Jean Rogers - Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon

Rogers got her biggest assignment when she played the role of Dale Arden in the first two Flash Gordon serials between 1936 and 1939. Buster Crabbe and Rogers were perfectly cast as hero and heroine in the first serial (Flash Gordon), and Rogers' fragile beauty, long blonde hair, and revealing costume endeared her to thousands of moviegoers during the late 1930s. She was lusted after by "Ming the Merciless" (Charles B. Middleton) and most of the male audience as Flash Gordon rescued her from one life-threatening situation after another in the serial. While on the set filming the series in 1937, her costume caught on fire and she suffered burns on her hands. Her co-star Crabbe smothered the fire by putting a blanket on her.

In the first serial, Dale competed with Princess Aura (Priscilla Lawson) for Flash Gordon's amorous attention. Rogers and Lawson were two completely different types of character actress. Rogers was fragile, small-chested, diminutive and totally dependent on the all-powerful Flash Gordon for her survival. Lawson, on the other hand, was domineering, independent, voluptuous, well endowed, conniving, sly, ambitious and determined to take Flash for herself. The competition between the two women for Flash Gordon's attention is one of the highlights of the film. In the second Flash Gordon Serial (Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars), Jean Rogers sports a totally different look. She has dark hair and wears the same full length, modest costume in each episode. Rogers matured both physically and mentally after the first serial, and there are no sexual overtones in Trip To Mars as there were in Flash Gordon. Rogers told author Richard Lamparski that she wasn't keen on doing the second Flash Gordon serial and asked her studio to exclude her from the third one.