Sometime in 1939, Dale Evans probably made her first recording, the Vernon Duke/Ira Gershwin tune “I Can’t Get Started.” Her career had picked up, she was well-known locally, but there was no sign yet of the stardom she longed for. Dale also regularly appeared as a featured vocalist with two local orchestras. Her parents agreed to take care of their grandson while she moved forty miles north to Dallas, where radio station WFAA hired her as a singer. She believed Tommy would thrive on her parents’ farm, and she was right.Ĭareer-wise, Ellis County offered nothing for Dale Evans. Dale’s decision to move from Memphis back to her home state of Texas reflected her sense of responsibility to her son. But every time she thought she found true love, something went wrong and the relationship failed. (A more recent image of a street in Italy named for Dale Evans.)Īt the end of 1936, Frances Fox/Dale Evans was still chasing stardom, was still determined to have it all: a fabulous career and a happy home life. The late 1936 move to Texas, where Frances’s parents lived in Ellis County, near the town of Italy, proved the right thing for nine-year-old Tommy Fox. “I Can’t Get Started”: Struggling for Singing Stardom Over the next months, Dale scrambled to make sure her big break didn’t fall to pieces.Ĭhapter Three. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into World War II. 1940s.)Īs Dale prepared for her screen debut, the film project was put on hold. Instead of becoming a theater star, she would become a movie star. Dale Evans arrived there in the late summer of 1941, with a one-year film studio contract. All of these performances laid the foundation for the next step in Dale’s career, which she assumed would be Broadway.īut the next big opportunity came knocking from the other coast: Hollywood, California. Dale became so well-known in the Windy City that locals embraced her as one of their own, a “Chicago girl.” She sang on WGN and WBBM, appeared at swanky nightclubs with popular bands, and even toured for a while with a nationally known big band. While she once identified with the sentiment of “I Can’t Get Started,” she finally moved ahead with her career, moving from Dallas to Chicago. On August 24, 1941, the Chicago Tribune announced that Dale Evans, “the Chicago girl who has had considerable success in both radio and night clubs,” would make a guest appearance on one of WGN’s evening shows to sing “More Than You Know.”Ī lot changed in Dale Evans’s life between the mid-1930s and the beginning of the 1940s. “I’m in Love with a Guy Who Flies in the Sky”: The Path to Hollywood Stardom
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