Film actress, born in Independence, Missouri, USA. She made her professional debut at age 14 with Eddie Foy's vaudeville troupe, and by 1928 she was appearing with her first husband, Jack Pepper, as a vaudeville song-and-dance team. She sang with a band, appeared in short films and in Broadway musicals, and made her screen debut in Young Man in Manhattan (1930). She and Fred Astaire were not given star billing when they first danced together in Flying Down to Rio (1933), but they stole the picture and went on to adorn nine more films. She performed several non-musical roles, winning the Oscar for best actress in Kitty Foyle (1940), and in 1945 was the highest-paid performer in Hollywood. She continued in occasional films until the mid-1960s but then found a new public when she took over the lead in such musicals as Hello, Dolly! and Mame. She served as a fashion consultant for the J C Penney retail stores in the 1970s.
Biography
Early life
Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri, the daughter of Eddins McMath, of Scottish ancestry and Lela Owens McMath, of Welsh ancestry. Her mother separated from Rogers's father soon after her birth, and mother and daughter went to live with the Walter Owens family in nearby Kansas City. After they divorced, Rogers stayed with her grandparents, Walter and Saphrona Owens, while her mother wrote screenplays for two years in Hollywood.
When she was nine years old, her mother remarried John Logan Rogers. Fred Astaire was hired to help the dancers with their choreography, and he briefly dated Rogers.
Rogers would soon get herself out of the Paramount contract and move with her mother to Hollywood.
She went on to make a series of films with RKO and, in the second of those, Flying Down to Rio (1933), she again met up with Fred Astaire.
Ginger Rogers was most famous for her partnership with Fred Astaire.
Croce and Mueller both consider Ginger 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.
Although the dance routines were choreographed by Astaire and his assistant Hermes Pan, both have acknowledged Rogers's input into the process, 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. However, she does not appear to have been especially ambitious as a dancer, being more interested in gowns and hairstyles, and while Astaire always included at least one virtuoso solo routine in each film, Rogers only ever performed one: "Let Yourself Go" from Follow the Fleet (1936). John Mueller sums 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 fantasised about dancing with Fred Astaire is that Ginger Rogers conveyed the impression that dancing with him is the most thrilling experience imaginable".
Ginger Rogers also introduced some celebrated numbers from the Great American Songbook, songs such as Harry Warren and Al Dubin's "The Golddiggers' 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) and The Gershwins' "They All Laughed (at Christopher Columbus)" from Shall We Dance (1937).
In 1939 Rogers requested a break from musicals saying "I don't want to make a musical for the next year. In 1941 Ginger Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her starring role in 1940's Kitty Foyle. Arthur Freed reunited her with Fred Astaire for one last time in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) which, while very successful, failed to revive Rogers's flagging career, although she continued to obtain parts throughout the 1950s.
In later life, Rogers remained on good terms with Astaire: she presented him with a special Academy Award in 1950, and they teamed up in 1967 as co-presenters of individual Academy Awards. The Kennedy Center honored Ginger Rogers in December 1992, an event which was marred by a request from the Astaire estate, with which CBS felt obliged to comply: to remove all clips of Astaire dancing with Rogers from the broadcast.
Personal life
In 1940 Rogers purchased a 1000-acre (4 km²) ranch between Shady Cove, Oregon and Eagle Point, Oregon, along the Rogue River, just north of Medford. The ranch, named the 4-R's (for Rogers's Rogue River Ranch), is where she would live, along with her mother, when not doing her Hollywood business, for 50 years.
Politically, Rogers was a Republican.
She lived for much of her life with her mother, Lela Rogers (1891–1977), who was a newspaper reporter, scriptwriter, and movie producer.
Rogers's mother "named names" to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and both mother and daughter were staunchly anti-Communist.
Rogers's first marriage was to her dancing partner Jack Pepper (real name Edward Jackson Culpepper) on March 29, 1929.
A recent biography of actor James Stewart claims that Stewart lost his virginity to Ginger Rogers. (New York Times Book Review, Nov.2006)
In 1953, Rogers married her fourth husband, lawyer Jacques Bergerac.
Rogers was good friends with Lucille Ball (a distant cousin on her mother's side) for many years until Ball's death in 1989, at the age of 77. Ball did not seem to share Rogers's political views, but evidently still enjoyed her friendship, as did Bette Davis, a Democrat who definitely did not share Rogers's views and called her a "moralist", but still professed to enjoying her company.
Ginger Rogers was a cousin of actress/writer/socialite Phyllis Fraser (whose acting career was brief).
It has been said in books and other publications that Rogers was Rita Hayworth's cousin but they were not blood relatives. Their connection is as follows: Hayworth's mother's brother, Vinton Hayworth (Hayworth's uncle), was married to Rogers's mother's sister, Jean Owens (Rogers's aunt).
Rogers would spend the winters in Rancho Mirage, California, and the summers in Medford, Oregon.
The Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater in Medford, Oregon is named in her honor.
Portrayals of Ginger Rogers
In August 2006, it was announced that a musical about the life of Ginger Rogers, entitled Backwards in High Heels, would premiere in Florida in 2007.
Quotations about Rogers
"Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels." Variants include "Astaire gave her class, and Rogers gave him sex" and "He gave her class, and she gave him sex appeal." Madonna sings "Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, dance on air" in her famous song Vogue, an apparent homage to the legendary actress and dancer.Filmography
Campus Sweethearts (1929) (short subject) A Day of a Man of Affairs (1929) (short subject) A Night in a Dormitory (1930) (short subject) Young Man of Manhattan (1930) The Sap from Syracuse (1930) Queen High (1930) Office Blues (1930) (short subject) Follow the Leader (1930) Honor Among Lovers (1931) The Tip-Off (1931) Suicide Fleet (1931) Carnival Boat (1932) The Tenderfoot (1932) Hollywood on Parade (1932) (short subject) The Thirteenth Guest (1932) Screen Snapshots (1932) (short subject) Hat Check Girl (1932) You Said a Mouthful (1932) 42nd Street (1933) Broadway Bad (1933) Hollywood on Parade No. 9 (1933) (short subject) Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) Professional Sweetheart (1933) Don't Bet on Love (1933) A Shriek in the Night (1933) Rafter Romance (1933) Chance at Heaven (1933) Sitting Pretty (1933) Flying Down to Rio (1933) (*) Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934) Upperworld (1934) Finishing School (1934) Change of Heart (1934) The Gay Divorcee (1934) (*) Hollywood Newsreel (1934) (short subject) Romance in Manhattan (1935) Roberta (1935) (*) Star of Midnight (1935) Top Hat (1935) (*) In Person (1935) Follow the Fleet (1936) (*) Swing Time (1936) (*) Shall We Dance (1937) (*) Stage Door (1937) Vivacious Lady (1938) Having Wonderful Time (1938) Carefree (1938) (*) The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) (*) Bachelor Mother (1939) 5th Ave Girl (1939) Primrose Path (1940) Lucky Partners (1940) Kitty Foyle (1940) Tom Dick and Harry (1941) Roxie Hart (1942) Tales of Manhattan (1942) The Major and the Minor (1942) Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) Show Business at War (1943) (short subject) Tender Comrade (1943) Lady in the Dark (1944) Battle Stations (1944) (short subject) I'll Be Seeing You (1945) Week-End at the Waldorf (1945) Heartbeat (1946) Magnificent Doll (1946) It Had to Be You (1947) The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) (*) Screen Snapshots: The Great Showman (1950) (short subject) Perfect Strangers (1950) Storm Warning (1951) The Groom Wore Spurs (1951) We're Not Married! (1952) Dreamboat (1952) Monkey Business (1952) Forever Female (1953) Screen Snapshots: Hollywood's Great Entertainers (1953) (short subject) Black Widow (1954) Beautiful Stranger (1954) Tight Spot (1955) The First Traveling Saleslady (1956) Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957) The Confession (1964) Harlow (1965)(*) - with Fred Astaire
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Preceded by: Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind |
Academy Award for Best Actress 1940 for Kitty Foyle |
Succeeded by: Joan Fontaine for Suspicion |
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