1. Jean Rogers is best remembered for playing Dale Arden in the science-fiction serials Flash Gordon and Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars.
17 Facts About Jean Rogers
1. 2.
Jean Rogers had hoped to study art, but in 1933 she won a beauty contest sponsored by Paramount Pictures that led to her career in Hollywood.
3.
Jean Rogers was one of seven women chosen out of 2,700 passengers on excursion boats and ferries who were interviewed for roles in the 1934 film Eight Girls in a Boat.
4.
Jean Rogers was assigned the ingenue role of Dale Arden in the first two Flash Gordon serials.
5.
Buster Crabbe and Jean Rogers were cast as the hero and heroine in the first serial, Flash Gordon.
6.
Jean Rogers' character was fragile and totally dependent on Gordon for her survival, yet in the first episode, Gordon had to hold onto her parachute for his survival.
7.
In Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, the second serial, Jean Rogers sported a totally different look.
8.
Jean Rogers had dark hair and wore the same modest costume in each episode.
9.
Jean Rogers told writer Richard Lamparski that she was not eager to do the second serial and asked her studio to excuse her from the third.
10.
Jean Rogers left Universal for 20th Century-Fox in 1938, where she appeared steadily in the studio's lower-budget product, including its popular series films featuring Michael Shayne, The Cisco Kid, and Charlie Chan.
11.
The only major motion picture Jean Rogers appeared in at Fox was the Tyrone Power feature Brigham Young; it was a supporting role and she was billed eighth.
12.
Jean Rogers's fortunes seemed to improve when she was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the most important studio in the industry, in 1941.
13.
Jean Rogers never did appear in another major MGM film, and was dropped by the studio in 1943.
14.
Jean Rogers began freelancing at other studios, and her name still had marquee value for smaller studios like Monogram and Republic.
15.
Jean Rogers was a lifelong Democrat who supported Adlai Stevenson's campaign during the 1952 presidential election.
16.
Jean Rogers died in Sherman Oaks in 1991 at the age of 74 following surgery.
17.
Jean Rogers was later cremated and her ashes returned to her family.