A Legacy Of Memories Dancing Made Ginger Rogers A Star, But Her Talent Spanned The Theatrical Spectrum
Fred Astaire had many other dancing partners before and after Ginger Rogers, but she was the one who caught the public’s fancy in 10 glorious musicals that made them the very definition of Hollywood glamor.
Nine were made during the ‘30s Depression and buoyed a nation’s spirits … and also helped save RKO Pictures from bankruptcy.
Those were her most famous films, but by no means all of her films. Rogers, who died April 25 at the age of 83, left a legacy of celluloid memories - 73 films made between 1930’s “Young Man of Manhattan” and 1965’s “Harlow.” Many of them are available on video.
When I interviewed her many summers ago backstage in Beverly, Mass., she said that she rarely watched her old films herself. “I don’t have time,” she said. And at the age of 65 with a stage show that was in a different city every week, it was easy to see what she meant.
“But once when I was on a holiday I turned on the television and there was ‘Gay Divorcee.’ And I was so thrilled because I never get to see anything. And I sat there ‘til 4 o’clock in the morning all by myself watching ‘Gay Divorcee.”’
She was prouder of some of her non-musical films - “Kitty Foyle,” for which she won the 1940 Oscar; “Primrose Path,” about a prostitute who tried to find romance with a man who ran a hamburger stand. “I know that those other films are not dead,” she said, “although people don’t comment about them. I get letter after letter that says ‘I don’t know why everybody talked about your musicals, because I think you were far better in your dramatic roles.”’
You can find Ginger Rogers in some of her most glorious roles at the video store:
“Golddiggers of 1933”
1933: She’s a minor player in the film - billed last among the headliners - the wisecracking friend of a trio of hoofers trying to make it on Broadway. But she shines in the film’s opening number - literally - with a costume made of hundreds of shimmering coins while singing the Depression-fighting “We’re in the Money” … and in pig Latin no less. Word is that producer Darryl F. Zanuck heard her goofing around with the song on the set, liked it and demanded that she do it in the picture.
“Flying Down to Rio”
1933: Her first teaming with Astaire came in this free-spirited, but lavish musical which served as the prototype for all the rest. Astaire and Rogers were second-string players, but once they got up to dance The Carioca, audiences forgot about the film’s leads - Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond - and RKO made quick plans to star them. This is the film remembered otherwise for chorus girls dancing on the wings of bi-planes over Rio.
“The Gay Divorcee”
1934: A case of mistaken identity, which often served as the leaping-off point for the plots in Astaire-Rogers musicals, fueled this story based on a hit play. She’s in England to get a divorce. He’s an author who falls in love with her. But she fears he’s the professional co-respondent hired to make her look bad. Although this was their first pairing as stars, there’s surprisingly little dancing, though the finale number - the Oscar-winning The Continental, done around a lagoon filled with Italian gondolas - is certainly one of their most deluxe.
“Top Hat”
1935: Another case of mistaken identity is the plot twist to this delightful musical, one of the most successful Astaire-Rogers films at the box office. She thinks he belongs to a friend and for a long time tries to put off his romantic advances. But of course they wind up dancing “Cheek to Cheek.”
“Swing Time”
1936: Widely considered their finest musical, it has a throwaway plot about a gambler who’s engaged to be married … until he meets dance-instructor Rogers. Of all their films, this one has one of their best dances - the first one they do together in the picture. She has just been fired as a dance instructor because of him and he tries to get her job back for her by pretending to be a klutz who improves miraculously under her tutelage. To the tune of “Pick Yourself Up,” soon they’re dancing up a storm, dipping and twirling and finally leaping across the dance rail at the finish. It’s a breezy pleasure.
“Stage Door”
1937: In the the most wrenchingly dramatic moment in this film about Broadway hopefuls at a boarding house for actresses, Rogers went up against Katharine Hepburn and proved she could hold her own. Saucy and full of wisecracks, some dialogue reportedly was taken from remarks made by the actresses while sitting around the set.
“Kitty Foyle”
1940: Rogers was sure she could be a solid dramatic actress and proved it by winning the Oscar - against competition that included Katharine Hepburn for “The Philadelphia Story,” Bette Davis for “The Letter” and Joan Fontaine for “Rebecca” - in this story of an ambitious young woman from the wrong side of the tracks who tries to rise to a better life but finds that her romance with a married man puts her future in a spin.
“The Major and the Minor”
1942: In director Billy Wilder’s funny wartime comedy, Rogers displayed her youthful vigor and her penchant for light comedy. In order to travel half fare on a train she pretends to be a child (Rogers was 31 at the time). Ray Milland, as the military man who takes her under his wing, gets nervous about his romantic feelings toward this “child.”
“Monkey Business”
1952: Typical of Rogers’s lightweight ‘50s comedies, this Howard Hawks confection in which absent-minded professor Cary Grant thinks he has discovered the fountain of youth in a batch of chemicals that was actually mixed together by a chimpanzee, is today remembered chiefly for showcasing Marilyn Monroe as the va-va-voom secretary who tries to maintain her decorum in the film’s helter-skelter shenanigans. But Rogers shines as the professor’s wife who reverts to baby-talk and kiddie ways when she swallows the miracle formula. She’s very funny, as is the film.