
Jean Rogers
Personal Info
Known for
Acting
Gender
Female
Birthday
1916-03-25
Day of Death
1991-02-24 (74 years old)
Place of Birth
Belmont, Massachusetts, USA
Jean Rogers
Biography
Jean Rogers, born Eleanor Dorothy Lovegren, was an American actress who starred in serial films in the 1930s and low–budget feature films in the 1940s as a leading lady. She is best remembered for playing Dale Arden in the science fiction serials Flash Gordon and Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars.
She graduated from Belmont High School, and had hoped to study art, but in 1933, she won a beauty contest sponsored by Paramount Pictures that led to her career in Hollywood. Rogers starred in several serials for Universal between 1935 and 1938, including Ace Drummond and Flash Gordon. Rogers was one of seven women chosen out of 2,700 passengers on excursion boats and ferries who were interviewed for roles in Eight Girls in a Boat. The group began work in Hollywood on September 3, 1933. By 1937, Rogers was the only one of the seven featured as an actress.
Rogers was assigned the role of Dale Arden in the first two Flash Gordon serials. Buster Crabbe and Rogers were cast as the hero and heroine in the first serial, Flash Gordon, and Rogers' beauty, long blonde hair, and revealing costumes endeared her to moviegoers. The evil ruler Ming the Merciless lusted after her, and Gordon was forced to rescue her from one situation after another. While filming the series in 1937, her costume caught fire and she suffered burns on her hands. Co-star Crabbe smothered the fire by wrapping a blanket on her.
In the first serial, Arden competed with Princess Aura for Gordon's attention. Rogers' character was fragile, small-chested, diminutive, and totally dependent on Gordon for her survival; Lawson's Princess Aura was domineering, independent, voluptuous, conniving, sly, ambitious, and determined to make Gordon her own. The competition for Gordon's attention is one of the highlights of the film. In Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, the second serial, Rogers sported a totally different look. She had dark hair and wore the same modest costume in each episode. Rogers matured after the first serial, and no sexual overtones are seen in Trip to Mars. 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.
Despite starring in serial films, Rogers felt she was not going to improve her career unless she could participate in feature films. She discovered that it was more tedious working in feature films. She played John Wayne's leading lady in the 1936 full-length motion picture Conflict and co-starred with Boris Karloff in the horror film Night Key the following year. During the 1940s, Rogers appeared solely in feature films, including The Man Who Wouldn't Talk with Lloyd Nolan, Viva Cisco Kid with Cesar Romero as the Cisco Kid, Design for Scandal with Rosalind Russell and Walter Pidgeon, Whistling in Brooklyn with Red Skelton, A Stranger in Town with Frank Morgan, Backlash, and Speed to Spare with Richard Arlen. Still, she was unhappy with the studios, possibly because she was relegated to B-movie productions on a lower salary. She decided to freelance with companies such as 20th Century Fox and MGM. Her last appearance was in a supporting role in the suspense film The Second Woman, made in 1950 by United Artists.
She died in Sherman Oaks in 1991 at the age of 74 following surgery. She was later cremated and her ashes returned to her family.
Known For
Acting
(1966)
Spaceship to the Unknown
as Dale Arden (archive footage)
(1950)
The Second Woman
as Dodo Ferris
(1949)
Squadron of Doom
as Peggy Trainor
(1948)
Fighting Back
as June Sanders
(1948)
Speed to Spare
as Mary McGee
(1947)
Backlash
as Catherine Morland
(1946)
Hot Cargo
as Jerry Walters
(1946)
Gay Blades
as Nancy Davis
(1945)
The Strange Mr. Gregory
as Ellen Randall
(1945)
Rough, Tough and Ready
as Jo Matheson
(1943)
Swing Shift Maisie
as Iris Reed
(1943)
Whistling in Brooklyn
as Jean Pringle
(1943)
A Stranger in Town
as Lucy Gilbert
(1942)
Pacific Rendezvous
as Elaine Carter
(1942)
Sunday Punch
as Judy
(1942)
The War Against Mrs. Hadley
as Patricia Hadley
(1942)
Dr. Kildare's Victory
as Miss Annabelle Kirke
(1942)
Personalities
as (uncredited)
(1941)
Design for Scandal
as Dotty
(1941)
Let's Make Music
as Abby Adams
(1940)
Brigham Young
as Clara Young
(1940)
The Man Who Wouldn't Talk
as Alice Stetson
(1940)
Charlie Chan in Panama
as Kathi Lenesch (Baroness Kathi von Czardos)
(1940)
Viva Cisco Kid
as Joan Allen
(1940)
(1939)
Hotel for Women
as Nancy Prescott
(1939)
Inside Story
as June White
(1939)
Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence
as Anita Santos
(1939)
Stop, Look and Love
as Louise Haller
(1938)
Flash Gordon: The Deadly Ray From Mars
as Dale Arden
(1938)
Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars
as Dale Arden
(1938)
Rocket Ship
as Dale Arden
(1938)
Mars Attacks the World
as Dale Arden
(1938)
Time Out for Murder
as Helen Thomas
(1938)
While New York Sleeps
as Judy King
(1938)
Always in Trouble
as Virginia Darlington
(1937)
Night Key
as Joan Mallory
(1937)
The Wildcatter
as Helen Conlon
(1937)
Reported Missing
as Jean Clayton
(1937)
When Love Is Young
as Irene Henry
(1937)
Secret Agent X-9
as Shara Graustark
(1936)
My Man Godfrey
as Socialite (uncredited)
(1936)
Flash Gordon
as Dale Arden
(1936)
Crash Donovan
as Blonde (uncredited)
(1936)
Mysterious Crossing
as Yvonne Fontaine
(1936)
Conflict
as Maude Sangster
(1936)
Ace Drummond
as Peggy Trainor
(1936)
The Adventures of Frank Merriwell
as Elsie Belwood
(1935)
Stormy
as Kerry Dorn
(1935)
Tailspin Tommy in The Great Air Mystery
as Betty Lou Barnes
(1935)
Fighting Youth
as Blonde Student
(1935)
Manhattan Moon
as Joan
(1935)
His Night Out
as Information (uncredited)
(1934)
Stand Up and Cheer!
as Dancer
(1934)
Twenty Million Sweethearts
as Radio Fan (uncredited)
Crew
(2001)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & the Island of Misfit Toys
Associate Producer
(1998)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie
Associate Producer