their son Sandy, who had suffered brain damage due to physical abuse before his adoption, died while serving in the Army. Each of these losses took a tremendous toll on Rogers, but he and Evans’s religious faith sustained them. Their positive outlook as they confronted life’s challenges only added to the public’s regard for them. 

Rogers was a hero to audiences who saw him in films, at rodeos or state fairs, in television appearances, or at visits to his museum in Victorville, California. To fans throughout the world, the King of the Cowboys was one of the most beloved Americans. Rogers died on July 6, 1998, sixty years after making his first motion picture.

Roy Rogers is the only person to be elected twice to the Country Music Hall of Fame: first in 1980 as a member of the original Sons of the Pioneers, and then in 1988 as an individual, for his own career achievements.