Evanstar and the Members of the DEFC
Part of a Series: Exploring the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive
The Autry Institute is currently processing the generously donated business archive of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. At the beginning of each month, the Autry Libraries blog will feature highlights from the collection in anticipation of the processing’s completion.
Cover of Evanstar, January 1948. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
Long before the Internet offered message boards, e-mail lists, and web pages dedicated to favorite stars, fans met in a different kind of virtual community.
Motion Picture Story Magazine and Photoplay pioneered the film fan magazine when they both debuted in 1911. Originally, film magazines focused on the technical side of the industry, but audiences began to clamor for more information about their favorite actors. This eager reading audience of fans supported a growing number of fan-targeted magazines created by both professional writers and fellow fans. An actor was not simply an actor now but also a personality performing a role in his or her real life, too. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans fully embraced the idea of star actor as personality, and they garnered many fans through their respect and reverence for their audiences.
Rogers and Evans were frequently featured along with other popular contemporary actors in nationally distributed film fan magazines, but they were the star attraction in their very own fan magazines. Early magazines from the 1940s were primarily text, but later issues—from the 1950s on—often featured images of Rogers and Evans and their growing family.
Cover from an early issue of Evanstar, circa 1944. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
Dale Evans’s fan magazine, Evanstar, stood on its own from its creation in 1944 until it merged in the early 1950s with Rogers’s fan magazine, The Double R-Bar Ranch News. Evanstar featured news updates along with several regular sections on personal appearances, new films, recordings, and newly published photos and articles in other magazines.
For dues of a dollar per year, an individual could become a member of the Dale Evans Fan Club (DEFC) and receive a subscription to Evanstar. In 1944 the club held a membership contest. For every ten new members a current member sent in, he or she would win a dollar in war stamps. By 1948, the DEFC claimed to have 300 members.
Like other fan magazines, Evanstar allowed fans to feel connected to one another through pen pal sections featuring addresses for club members looking to correspond with like-minded friends. Later issues frequently featured photographs of fans, giving them their own fifteen minutes of fame. Issues even included wedding and birth announcements sent in by fans, celebrating the life milestones of members of the fan community.
Lois, DEFC President, explained how Sherry the cat became the mascot of the DEFC: "Sherry was Dale's cat for more than a year, having been given to her by Roy as a Christmas gift in 1946. Last January Dale sent Sherry to me via Airway Express, and she has made herself right at home as a member of our family...Sherry extends greetings to you all and says she loved being a member of the official 'D.E.F.C.' family." Evanstar, May 1948, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
One of the issues of Evanstar from 1944 featured a fan profile that told readers about the fan’s favorites in the same way that the magazine talked about the favorites of famous stars. This issue’s fan named green as her favorite color and Bob Hope as her favorite comedian. The fan, of course, admired Dale Evans, but she also had other interests, and the magazine was a place to share that with other Evans fans.
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Later issues of Evanstar featured photographs pasted into the magazine. This image was paired with a letter from Dale to the DEFC members in the January-April 1950 issue. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
In addition to the usual features, the January–April 1950 issue featured an article by the DEFC president’s mother, Charlotte Johnson. “What It’s Like to Be a Fan Club Prexy’s [President’s] Mother” detailed the inception of the Dale Evans fan club led by her daughter. At age fifteen, Lois told her mother that she was going to start a fan club for Dale. Her mother, responded, “A f-f-f-fan club? What’s that?” She would soon find out what it meant. As she explained,
Once Evans and Rogers married, Rogers became a regular feature in Evanstar. Earlier photographs in the magazine featured images of the real Rogers, but the January-April 1950 issue featured him as a cardboard cutout. Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
Though the DEFC centered on Evanstar and Evans’s professional personality, it forged friendships between like-minded individuals—long before the concept of Facebook “friending”—and celebrated their lives nearly as much as it celebrated the life and personality of those fans’ beloved star, Dale Evans.
Totally Awesome. Glad Roy and Dale liked to save things!
Fan clubs are fascinating! This is such a cool insight into their history and development. I know I say this all the time, but…someone should write a book about this!!! Thanks for this great post.
This article is amazing! Shared it with other RR/DE friends/fans who had never heard of the Dale Evans Evanstar Fan Club magazine. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing the article with other fans!
Thank you so much for quoting my grandmother and mentioning my mother and her hard work. Her full name was Lois Blair Johnson, then later Lois Blair Howard. I don’t know if you are aware of this or not but my mother was invited to their ranch and I have original photos of their visit. My mother and Dale Evans wrote many letters back and forth over the years. My mother loved Sherry the cat as much as she loved Dale Evans. Sherry went on to have a beautiful litter of kittens.
My mother also loved opera and belonged the San Francisco Opera Company. One time she brought Dorothy Warrenshold, and I think another time Joan Sutherland, home to my grandmother’s house, unannounced, for tea after a performance.
Also, my grandmother, Charlotte Johnson, was mayor of Burlingame, CA three nonconsecutive terms, the town in which I grew up. She was also a published author. She was dearly loved and is dearly missed in the political arena of the Bay Area. I miss and love them both.
Lori Howard
Your mother and grandmother were extraordinary women. Thanks for sharing more information about them (and Sherry the cat!).
Thank you.