Dale Evans for Victory
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.
Dale Evans is the singer on the far right on the front page of this issue of The Bomb Bay Vol. 2 No. 19, Fresno, California, May 12, 1943, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
In the early 1940s, before she rode the range alongside Roy Rogers, Dale Evans spent much of her career writing songs or performing in front of a microphone for radio programs and night clubs. During this time she also toured military bases with fellow performers, including her costars Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy from The Chase and Sanborn Hour radio program. The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive contains ephemera from her time touring on behalf of the Hollywood Victory Committee, including military newsletters, bulletins, schedules, correspondence, and a small number of photographs.
Image of Dale Evans from the Broadcasters Cabaret Party program, June 1940, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
Shortly after the United States entered World War II in 1941, several charity organizations joined together to form the United Service Organizations (USO) in order to provide emotional support to troops through various programs and services. Although the USO clubs and facilities closed at the end of the war, the organization was resurrected during the Korean War. Today it continues to provide services to American troops and their families “until every one comes home.”
Cover of the Second Annual Report for the Hollywood Victory Committee, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
Photograph of Charlie McCarthy, Edgar Bergen, and Dale Evans performing, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
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During World War II, Hollywood stars became involved in boosting morale and selling war bonds when the Hollywood Victory Committee teamed up with USO-Camp Shows Inc. The Hollywood Victory Committee consisted of representatives from artists’ guilds and societies like the Screen Actors Guild, Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America Inc., and the Southern California Broadcasters Association. The committee received requests for appearances and managed schedules with talent and studios to fill as many requests as possible. Together the committee and the USO brought celebrities and performers to military locations around the world.
Edgar Bergen Show Itinerary, circa 1942-1943, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
The Hollywood Victory Committee’s Second Annual Report, in addition to commending Dale Evans for her tour work, provided impressive program statistics. They reported that in 1943, 49 Hollywood Victory Committee performers took “laughter and cheer to our fighting men overseas,” while 128 made tours of a week to a month “visiting camps and hospitals and embarkation points in the United States.” A staggering 5,550 individual performances in one-day camp shows “entertained the vast concentrations of service men in the Southern California area.” In addition to public appearances, Hollywood’s other contributions to the war effort included “more than 500 radio transcriptions for entertainment of men overseas.”
Page 21 of The Duck Board, published by the ERTC at the 1st Engineer School Regiment, Fort Belvoir, VA, December 1942, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
Image and caption from The Air Line Pilot Vol. 11 No. 6 July 1942, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Archive, Autry Library, Autry National Center; T2010-28.
A letter from Midland Army Air Field from November 26, 1943, personally thanked Evans for her work as “a superior entertainer,” and the U.S. Naval Receiving Barracks in Shoemaker, California, sent her a May 3, 1944, letter expressing how much they enjoyed her performance as they “all rather felt that you were singing directly to each one of us individually.” One thank-you letter from Fort Worth Army Air Field noted that they were particularly appreciative of her “visit to the confined patients of our hospital.” This reflected the early years of Evans’s commitment to appearing at hospitals across the United States, even before it became a regular feature of her national public performance tours with Roy Rogers.
The letters represent a small handful of voices conveying the impact the Hollywood Victory Committee had on morale during the war. Many service members lost their lives in the conflict, and the ones who lived had to deal with the emotional stress of what they endured and the friends they lost. These performances offered time away from the chaos of the war and a chance to have a little slice of home in unfamiliar places.
During the Vietnam War, Evans would once again work with the USO, this time traveling abroad with Roy Rogers to entertain troops in Vietnam. Though her charity work for the Hollywood Victory Committee and the USO reflects only a small fraction of the time she gave to others throughout her life, it is representative of the greater spirit of charity and audience engagement that Dale Evans and Roy Rogers embraced throughout their careers.
