Twinkle Posted August 28, 2009 Posted August 28, 2009 Ginger Rogers Virginia Katherine McMath (July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American film and stage actress, dancer and singer. During her long career, she made a total of 73 films, and is noted for her role as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten Hollywood musical films that revolutionized the genre. She also achieved success in a variety of film roles, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Kitty Foyle (1940). She ranks #14 on the list of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars. 1929-1933 Rogers' first movie roles were in a trio of short films made in 1929—Night in the Dormitory, A Day of a Man of Affairs, and Campus Sweethearts. Within two weeks of opening in Top Speed, Rogers was chosen to star on Broadway in Girl Crazy by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, the musical play widely considered to have made stars of both Ginger and Ethel Merman. Fred Astaire was hired to help the dancers with their choreography. Her appearance in Girl Crazy made her an overnight star at the age of 19. In 1930, she was signed by Paramount Pictures to a seven-year contract. Rogers would soon get herself out of the Paramount contract—under which she had made films at Astoria Studios in Astoria, Queens—and move with her mother to Hollywood. When she got to California, she signed a three-picture deal with Pathé, which resulted in three forgettable pictures. She landed singing and dancing bit parts for most of 1932 and was named one of fifteen "WAMPAS Baby Stars". She then made her screen breakthrough in the Warner Brothers film 42nd Street (1933). She went on to make a series of films with RKO Radio Pictures and, in the second of those, Flying Down to Rio (1933), she worked with Dolores del Rio and again with Fred Astaire. 1933-1939: Astaire and Rogers Most famous for her partnership with Fred Astaire. Together, from 1933 to 1939, they made nine musical films at RKO Flying Down to Rio (1933), The Gay Divorcee (1934), Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and Carefree (1938), The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) and a tenth The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) was made later at MGM, and in so doing, revolutionized the Hollywood musical, introducing dance routines of unprecedented elegance and virtuosity, set to songs specially composed for them by the greatest popular song composers of the day. To this day, "Fred and Ginger" remains an almost automatic reference for any successful dance partnership. Ginger with Fred Astaire in the film Roberta (1935).Croce, Hyam and Mueller all consider Rogers to have been Astaire's finest dance partner, principally due to her ability to combine dancing skills, natural beauty and exceptional abilities as a dramatic actress and comedienne, thus truly complementing Astaire: a peerless dancer who sometimes struggled as an actor and was not considered classically handsome. The resulting song and dance partnership enjoyed a unique credibility in the eyes of audiences, as bluntly expressed by Katharine Hepburn: "She gives him sex, he gives her class." Most of the films in which the two appeared had several very difficult numbers to be rehearsed dozens of times. Of the 33 partnered dances she performed with Astaire, Croce and Mueller have highlighted the infectious spontaneity of her performances in the comic numbers "I'll Be Hard to Handle" from Roberta (1935), "I'm Putting all My Eggs in One Basket" from Follow the Fleet (1936) and "Pick Yourself Up" from Swing Time (1936). They also point to the use Astaire made of her remarkably flexible back in classic romantic dances such as "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" from Roberta (1935), "Cheek to Cheek" from Top Hat (1935) and "Let's Face the Music and Dance" from Follow the Fleet (1936). For special praise, they have singled out her performance in the "Waltz in Swing Time" from Swing Time (1936), which is generally considered to be the most virtuostic partnered routine ever committed to film by Astaire. She generally avoided solo dance performances: Astaire always included at least one virtuoso solo routine in each film, while Rogers performed only one: "Let Yourself Go" from Follow the Fleet (1936). Personal Life Rogers was an only child and lived for much of her life with her mother, Lela Rogers (1891–1977), who was a newspaper reporter, scriptwriter, and movie producer. Lela was also one of the first women to enlist in the Marine Corps, and was a founder of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Rogers' mother "named names" to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and both mother and daughter were staunchly anti-Communist. They had an extremely close mother-daughter relationship — Rogers's mother even denied Rogers's father visitation rights after their divorce. Rogers' first marriage was to her dancing partner Jack Pepper (real name Edward Jackson Culpepper) on March 29, 1929. They divorced in 1931, having separated soon after the wedding. She married again in 1934 to actor Lew Ayres (1908–1996). They separated and were divorced seven years later. In 1940, Rogers purchased a 1000-acre (4 km²) ranch in Jackson County, Oregon between the cities of Shady Cove and Eagle Point. The ranch, located along the Rogue River, supplied dairy products to nearby Camp White, a cantonment established for the duration of World War II. While not performing or working on other projects, she would live at the ranch with her mother. In 1943, Rogers married her third husband, Jack Briggs, a Marine. They divorced in 1949. She married once again in 1953, a lawyer named Jacques Bergerac who was 16 years her junior. Bergerac became an actor and then a cosmetics company executive. They divorced in 1957 and he soon remarried actress Dorothy Malone. Her fifth and final husband was director and producer William Marshall. They married in 1961 and divorced in 1971. Rogers was good friends with Lucille Ball — a distant cousin on Rogers' mother's side — for many years until Ball's death in 1989, at the age of 77. Ball did not seem to share Rogers' political views, but evidently still valued her friendship, as did Bette Davis, a Democrat who definitely did not share her views and called her a "moralist", but still professed to enjoy her company. Ginger Rogers appeared with Lucille Ball in an episode of Here's Lucy on November 22, 1971, where, with Lucie Arnaz, Rogers gave a demonstration of the Charleston, in the famous "high heels". Rogers was a cousin of actress/writer/socialite Phyllis Fraser (whose acting career was brief), but was not Rita Hayworth's natural cousin as has been reported. Hayworth's maternal uncle, Vinton Hayworth, was married to Rogers' maternal aunt, Jean Owens. In 1977, Rogers' mother died. Rogers remained at the 4-Rs (Rogers' Rogue River Ranch) until 1990, when she sold the property and moved to nearby Medford, Oregon. Her last public appearance was on March 18, 1995 when she received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award.[1] Rogers would spend the winters in Rancho Mirage and the summers in Medford. She died in Rancho Mirage on April 25, 1995 of congestive heart failure at the age of 83. She was cremated; her ashes are interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California. Quotes about Rogers "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels." "Fred gave Ginger class, and Ginger gave Fred sex." Katharine Hepburn, actress. Variants include "Astaire gave her class, and Rogers gave him sex" and "He gave her class, and she gave him sex appeal." "They both had class and sex was never the point." From Roger Ebert, film critic, in his review of "Swing Time", in a corrective response to Katherine Hepburn's famous quote. "She had guts." Fred Astaire's three-word description of Rogers from his autobiography Steps in Time. "The hardest working actress I ever knew." Fred Astaire's description of Rogers discipline, and willingness to work, from Steps in Time. "Ginger was brilliantly effective. She made everything work for her. Actually she made things very fine for both of us and she deserves most of the credit for our success." Fred Astaire to Raymond Rohauser, Film Curator of the New York Gallery of Modern Art, at the San Francisco Film Festival, in 1966. "..."Believe me, Ginger was great. She contributed her full fifty percent in making them such a great team. She could follow Fred as if one brain was thinking. She blended with his every step and mood immaculately. He was able to do dances on screen that would have been impossible to risk if he hadn't had a partner like Ginger - as skillful as she was attractive." Edward Everett Horton to Dick Richards. Source Wikipedia & Dr Marco Quote
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Twinkle Posted August 28, 2009 Author Posted August 28, 2009 Glad you like her, she has been in some really great films! Quote
Twinkle Posted September 9, 2009 Author Posted September 9, 2009 I hope I look this good in old age Quote
Twinkle Posted September 13, 2009 Author Posted September 13, 2009 Ginger deserves more attention LOL Quote
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