Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, singer and dancer who appeared in a lot of films (a total of seventy-three) as well as in television and on the stage over her six-decade career, but is mostly remembered for her musical films – and in particular the ten films she did with Fred Astaire, in which she co-starred as his Love Interest.
Rogers was born in Independence, Missouri and raised in Fort Worth, Texas. After winning a dance competition, she made her way into vaudeville and Broadway musicals before landing her first screen part in 1929. Four years later she started teaming with Astaire, and together they created some of the most beautiful dance routines ever put to film, in the process revolutionizing the genre. Thanks to the above quote from the Frank and Ernest comic strip becoming a popular meme, Rogers gained a reputation of being perhaps even more skilled a dancer than Astaire given the aforementioned handicaps in her performance.
Went through Tom Hanks Syndrome in The '40s, as she left both musicals and Astaire behind and became a leading lady, although her dance movies and musicals still ended up better remembered.
She was ranked the fourteenth greatest female movie star of all time by the American Film Institute.
Filmography on TV Tropes:
- 42nd Street (1933) as Ann Lowell
- Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) as Fay Fortune
- Flying Down to Rio (1933) as Honey Hale
- The Gay Divorcee (1934) as Mimi Glossop
- Roberta (1934) as Lizzy Gatz aka Tanka Scharwenka
- Star of Midnight (1935) as Donna Mantin
- Top Hat (1935) as Dale Tremont
- Follow the Fleet (1936) as Sherry Martin
- Swing Time (1936) as Penny Carroll
- Shall We Dance? (1937) as Linda Keene
- Stage Door (1937) as Jean Maitland
- Having Wonderful Time (1938) as Teddy Shaw
- Carefree (1938) as Amanda Cooper
- Bachelor Mother (1939) as Polly Parrish
- Kitty Foyle (1940) as Kitty Foylenote
- The Major and the Minor (1942) as Susan Applegate
- I'll Be Seeing You (1944) as Mary Marshall
- Lady in the Dark (1944) as Liza Elliott
- Storm Warning (1950) as Marsha Mitchell
- Monkey Business (1952) as Edwina Fulton
- Cinderella (1965) as Queen
- The Red Skelton Show (2 episodes, 1963) as Mrs. Cavendish/Scarlett O'Fever
- The Love Boat (2 episodes, 1979) as Stella Logan
- Hotel (1 episode, 1987) as Natalie Trent
Tropes:
- Pimped-Out Dress: She wore a stunning array of these in her various films, as well as a few Simple, yet Opulent ones.
- She got into an argument with Fred Astaire on Top Hat because she insisted on wearing a beautiful feathered dress that wasn't sturdy enough to survive their dance number.
- Pretty in Mink: She also wore a number of furs in her movies, even dancing in a few (such as the mink skirt in Lady in the Dark).
- Stage Names: Rogers got her name differently to most Hollywood stars at her time that had to be created by the studios. She got the nickname "Ginger" when she was 5 years old and staying with an aunt, uncle, and even younger cousin. The cousin called her Ginger because the cousin couldn't yet pronounce the letter V. Ginger's parents were divorced before she was born and her mother later remarried to a man named Rogers, hence "Ginger Rogers" was the name she had for most of her childhood. She didn't even think of it as a stage name, planning on getting a different one when her career began to take off on Broadway. Her show's producer and director talked her out of it, because they loved her name, especially because she looked and sounded just like a "Ginger Rogers".
