Classic Movies of Legendary Couple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

Today, let’s talk Classic Movies of Ginger Rogers! As the other half of our legendary screen duo, Ginger Rogers also had an outstanding movie career outside of her pairing with Fred Astaire and beyond the realm of movie musicals. She was also a gifted comedienne and dramatic actress.

The pert and pretty actress was Broadway-trained and her appearance in George and Ira Gershwin’s “Girl Crazy” in 1929 is said to have made her a star (at age 19) along with another musical comedy legend, Ethel Merman. Ironically, Fred Astaire was the choreographer of the show. When Ginger went to Hollywood in 1930, she created a considerable stir with one single movie line-“Cigarette me, big boy”- in a small part in Young Man of Manhattan. Although she appeared in several films and shorts, it wasn’t until 1933 that she had her first breakout role as a chorus girl in the Warner Brothers production of 42nd Street, with Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell. The films with Fred Astaire at RKO would begin that same year and would continue throughout the 1930s. (Those films were discussed previously and will not be covered in today’s post.) In 1937, Ginger Rogers would co-star in Stage Door, with a marvelous ensemble cast including Katharine Hepburn and Lucille Ball. The RKO films with Fred Astaire ended in 1939, but there was much more to Ginger Rogers than feathered gowns and dancing slippers. She most definitely proved that when she promptly won the Academy Award for best actress for her non-dancing, non-singing performance in Kitty Foyle (1940). She delivered another outstanding dramatic performance in Primrose Path (1940), with Joel McCrea. We also enjoy her later dramatic performances in Magnificent Doll (1947) in which she portrays First Lady, Dolly Madison and in Storm Warning (1951). Ronald Reagan and Doris Day co-star in this film that takes a stand against the racism of the Ku Klux Klan.

Throughout her career, Ginger Rogers also starred in many delightful comedies. Several of our favorites are the very funny Bachelor Mother (1939), with David Niven; the screwball comedy, It Had to Be You (1947), with Cornel Wilde; and the hilarious Monkey Business (1952), with Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe. Another favorite comedy and the Ginger Rogers film in the spotlight today is Billy Wilder’s side-splitter, The Major and the Minor (1942). The film follows the exploits of Susan Applegate (Rogers), a small-town girl working in New York who decides to call it quits and go home after a run-in with a “wolf” while trying to give him a scalp massage. Not having the full fare for the train ride back to Iowa, Susan disguises herself as a “big for her age” 12-year-old “minor” nicknamed Su-Su. During the train trip, she meets and is taken under the wing of “the Major” (Ray Milland) who suggests she call him “Uncle Philip”. He is unaware of her deception (due, in part, to his myopic eyesight) and invites her to be his guest for a few days (at his fiance’s house, of course) at the boy’s military academy where he teaches. There the fun and fireworks really begin as all the smitten young men try to woo Su-Su with “battlefield maneuvers” in the moonlight. Especially amusing is the dance with the local girl’s school. All the young ladies and teachers try to imitate actress, Veronica Lake, with her “peek-a-boo bang” hairstyle. Between the Major’s suspicious fiancé and her own growing love for him, Su-Su finds herself in one amusing predicament after another. To see how she worms her way out of the mess, you really must see The Major and the Minor. Note: The film was remade in the 1950s as a vehicle for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis called You’re Never Too Young. Actress Diana Lynn appears in both film versions; first as a real 12-year-old who sees right through Su-Su’s disguise and then as Dean Martin’s fiancé in the second. Also worth mentioning-Ginger Rogers' real mother, Lela Rogers, portrays Susan’s mother in The Major and the Minor.

Ginger Rogers made a final film with Fred Astaire in 1949 and many other films after that. She also made some TV guest appearances later on shows such as The Love Boat and Here’s Lucy with old friend, Lucille Ball. Her final acting appearance was on the popular TV show, Hotel, in 1987. Ginger Rogers died in 1995 of congestive heart failure. She was an exceptional talent and the “stuff” legends are made of.

**Trivia Question for Today: In what TV Musical did Ginger Rogers appear in 1965 and what role did she play?

Trivia Answer for Previous Post: Fred Astaire was married twice. His first wife was Phyllis Livingston Potter, the mother of his son, Fred, Jr. and daughter, Ava. (Phyllis also had a son, Peter, by a previous marriage.) She died of cancer in 1954. Astaire married again in 1980 to female jockey, Robyn Smith. She was 35, he was 81.