"An actor can change himself to fit a part, whereas a personality has to change the part to fit himself. The personality has to say it his own way." - dale robertson
And he did say it in his own way.
To this day, if you sit down to watch a Dale Robertson movie or television show, you can count on seeing a little—or a lot—of the real Dale in the character he's playing. From the very beginning of his career in show business, Dale balked at being thrown under the harness of Hollywood conformity and stubbornly held to his ideals throughout his entire career.
Such was the case when he first came to Hollywood. At that time, actors and actresses who were still "wet behind the ears," were expected to go to acting school and take voice lessons, refining their methods of presenting themselves. But Dale chose not to do this, keeping with his own personal style and his own Oklahoma-flavored voice.
A few years later, he ran into what has been called (however accurately) "a running feud" with the press. It started when Dale began declining publicity. He thought an actor was less likely to burn himself out if he weren't appearing in every other magazine on the stands. Also, the press had a way of spreading untrue and harmful stories; and the number of those stories grew with Dale's decision.
Reporters immediately assumed that because actress Rita Hayworth was also turning down publicity, she and Dale were seeing each other (both were married at the time). But the two had never even met before!
Dale's straightforward honesty stunted most rumors, but that same honesty lost him his part in a TV show many years later when he got a regular role on the soap opera Dynasty (circa 1981). The show was, of course, a soap opera and contained content that was less than family-friendly. And Dale honestly gave his opinion to himself and others when he left the show because of the standards being endorsed—he wanted onscreen entertainment to be something entire families could watch without parents worrying about what their kids were going to see or hear.
He could afford to be choosy about parts he played, and he often turned down roles if they weren't the kind of thing he thought should be on the screen.*
"I've followed a horse behind a plow and ridden in rodeos." **
"There's nothing sinful about horse racing. . . . The Queen of England and a lot of other prominent people go to the horse races."**
Horses—particularly race horses— played an important part in Dale's life.
Throughout his life, he owned or co-owned several different horse ranches, most notably the Haymaker Farm, which specialized in breeding Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds, and also specialized in their Haymaker Sales (in which hundreds of horses were sold by consignment). Later on, they also bred Paint Horses.
Sometimes it seems as if being an actor (or rather "onscreen-personality") was nothing but a job that made it possible for Dale to own all the horses he wanted. But he did more than just tinker around with the animals; the Haymaker was responsible for numerous world champions and record-holders.
Dale's main Tales of Wells Fargo mount, Jubilee, was a race horse and a great performer, carrying Dale through many personal appearance tours and rodeos, as well as TV shows.
Horses were more than just a way of business for Dale—they were a way of life that he learned to love from an early age. Whether race horse, plow horse, polo pony, or "casual" riding horse, it didn't matter so long as it was of the equestrian nature; Dale could find some way for it to fit into his life. Even as he got older and had to sell out the farm, he kept a couple riding horses for himself and his wife, Susan. ***
Dale owned over 3,000 books on horses, and was a well-learned man, not just on that one subject, although that very well could have been his favorite. Stunt-woman Martha Crawford Cantarini reminisces in her book Fall Girl: My Life as a Western Stunt Double, about the time she doubled for Linda Darnell in Dale's film Dakota Incident. She relates that Dale was "an enthralling storyteller, in true camp-fire style . . ." and that she was "spellbound" for every minute of the story he told about Justin Morgan's horse, the first of the Morgan breed. Later on, Dale mesmerized listeners with stories about Hollywood.
In the 70's, he put his storytelling aptitude to paper and wrote, Wells Fargo, The Legend, a fiction-based-on-fact book about the bank and stage company that made Dale so well-known to TV viewers in the late 50's and early 60's.
All in all, Dale Robertson was a unique man in the entertainment industry:
He was honest and open, yet still somehow very private.
Although he was married and divorced several times (including one marriage that lasted less than six months), when he married his fourth wife, they stayed together for thirty-three years, until he passed away in 2013.
And although he was far from being pious, his ideas truly represent an old-fashioned brand of American values.
Dale made his contribution to the Western genre something that audiences will never forget.
* Dale turned down the part of Barbara Bel Gedes' husband on Dallas, after Jim Davis passed away in 1981. Howard Keel got the part as Gedes' second husband. The first-husband character that Davis played was reprised in a prequel movie with Dale Midkiff in the role.
** Dale Robertson quote taken from newspaper archives.
*** The Robertsons eventually sent their horses to live with relatives in California, after Dale's declining health made it the best choice.
(Thanks to Susan Robertson for all of her help; without her, this article never would have come into existence.)