Ginger Rogers

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Ginger Rogers (1993)

Ginger Rogers , actually Virginia Katherine McMath (born  July 16, 1911 in Independence , Missouri , † April 25, 1995 in Rancho Mirage , California ), was an American actress , dancer and singer . Together with Fred Astaire , she formed a world-famous screen couple in ten joint dance films . Although she mostly starred in comedies and musicals , Rogers won an Oscar for Best Actress for her dramatic role in Miss Kitty (1940).

Life

Ginger Rogers was born in Missouri

Ginger Rogers was prepared for a career as a dancer at an early age by her single mother Lela, a less than successful screenwriter. Her first contact in show business was when she won a Charleston competition with entertainer Eddie Foy's theater troupe . Then the 14-year-old Rogers appeared as a dancer in vaudeville shows. In 1929 she made her Broadway debut in New York in the musical Top Speed , which was later made into a film with Joe E. Brown in the lead role. A little later, the only 19-year-old Rogers got a leading role in the musical Girl Crazy , which made her a household name. Paramount Pictures became aware of Rogers and took her under one of the studio contracts customary at the time . After her film debut in 1929 in the short film A Day of a Man of Affairs , Rogers had appeared in numerous films, but mostly only as a supporting actress. It wasn't until 1933 that she became a movie star when she appeared alongside Fred Astaire in the comedy Flying Down to Rio . Astaire and Rogers only had supporting roles here, but they harmonized so well on screen that they were to shoot a total of ten films together in the period that followed. The two became a popular screen couple and were # 3 box-office-earning actor in America in 1936. To this day, they are considered the most famous dance couple in film history, and many of the songs sung in the films became part of the Great American Songbook .

However, Rogers tried early on not to commit to the image as a partner of Astaire. In addition to other musicals such as Gold Digger from 1933 , the blonde actress demonstrated a talent for light comedies, which quickly made her one of the biggest stars of her studio RKO . In 1937 she starred with Katharine Hepburn in Gregory La Cava's film Stage Entrance , for which she received excellent reviews. In 1939 she had one of her greatest successes with the screwball comedy The Foundling , where she is involuntarily declared mother of an infant. Dissatisfied with the mostly easy scripts, she demanded increasingly serious roles. For her portrayal of a long-suffering woman in the drama Miss Kitty , she received the Oscar for best leading actress at the 1941 Academy Awards . Her portrayal of a woman with a dubious background in the melodrama Primrose Path also won her praise and recognition from the specialist press. In 1942 she starred alongside Ray Milland in The Major and the Girl , Billy Wilder's American directorial debut . Rogers left the RKO studio in 1943, although she was promised a new contract worth $ 330,000 a year.

Grave of Ginger Rogers and her mother Lela in Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth

Until the late 1940s, Rogers remained a successful actress with correspondingly high salaries. Her better-known roles included the film adaptation of the Kurt Weill musical Lady in the Dark from 1944 and Weekend At The Waldorf , a remake by People in the Hotel from 1945, where she took on the role of Greta Garbo . In 1949 she replaced the sick Judy Garland and played one last time with Fred Astaire in the film The Dancers from Broadway . From the 1950s, their success also declined due to age. One of her most important roles this time was the wife of Cary Grant in the comedy Monkey Business by Howard Hawks . Later on, the actress mainly focused on the theater, which she still felt connected to. On the other hand, she rarely made film appearances. In 1987 she played her final role with a guest appearance on the television series Hotel . In 1991, Rogers published her autobiography Ginger, My Story . A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6772 Hollywood Blvd. commemorates the actress.

Private life

Ginger Rogers was married five times: from 1929 to 1931 with showman Jack Pepper (1902–1979), from 1934 to 1940 with fellow actor Lew Ayres (1908–1996), from 1943 to 1949 with Jack Briggs (1920–1998), from 1953 to 1959 with the French actor Jacques Bergerac (1927–2014) and from 1961 to 1969 with the band leader William Marshall (1917–1994).

Rogers was a member of Christian Science and was involved in the Republican Party . She died of a heart attack at her home in Rancho Mirage at the age of 83 .

Filmography (selection)

Ginger Rogers hand and footprints outside Grauman's Chinese Theater .

Awards

Trivia

In the film satire Ginger and Fred by Federico Fellini from 1986, in which the over-commercialized TV show business is drastically parodied, an aging dance couple plays the main role (played by Giulietta Masina and Marcello Mastroianni ), who were once called Rogers-Astaire imitations had made a career by imitating tap dances.

Web links

Commons : Ginger Rogers  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Rogers, Ginger
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McMath, Virginia Katherine (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Independence , Missouri, United States
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1995
Place of death Rancho Mirage , California, United States