Trivia

Paid for his grandchildren to go to school.

He had two children with Mary Pickford, Ronald "Ronnie" Charles Rogers (born 1937, adopted 1943, died in 2007 from osteoporosis) and Roxanne (born 1944, adopted that same year).

He reported that Clark Gable "once told Mary [Mary Pickford] when we got married, that it wouldn't last six months" because he was 11 years younger than her. They were married for 42 years until her death in 1979. During World War II he served in the U.S. Navy as a flight training instructor. Played several musical instruments in all sections of the orchestra.

His second wife, Beverly, a well-regarded philanthropist in the Palm Desert area, passed away at the age of 79 on January 3, 2007.

He had a granddaughter, Katina, from his daughter Roxanne.

During the early 1930s he led his own orchestra which featured, among others, an exciting young drummer named Gene Krupa. Rogers himself played the trombone. The band debuted on Broadway in 1932 (in Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s "Hot-Cha!"). Rogers himself also enjoyed a reasonably successful solo career in vaudeville, theatre and on radio.

He became estranged from daughter Roxanne when, at age 18, she ran off to marry a man her parents did not approve of.

Born to Maude and Bert Henry Rogers. Attended Olathe high school and Univ. of Kansas. He trained at the Paramount Picture School.

Son-in-law of Charlotte Smith.

His father, Bert H. Rogers, was a newsman who later became a probate judge in Johnson County.

Hobbies: Music and gymnastics

Brother-in-law of Lottie Pickford and Jack Pickford.

He was a lifelong conservative Republican.