Dale Arden

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Dale Arden is a female fictional character, the fellow-adventurer and love-interest of Flash Gordon and a prototypic heroine for later female characters, including Princess Leia in Star Wars^[1]. Flash, Dale and Dr. Hans Zarkov fight together against Ming the Merciless.

Contents 1 Profile 2 Dale Arden in Film and Television 3 Dale Arden in the SciFi Channel TV series 4 Parodies 5 References

[edit] Profile

For over 70 years Flash has been followed by his beautiful satellite, Dale Arden. She hardly had any lines in her early days, and however she is the antecedent of the unstoppable heroine of today; every time Flash was trying to keep her away from male things, all Dale needed to do was to express her horror to end up marooned alone in Mongo, or how sweet seemed to her to die by the side of the great space hero. Usually, that would suffice to get her into the adventure.

Alex Raymond’ Dale looks strangely inconsistent: heroic and cleaver at one time, selfish and childish at the other. Nevertheless, she would endure any pain –even with her life- if that would save Flash. And indeed, she saved his life several times in the comic strip.

The emperor Ming the Merciless was immediately attracted to her and the early strips were basically based on Flash’s heroic efforts to rescue Dale from the many intents of Ming to marry her.

[edit] Dale Arden in Film and Television

• Dale was first portrayed by Jean Rogers in the movie serials Flash Gordon (1936) and Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938).

• In the 1940 serial, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, Dale was portrayed by Carol Hughes.

• Irene Champlin took the role for the 1954 Flash Gordon television series.

• Diane Pershing provided the voice for the character in the 1979 Filmation series.

• In 1980, Dale was portrayed by Melody Anderson in Flash Gordon, produced by Dino De Laurentiis. In this version of the story, Dale is a travel agent.

• During the course of the 1980s Marvel animated series Defenders of the Earth, Dale (who has become a computer expert after Dr. Zarkov's death) is captured and killed by Ming, but her consciousness is left trapped inside a crystal Flash uses to power the Defender's base on Earth, Monitor. It is due to this that Dale is reborn as the heart of the base, Dynak.

• Gina Holden plays Dale in the Sci Fi Channel's 2007 Flash Gordon TV series.

[edit] Dale Arden in the SciFi Channel TV series

In this new series Dale is a news reporter who dated Flash when they were in high school. Because of his mother's poor health however, Flash was unable to go to college with her and they broke up. In the pilot episode she returns to her home town with a policeman who's her fiance. She goes to Mongo with Flash by accident and has become heavily involved in assisting Flash, Zarkov, and Baylin ever since. She uses her job as a news reporter to obtain information about open rifts or to hush up sightings of Mongo visitors. Unfortunately, her long absences because of this cause both her job and relationship with her fiance to suffer. She admits that Flash was "the best kisser she ever met" and seems very jealous when Aura slips him a love potion. Later, she tries to force him to tell her whether she or Aura was a better kisser.

[edit] Parodies

• In the 1974 adult film spoof Flesh Gordon, the character is renamed Dale Ardor and is played by Cindy Hopkins aka Suzanne Fields.

[edit] References