Dale Robertson: American Hero

Dale Robertson, the actor who made his name in television Westerns in the 1950s and ’60s, was born on July 14, 1923, in Harrah, Oklahoma, to Melvin and Varval Robertson. At the age of 17 while attending Oklahoma Military College he boxed in professional prize fights to earn money. In his junior year he was declared “ineligible” to play sports because of two professional boxing matches he had previously fought. As a result, he decided to enroll in the Oklahoma Military Academy in the city of Claremore where he was permitted to participate in sports. Dale went on to be nominated “All-Around Athlete” while attending the Academy.

Harry Cohn approached him after a fight in Wichita, Kansas and asked him to come out to Hollywood to play the role of Joe Bonaparte in a boxing picture called “Golden Boy.” Robertson declined, saying he was in the middle of training 17 polo ponies, and could not leave his family at his age. (William Holden eventually was cast in the Golden Boy (1939) role.)

Robertson entered the U.S. Army after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. He started military service at Fort Sill in Oklahoma before being sent to the horse cavalry at Fort Riley, Kansas, and then to officers’ school at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Armed Forces. From there he was sent to the Engineer School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

After stateside training he served as a tank commander in the 777th Tank Battalion in the North African campaign. He was standing in the hatch when his tank was hit by enemy fire. His tank crew was killed, but he was blown out of the hatch and survived with shrapnel wounds to his lower legs, the scars of which he bore for the rest of his life. Fully recovered, he went on to serve with the 322nd Combat Engineer Battalion during the European campaign. He was wounded a second time in the right knee during a mortar attack. Again he made a complete recovery. He was awarded the Bronze and Silver stars and a Purple Heart for his courage.

Robertson started his acting career while still on active duty in the U.S. Army. While stationed at San Luis Obispo, California, he had a photograph taken for his mother. A copy of the photo displayed in the photo shop window attracted movie scouts, and the six foot tall, 180-lb. Robertson soon was on his way to Hollywood. Will Rogers Jr., whose father is the most famous son of Oklahoma, told him to avoid formal training and keep his own persona. Robertson took his advice and avoided acting classes.

The old-fashioned Robertson claims to have been “killed off” by the powers-that-be on Dynasty (1981) because he balked at the sexual situations demanded of his character. “They got me to do 15 episodes … but that was enough. They kept putting all of this sex and stuff into it and I didn’t do it the way they wanted. I never had the ability to keep my big mouth shut.”

Dale retired after he finished his role as Zeke in the TV series Harts of the West (1993) in order to spend more time at his Yukon, Oklahoma ranch and raise horses. Ill health forced him to move to the San Diego California area just months before his death of emphysema and pneumonia. He died at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California, on February 27, 2013, at the age of 89.
Robertson was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers and the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City and he received the Golden Boot Award in 1985.

According to his niece, Nancy Robertson, Dale Robertson would want to be remembered as a father, a grandfather and an Oklahoman. “He came back a lot when he was in Hollywood, and he came back (to Oklahoma) after retiring. I remember him as a larger-than-life fellow,” she said. “When he was in town it was always very exciting. It always meant something magical was going to happen.”