Jean Rogers

Blonde, wide-eyed film ingénue Jean Rogers came to Hollywood on the strength of a beauty contest. She rose to stardom as the fetchingly underdressed, ever-imperiled Dale Arden in the popular Universal serial Flash Gordon (1936). She also co-starred in the second Gordon serial, as well as such chapter plays as Ace Drummond (1935) and The Adventures of Frank Merriwell (1936). From Universal, Rogers moved on to 20th Century Fox, where she starred in a series of enjoyable B-pictures, the best of which (though not her personal favorite) was Heaven With a Barbed Wire Fence (1939). She appeared in supporting parts in several MGM films of the 1940s, then freelanced in independent productions. Jean Rogers retired from show business in 1951 upon her marriage to a successful actors' agent.