Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was more than the perfect half of the Astaire/Rogers dance team. She was also a genuine theatre trooper and film actress in comedies and dramas. Born in 1911 as Virginia McMath in Independence, Missouri, Rogers' first taste of Hollywood was as a baby. Her recently divorced mother moved the family there to become a screenwriter. The family then moved to Fort Worth, Texas, a few years later when Rogers was a child. At fifteen years old, Rogers won a charleston dance contest, and entered the professional vaudeville circuit. She came to New York as a singer with Paul Ash's Orchestra, and then won a role in the Broadway production of Top Speed (1929). In the show, she was teamed with Hermes Pan, who would become Astaire's main choreographer. Rogers starred with Ethel Merman in Broadway's Girl Crazy! (1930). The film of 42nd Street (1933) cemented her career as an audience favorite. The same year she began her partnership with Fred Astaire which included the classic movie musicals: Flying Down to Rio (1933), The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and The Barkleys of Broadway (1949). Other notable films included Stage Door (1937) with Katherine Hepburn, Kitty Foyle (1940) for which she won an Oscar as best actress of the year, Weekend at the Waldorf (1945) for which Rogers received $300,000, making her one of the highest paid women in America at the time, and It Had to Be You (1947). Rogers returned to Broadway in 1965 to star in Hello Dolly!, and played Mame in the 1969 London production. In addition to stage appearances and television roles, Rogers toured a nightclub act, and headlined at Radio City Music Hall in 1980. Ginger Rogers died in 1995.
