During her long career, she made a total of 73 films, and was best known as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten Hollywood musical films that revolutionized the genre. She achieved great success on her own 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 AFI's 100 Years…100 Stars list of actress screen legends.
Early life
Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri, the only child of William Eddins McMath, an electrical engineer, and his wife, Lela Emogene Owens (1891–1977). Ginger's parents separated soon after her birth, and she and her mother went to live with her grandparents, Walter and Saphrona (née Ball) Owens, in nearby Kansas City. Rogers' parents fought over her custody. After her mother denied him visitation, her father reportedly absconded with his daughter twice. After her parents divorced, Rogers stayed with her grandparents while her mother wrote scripts for two years in Hollywood. Rogers was to remain close to her grandfather (much later, when she was a star in 1939, she bought him a home at 5115 Greenbush Avenue in Sherman Oaks, California so that he could be close to her while she was filming at the studios).One of Rogers' young cousins, Helen, had a hard time pronouncing "Virginia", shortening it to "Ginga"; the nickname stuck. When "Ginga" was nine years old, her mother remarried, to John Logan Rogers. Ginger took the surname Rogers, although she was never legally adopted. They lived in Fort Worth, Texas. Her mother became a theater critic for a local newspaper, the Fort Worth Record. She attended but did not graduate from Fort Worth's Central High School. As a teenager, Rogers thought of becoming a schoolteacher, but with her mother's interest in Hollywood and the theater, her early exposure to the theater increased. Waiting for her mother in the wings of the Majestic Theatre, she began to sing and dance along with the performers on stage.
Vaudeville and Broadway
Rogers' entertainment career was born one night when the traveling vaudeville act of Eddie Foy came to Fort Worth and needed a quick stand-in. She then entered and won a Charleston dance contest which allowed her to tour for six months, at one point in 1926 performing at an 18-month-old theater called The Craterian in Medford, Oregon. This theater honored her many years later by changing its name to the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater.At 17, Rogers married Jack Culpepper, a singer/dancer/comedian/recording artist of the day who worked under the name Jack Pepper (according to Ginger's autobiography, she knew Culpepper when she was a child, as her cousin's boyfriend). They formed a short-lived vaudeville double act known as "Ginger and Pepper". The marriage was over within months, and she went back to touring with her mother. When the tour got to New York City, she stayed, getting radio singing jobs and then her Broadway theater debut in a musical called Top Speed, which opened on Christmas Day, 1929.
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 her 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.
Film career
1929-1933
Pre-blonde, early career portrait
Rogers would soon get herself out of the Paramount contract—under which she had made five feature 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 Exchange. She made feature films for Warner Bros., Monogram, and Fox in 1932 and was named one of fifteen "WAMPAS Baby Stars". She then made a significant breakthrough as "Anytime Annie" in the Warner Brothers film 42nd Street (1933). She went on to make a series of films with Fox, Warner Bros. ("Gold Diggers of 1933"), Universal, Paramount, and RKO Radio Pictures and, in her second RKO picture, Flying Down to Rio (1933), she worked for the first time with Fred Astaire.
1933-1939: Astaire and Rogers
The announcement of the Astaire-Rogers screen partnership - from the trailer to Flying Down to Rio
Arlene Croce, Hannah Hyam and John Mueller all consider Rogers to have been Astaire's finest dance partner, principally because of 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. 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 "Waltz in Swing Time" from Swing Time (1936), which is generally considered to be the most virtuosic 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).
Although the dance routines were choreographed by Astaire and his collaborator Hermes Pan, both have acknowledged Rogers's input and have also testified to her consummate professionalism, even during periods of intense strain, as she tried to juggle her many other contractual film commitments with the punishing rehearsal schedules of Astaire, who made at most two films in any one year. In 1986, shortly before his death, Astaire remarked, "All the girls I ever danced with thought they couldn't do it, but of course they could. So they always cried. All except Ginger. No no, Ginger never cried". John Mueller summed up Rogers's abilities as follows: "Rogers was outstanding among Astaire's partners not because she was superior to others as a dancer but because, as a skilled, intuitive actress, she was cagey enough to realize that acting did not stop when dancing began...the reason so many women have fantasized about dancing with Fred Astaire is that Ginger Rogers conveyed the impression that dancing with him is the most thrilling experience imaginable". According to Astaire, when they were first teamed together in "Flying Down to Rio", "Ginger had never danced with a partner before. She faked it an awful lot. She couldn't tap and she couldn't do this and that ... but Ginger had style and talent and improved as she went along. She got so that after a while everyone else who danced with me looked wrong." Astaire also had this to say to Raymond Rohauer, curator at the New York Gallery of Modern Art: "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."
Rogers also introduced some celebrated numbers from the Great American Songbook, songs such as Harry Warren and Al Dubin's "The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)" from Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), "Music Makes Me" from Flying Down to Rio (1933), "The Continental" from The Gay Divorcee (1934), Irving Berlin's "Let Yourself Go" from Follow the Fleet (1936), the Gershwins' "Embraceable You" from Girl Crazy and "They All Laughed (at Christopher Columbus)" from Shall We Dance (1937). Furthermore, in song duets with Astaire, she co-introduced Berlin's "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket" from Follow the Fleet (1936), Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields's "Pick Yourself Up" and "A Fine Romance" from Swing Time (1936) and the Gershwins' "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" from Shall We Dance (1937).
After 1939
After 15 months apart and with RKO facing bankruptcy, the studio hired Fred and Ginger for another movie called Carefree, but it lost money. Next came The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, but the serious plot and tragic ending resulted in the worst box office receipts of any of their films. This was driven not by diminished popularity, but by the hard 1930s economic reality. The production costs of musicals, always significantly more costly than regular features, continued to increase at a much faster rate than admissions. Everyone agreed it was time to stop.
Both before and immediately after her dancing and acting partnership with Fred Astaire ended, Rogers starred in a number of successful dramas and comedies. Stage Door (1937) demonstrated her dramatic capacity, as the loquacious yet vulnerable girl next door, a tough minded, theatrical hopeful, opposite Katharine Hepburn. In Roxie Hart (1942), based on the same play which served as the template for the musical Chicago, Ginger played a wise-cracking wife on trial for a murder her husband committed. In the neo-realist Primrose Path (1940), directed by Gregory La Cava, she played a prostitute's daughter trying to avoid the fate of her mother. Further highlights of this period included Tom, Dick, and Harry, a 1941 comedy in which she dreams of marrying three different men; I'll Be Seeing You, with Joseph Cotten; La Cava's 5th Avenue Girl (1939), where she played an out-of-work girl sucked into the lives of a wealthy family; and especially the sharp and highly successful comedies: Bachelor Mother (1939), with David Niven, in which she played Polly Parrish, a shop girl who is falsely thought to have abandoned her baby; and Billy Wilder's first Hollywood feature film: The Major and the Minor (1942), in which she played a woman who masquerades as a 12-year-old to get a cheap train ticket and finds herself obliged to continue the ruse for an extended period. This film featured a performance by Rogers's own real mother, Lela, playing her film mother.
In 1941, Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in 1940's Kitty Foyle. She enjoyed considerable success during the early 1940s, and was RKO's hottest property during this period. Becoming a free agent, she made hugely successful films with other studios in the mid-'40s, including Tender Comrade (1943), Lady in the Dark (1944), and Week-End at the Waldorf (1945), and became the highest-paid performer in Hollywood. However, by the end of the decade, her film career had peaked. Arthur Freed reunited her with Fred Astaire in The Barkleys of Broadway in 1949.
Rogers' film career entered a period of gradual decline in the 1950s, as parts for older actresses became more difficult to obtain, but she still scored with some solid movies. She starred in Storm Warning (1950) with Ronald Reagan and Doris Day, the noir, anti Ku Klux Klan film by Warner Brothers, and in Monkey Business (1952) with Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe, directed by Howard Hawks. In the same year, she also starred in We're Not Married!, also featuring Marilyn Monroe, and in Dreamboat. She played the female lead in Tight Spot (1955), a mystery thriller, with Edward G. Robinson. After a series of unremarkable films she scored with a great popular success, playing Dolly Levi in the long-running Hello, Dolly! on Broadway in 1965.
In later life, Rogers remained on good terms with Astaire: she presented him with a special Academy Award in 1950, and they were co-presenters of individual Academy Awards in 1967, during which they elicited a standing ovation when they came on stage in an impromptu dance. In 1969, she had the lead role in another long-running popular production of Mame, from the book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in the West End of London, arriving for the role on the Liner QE2 from New York. Her docking there occasioned the maximum of pomp and ceremony at Southampton. She became the highest paid performer in the history of the West End up to that time. The production ran for 14 months and featured a Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth the Second. The Kennedy Center honored Ginger Rogers in December 1992. This event, which was shown on television, was somewhat marred when Astaire's widow, Robyn Smith, who permitted clips of Astaire dancing with Rogers to be shown for free at the function itself, was unable to come to terms with CBS Television for broadcast rights to the clips (all previous rights holders having donated broadcast rights gratis).
From the 1950s onwards, Rogers would make occasional appearances on television. In the later years of her career, she made guest appearances in three different series by Aaron Spelling; The Love Boat (1979), Glitter (1984), and Hotel (1987), which would be her final screen appearance as an actress.
Personal life
Rogers was an only child, and maintained a close relationship with her mother throughout her life. Lela Rogers (1891–1977) was a newspaper reporter, scriptwriter, and movie producer. She was also one of the first women to enlist in the Marine Corps, was a founder of the successful "Hollywood Playhouse" for aspiring actors and actresses on the RKO set, and was a founder of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Mother and daughter had an extremely close professional relationship as well. Lela Rogers was credited with many pivotal contributions to her daughter's early successes in New York and in Hollywood, not to mention contract negotiations with RKO.In her classic 1930s musicals with Astaire, Ginger Rogers, co-billed with him, was paid less than Fred, the creative force behind the dances, who also received 10% of the profits. But she was also paid less than many of the supporting "farceurs" billed beneath her, in spite of her much more central role in the films' great financial success. This was personally grating to her, and had effects upon her relationships at RKO, especially with director Mark Sandrich, whose purported disrespect of Rogers prompted a sharp letter of reprimand from producer Pandro Berman, which she deemed important enough to publish in her autobiography. Rogers fought hard for her contract and salary rights, and for better films and scripts.
Rogers' first marriage was at age 17 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. In 1934 she married actor Lew Ayres (1908–1996). They divorced seven years later. Rogers sued Sylvia of Hollywood for $100K for defamation. Sylvia, Hollywood's fitness guru and radio personality, had claimed that Rogers was on Sylvia's radio show when, in fact, she was not. In 1943, Rogers married her third husband, Jack Briggs, a Marine. Upon his return from World War II, Briggs showed no interest in continuing his incipient Hollywood career. They divorced in 1949. In 1953 she married Jacques Bergerac, a French actor 16 years her junior, whom she met on a trip to Paris. A lawyer in France, he came to Hollywood with her and became an actor. They divorced in 1957. Her fifth and final husband was director and producer William Marshall. They married in 1961, and divorced in 1971, after his bouts with alcohol, and the financial collapse of their joint film production company in Jamaica.
Rogers was lifelong friends with actresses Lucille Ball and Bette Davis. Rogers starred in one of the earliest films co-directed and co-scripted by a woman, Wanda Tuchock's Finishing School (1934). In 1985, Rogers fulfilled a long-standing wish to direct by directing the musical Babes in Arms off-Broadway in Tarrytown, New York, when she was 74 years old. She appeared with Ball in an episode of Here's Lucy on November 22, 1971, in which Rogers danced the Charleston for the first time in many years. Rogers maintained a close friendship with her cousin, writer/socialite Phyllis Fraser, but was not Rita Hayworth's natural cousin as has been reported. Hayworth's maternal uncle, Vinton Hayworth, was married to Rogers's maternal aunt, Jean Owens.
Rogers was a lifelong conservative and a member of the Republican Party. Along with her mother, and such contemporaries as Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, Rogers was a founding member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Hollywood anti-Communist group.
She was raised a Christian Scientist, and remained a lifelong adherent. She devoted a great deal of time in her autobiography to the importance of her faith throughout her career.
In 1977, Rogers's mother died. Rogers remained at the 4-Rs (Rogers's 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. For many years, Rogers regularly supported, and held in-person presentations, at the Craterian Theater, in Medford, Oregon, where she had performed in 1926 as a vaudevillian. The theater was comprehensively restored in 1997, and posthumously renamed in her honor, as the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater.
Death
Rogers would spend winters in Rancho Mirage and summers in Medford. She continued making public appearances (mostly at award shows) until suffering a stroke that left her partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. Rogers passed away at her Rancho Mirage home on April 25, 1995 at the age of 83. An autopsy was performed in compliance with California law that required post-mortem examination on anyone who had not received medical treatment within 40 days of death (despite her stroke, Rogers never saw a doctor or went to a hospital) and concluded that the cause of death was a heart attack. She was cremated and her ashes interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California, with her mother's remains.Filmography
Features
Title Date Director Co-Starring Notes
Young Man of Manhattan 1930 Monta Bell Claudette Colbert, Norman Foster The line, "Cigarette me, big boy" became a popular catchphrase during the 1930s after audiences heard Ginger Rogers repeat it throughout the movie.
Queen High 1930 Fred Newmeyer
The Sap from Syracuse 1930 A. Edward Sutherland Jack Oakie
Follow the Leader 1930 Norman Taurog
Honor Among Lovers 1931 Dorothy Arzner Claudette Colbert
The Tip Off 1931 Albert Rogell
Suicide Fleet 1931 Albert Rogell
Carnival Boat 1932 Albert Rogell
The Tenderfoot 1932 Ray Enright Joe E. Brown
The Thirteenth Guest 1932 Albert Ray
Hat Check Girl 1932 Sidney Lanfield Sidney Lanfield was the most frequent director on the Addams Family 1960s television show.
You Said a Mouthful 1932 Lloyd Bacon Joe E. Brown
42nd Street 1933 Lloyd Bacon Warner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell
Broadway Bad 1933 Sidney Lanfield
Gold Diggers of 1933 1933 Mervyn LeRoy Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell
Professional Sweetheart 1933 William A. Seiter Norman Foster
A Shriek in the Night 1933 Albert Ray
Don't Bet on Love 1933 Murray Roth Lew Ayres Ginger Rogers and Lew Ayres were married for seven years following this film.
Sitting Pretty 1933 Harry Joe Brown Jack Oakie, Jack Haley
Flying Down to Rio 1933 Thornton Freeland Dolores Del Rio, Gene Raymond, Fred Astaire The first of the Astaire-Rogers pairing. This is the only movie where Rogers is billed above Astaire.
Chance at Heaven 1933 William A. Seiter Joel McCrea
Rafter Romance 1934 William A. Seiter Norman Foster
Finishing School 1934 Wanda Tuchock and George Nicholas Beulah Bondi
Twenty Million Sweethearts 1934 Ray Enright Dick Powell
Change of Heart 1934 John G. Blystone Shirley Temple
Upperworld 1934 Roy Del Ruth Mary Astor
The Gay Divorcee 1934 Mark Sandrich Fred Astaire
Romance in Manhattan 1934 Stephen Roberts
Roberta 1935 William A. Seiter Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Randolph Scott Lucille Ball has an uncredited appearance as a model. She had lines deleted since her character was supposed to be a French model and she could not perfect the accent.
Star of Midnight 1935 Stephen Roberts William Powell
Top Hat 1935 Mark Sandrich Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball
In Person 1935 William A. Seiter George Brent
Follow the Fleet 1936 Mark Sandrich Fred Astaire, Randolph Scott, Lucille Ball
Swing Time 1936 George Stevens Fred Astaire
Shall We Dance 1937 Mark Sandrich Fred Astaire
Stage Door 1937 Gregory La Cava Katharine Hepburn, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Lucille Ball
Having Wonderful Time 1938 Alfred Santell Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Lucille Ball, Red Skelton This used much of the same cast as Stage Door.
Vivacious Lady 1938 George Stevens James Stewart, Charles Coburn, Hattie McDaniel
Carefree 1938 Mark Sandrich Fred Astaire, Jack Carson, Hattie McDaniel
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle 1939 H. C. Potter Fred Astaire
Bachelor Mother 1939 Garson Kanin David Niven, Charles Coburn
Fifth Avenue Girl 1939 Gregory La Cava
Primrose Path 1940 Gregory La Cava Joel McCrea
Lucky Partners 1940 Lewis Milestone Ronald Colman, Jack Carson
Kitty Foyle 1940 Sam Wood Dennis Morgan, James Craig Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress the first year that the Academy was not announcing the winners before the ceremony. She beat Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine, Martha Scott, and former co-star Katharine Hepburn.
Tom, Dick, and Harry 1942 Garson Kanin Burgess Meredith
Roxie Hart 1942 William A. Wellman Adolphe Menjou
Tales of Manhattan 1942 Julien Duvivier Henry Fonda, Cesar Romero, Rita Hayworth, Gail Patrick
The Major and the Minor 1942 Billy Wilder Ray Milland Rogers campaigned hard for Billy Wilder and as a result this became his debut film. This remains one of Rogers' favorite movies. Near the end of the movie her real life mother, Lela Rogers, played her character's mother.
Once Upon a Honeymoon 1942 Leo McCarey Cary Grant
Tender Comrade 1943 Edward Dmytryk
Lady in the Dark 1944 Mitchell Leisen Ray Milland, Warner Baxter
I'll Be Seeing You 1944 William Dieterle Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple
Week-End at the Waldorf 1945 Robert Z. Leonard Lana Turner Remake of the 1932 film Grand Hotel portraying the ballerina who was first played on screen by Greta Garbo.
Heartbeat 1946 Sam Wood Adolphe Menjou
Magnificent Doll 1946 Frank Borzage David Niven, Burgess Meredith
It Had to Be You 1947 Don Hartman and Rudolph Mate Cornel Wilde
The Barkleys of Broadway 1949 Charles Walters Fred Astaire Originally Rogers' role was meant for Judy Garland who had recently starred in the successful musical Easter Parade with Astaire. However she had to drop out of the project due to health issues and Rogers was sought as a last minute replacement. This is the only Astaire-Rogers film not released by RKO and the only one filmed in color (although the "I Used to Be Color Blind" number in Carefree was originally filmed in Technicolor).
Perfect Strangers 1950 Bretaigne Windust Dennis Morgan
Storm Warning 1951 Stuart Heisler Ronald Reagen, Doris Day
The Groom Wore Spurs 1951 Richard Whorf Jack Carson
We're Not Married 1952 Edmund Goulding Marilyn Monroe, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Victor Moore
Monkey Business 1952 Howard Hawks Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn
Dreamboat 1952 Claude Binyon
Forever Female 1953 Irving Rapper William Holden
Black Widow 1954 Nunnally Johnson Gene Tierney
Twist of Fate 1954 David Miller This was released in Great Britain as "Beautiful Stranger." Rogers' husband at the time, Jacques Bergerac, appeared in the film.
Tight Spot 1955 Phil Karlson Edward G. Robinson
The First Traveling Saleslady 1956 Arthur Lubin Clint Eastwood
Teenage Rebel 1956 Edmund Goulding
Oh! Men, Oh! Women 1957 Nunnally Johnson David Niven
The Confession 1965 William Dieterle Ray Milland Also known as "Quick, Let's Get Married."
Harlow (Magna film) 1965 Alex Segal Carol Lynley Rogers' last film.
Short subjects
A Day of a Man of Affairs (1929)
A Night in a Dormitory (1930)
Campus Sweethearts (1930)
Office Blues (1930)
Hollywood on Parade (1932)
Screen Snapshots (1932)
Hollywood on Parade No. A-9 (1933)
Hollywood Newsreel (1934)
Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 3 (1936)
Show Business at War (1943)
Battle Stations (Narrator, 1944)
Screen Snapshots: The Great Showman (1950)
Screen Snapshots: Hollywood's Great Entertainers (1954)
Television
The DuPont Show with June Allyson, as Kay Neilson in "The Tender Shoot" (October 18, 1959)
What's My Line? (1954, 1957, 1963)
The Jack Benny Program (1957)
The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom (1959)
Cinderella (1965)
Here's Lucy (1971)(episode 4.11)
The Love Boat (1979) (episodes 3.10 and 3.11)
Glitter (1984) (episode 1.3)
Hotel (1987) (episode 5.1) (final screen role)
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