Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri on July 16, 1911. Her family moved to Texas when she was a toddler because her father had found employment there.
It wasn't long before Ginger's parents separated and she and her mother moved into a hotel. Her father, twice, kidnapped her, but both times she was returned to her mother. He received very little in visitation rights and Ginger only saw him sporadically thereafter. He died when she was 11 years old.
She, then, moved with her mother to her grandparents in Kansas City, Missouri where Mrs. McMath managed to get Ginger in some advertising films. Now she was developing a taste for the cinema. Ginger's mother left her child in the care of her parents while she went in search of a job as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and later to New York City. Mrs. McMath found herself with an income good enough to where she could send for Ginger.
Later, the two packed up and moved to Fort Worth, Texas where Ginger attended high school and appeared in the school productions, while her mother remarried.
The theater became Ginger's passion. At the age of 14, she was also appearing in vaudeville acts which she did until she was 17. Now she had discovered true acting. She went to New York where she appeared in the Broadway production of TOP SPEED.
She did a superb job which began to encourage her to seek work in feature films. A screen test turned out well and she was off to the movies.
Her first film was in 1929 in A NIGHT IN A DORMITORY. It was a bit part, but it was a start. Later that year, Ginger appeared, briefly in two more films, A DAY OF A MAN OF AFFAIRS and CAMPUS SWEETHEARTS. The following year she began to get better parts in films such as OFFICE BLUES and THE TIP OFF. But the movie that enamored her to the public was GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933.
She did not have top billing but her beauty and voice was enough to have the public want more. One song she popularized in the film was the now famous, "We're in the Money".
In 1934, she starred with Dick Powell in TWENTY MILLION SWEETHEARTS. It was a well received film about the popularity of radio. Ginger's real stardom occurred when she was teamed with Fred Astaire where they were one of the best cinematic couples ever to hit the silver screen. This is where she achieved real stardom.
They were first paired in 1933's FLYING DOWN TO RIO. ROBERTA and TOP HAT, two more films with Astaire, came in 1935. Ginger also appeared in some very good comedies such as BACHELOR MOTHER and FIFTH AVENUE GIRL both in 1939. Also that year she appeared with Astaire for the last time in THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE. The film made money but was not anywhere successful as they had hoped.
After that studio executives at RKO wanted Ginger to strike out on her own. She made several dramatic pictures but it was 1940's KITTY FOYLE that allowed her to shine. Playing a young lady from the wrong side of the tracks, she played the lead role well, so well in fact, that she won an Academy Award for her portrayal.
Ginger followed that project with the delightful comedy, TOM, DICK, AND HARRY the following year. It's a story where she has to choose which of three men she wants to marry.
Through the rest of the 1940's and early 1950's she continued to make movies but not near the caliber before World War II.
After OH, MEN! OH, WOMEN! in 1957, Ginger didn't appear on the silver screen for seven years. By 1965, she had appeared for the last time in HARLOW.
Afterward, she appeared on Broadway and other stage plays traveling in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. After 1984, she retired and wrote an autobiography in 1991 entitled, "Ginger, My Story" which is a very good book.
On
April 25, 1995, Ginger died of natural causes in Rancho Mirage, California. She was 83.
The GINGER ROGERS PHOTO SECTION!
Ginger's Pic 1
Ginger's Pic 2
Ginger's Pic 3
Ginger's Pic 4
Ginger's Pic 5
Ginger's Pic 6
Click here to go to Maugurite Clark
Anyone who gets on this web site, please email me if you have any Ginger Rogers photographs from her days in the 1930' or 1940's. I do wish to thank The Friends of Ginger Rogers and the Hollywood Cheescake Gallery for the photos supplied here. Also, a big thank you to David Lugowski for making some corrections to the web page. If any of you have anymore please contact me. They are so very hard to come by and I will give you credit here. Thanks.
© 1998 Denny C. Jackson dejackso@iglou.com
Get your own Free Home Page
