Ginger Rogers

• 1. The Charleston That Changed Her Life

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  Virginia Katherine McMath stood in Fort Worth, Texas, during the summer of 1925. She was only fourteen years old when she entered a Charleston dance contest. The prize money allowed her to tour as Ginger Rogers and the Redheads for six months on the Orpheum Circuit. This victory launched a professional career that would span seven decades. Before this moment, she had been an only child raised by a mother who worked as a newspaper reporter. Her father, William Eddins McMath, had kidnapped her twice before their divorce. He never saw his daughter again after the separation. The young dancer moved from Missouri to Kansas City with her grandparents while her mother traveled to Hollywood. Lela Emogene Owens succeeded in getting an essay into a film at Fox Studios. This success kept the family connected to the entertainment world even when they were apart.

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• 2. Nine Films That Redefined Dance

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  RKO Pictures paired Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers between 1933 and 1939. They made nine musical films together including Flying Down to Rio and Top Hat. These movies revolutionized the Hollywood genre through unprecedented elegance and virtuosity. One such composer was Cole Porter with Night and Day. Arlene Croce and John Mueller consider Rogers to have been Astaire's finest dance partner. She combined dancing skills, natural beauty, and exceptional abilities as a dramatic actress. Of the thirty-three partnered dances performed, critics highlighted the infectious spontaneity of I'll Be Hard to Handle. Astaire himself remarked in 1986 that Ginger never cried during rehearsals unlike other partners. The resulting song and dance partnership enjoyed unique credibility in the eyes of audiences. Even when RKO faced bankruptcy, the studio continued to pair them for Carefree. Commercial failures followed but were driven by hard economic reality rather than diminished popularity.

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• 3. The Oscar That Proved Her Range

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  In 1941 Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Kitty Foyle. This film marked a shift from musical comedies to dramatic roles. She starred alongside Katharine Hepburn in Stage Door which demonstrated her dramatic capacity. Successful comedies included Vivacious Lady with James Stewart and Bachelor Mother with David Niven. Primrose Path featured her playing a character attempting to conceal being a prostitute's daughter. Billy Wilder directed The Major and the Minor where she played a down-on-her-luck woman who masquerades as twelve years old. Her mother Lela played her mother in that same film. After winning the Oscar, Rogers became one of the biggest box-office draws and highest-paid actresses of the 1940s. She made hugely successful films with other studios including Tender Comrade and Lady in the Dark. By the end of the decade, her film career had peaked before entering a period of gradual decline.

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• 4. Broadway Triumphs And Final Decades

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  Rogers returned to Broadway in 1965 playing Dolly Levi in Hello Dolly! The production ran for fourteen months and featured a royal command performance for Queen Elizabeth II. She became the highest-paid performer in the history of the West End up to that time. In 1985 she fulfilled a long-standing wish to direct when she directed Babes in Arms off-Broadway at seventy-four years old. It was produced by Michael Lipton and Robert Kennedy of Kennedy Lipton Productions. Rogers continued to act making television appearances until 1987. Her final screen appearance occurred on Hotel which aired that year. She received the Women's International Center Living Legacy Award on the 18th of March 1995. This marked her last public appearance before dying from a heart attack at age eighty-three. The city of Independence designated her birthplace as a Historic Landmark property in 1994.

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• 5. Five Marriages And Political Activism

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  Rogers married and divorced five times without having children. On the 29th of March 1929 she married Jack Pepper who worked under the name Jack Pepper. They divorced in 1931 after separating soon after the wedding. In 1934 she married actor Lew Ayres who died in 1996. They divorced six years later in 1940. In 1943 she married Jack Briggs who was a U.S. Marine before divorcing in 1950. In 1953 she married Jacques Bergerac whom she met on a trip to Paris. They divorced in 1957. Her fifth husband was director William Marshall who died in 1970. Rogers remained a lifelong member of the Republican Party. She campaigned for Thomas Dewey in the 1944 presidential election and Barry Goldwater in 1964. She spoke out against Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal proposals. Her mother Lela founded the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. The two maintained a very close professional relationship throughout their lives.

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• 6. A Legacy Written In Stone And Song

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  The Dancing House in Prague stands as a monument inspired by the dancing of Astaire and Rogers. Federico Fellini's film Ginger and Fred centers on two aging Italian impersonators of the pair. Rogers sued the production but her claims were dismissed. Her image appears on the bedroom wall in the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam alongside other famous women from the 1930s and 1940s. A musical about her life entitled Backwards in High Heels premiered in Florida in early 2007. Rogers was among the sixteen Golden Age Hollywood stars referenced in Madonna's 1990 single Vogue. The quote Rogers did everything backwards and in high heels comes from a 1982 Frank and Ernest comic strip. The Owens-Rogers Museum in Independence, Missouri contains memorabilia and movie posters from the ranch the pair owned. The theater in Medford where she performed in 1926 was comprehensively restored in 1997 and renamed the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater.

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