Ginger Rogers

Acting

Ginger Rogers

Born 1911-07-16 · Independence, Missouri, USA

Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer, and singer. She had a prolific career in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the twentieth century. She made a total of 73 films, notably ten revolutionary musical films where she performed as Fred Astaire's partner. She also won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Kitty Foyle (1940). Rogers was a major movie star during the Golden Age of Hollywood and was ranked number 14 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of female stars of classic American cinema. After winning a 1925 Charleston dance contest that launched a successful vaudeville career, she gained recognition as a Broadway actress for her stage debut in Girl Crazy. This led to a contract with Paramount Pictures, which ended after five films. Rogers had her first successful film roles in 42nd Street (1933) and Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). Subsequently, Rogers' nine films with Fred Astaire gave RKO Pictures some of its biggest successes, most notably The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), and Swing Time (1936). But after two commercial failures with Astaire, she branched out into dramatic and comedy films. Her acting was well received by critics and audiences, and she became one of the biggest box-office draws and highest paid actresses of the 1940s. Rogers' popularity peaked by the end of the decade. She reunited with Astaire in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), which was her last commercial success. Experiencing constant lack on success in the 1950s, she returned to Broadway the next decade when she played the lead role in Hello, Dolly!. More Broadway roles followed, along with her stage directorial debut in 1985 of an off-Broadway production of Babes in Arms. She also made television acting appearances until 1987. She died of a heart attack in 1995, at age 83.

Acting credits

42nd Street poster
6.9

Broadway director Julian Marsh needs just one more hit show so he can retire and recover his health. It looks like he just may pull it off until temperamental star Dorthy Brock breaks her ankle on the eve of the show's premiere and has to be replaced by her understudy Peggy.

42nd Street

1933

The First 100 Years: A Celebration of American Movies poster
8.0

Based on the first centenary of the largest exporter of films in the world, that is Hollywood, is the story told by its protagonists, actors and writers and other people who made life in this business, interspersing images of famous movies.

The First 100 Years: A Celebration of American Movies

1995

We're Not Married! poster
5.9

A Justice of the Peace performed weddings a few days before his license was valid. A few years later five couples learn they have never been legally married.

We're Not Married!

1952

Perfect Strangers poster
6.0

Romance at a murder trial with a pair of sequestered jurors who are the only ones who think that the woman in the dock is innocent. Separated from their normal lives, jurors Terry Scott and David Campbell start to fall in love.

Perfect Strangers

1950

Gold Diggers of 1933 poster
7.2

When all Broadway shows are shut down during the Depression, a trio of desperate showgirls scheme to bilk a repugnant high society man of his money to keep their show going.

Gold Diggers of 1933

1933

That's Entertainment! poster
7.4

Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.

That's Entertainment!

1974

The Muppets Go Hollywood poster
6.2

Kermit the Frog throws a glamorous party at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub to celebrate the premiere of the Muppets' first feature film, The Muppet Movie. Hosts Dick van Dyke and Rita Moreno interview the wide array of celebrities and Muppets who attend the event. Gary Owens serves as off-camera announcer, and appears on-screen to introduce Miss Piggy.

The Muppets Go Hollywood

1979

Night of 100 Stars II poster
6.8

This special is the second "Night of 100 Stars" to benefit The Actors Fund of America. Edited from a seven-hour live entertainment marathon that was taped February 17, 1985, at New York's Radio City Music Hall, this sequel to the 1982 "Night of 100 Stars" special features 288 celebrities.

Night of 100 Stars II

1985

Monkey Business poster
6.7

Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixes chemicals, but then pours the mix into the water cooler. When trying one of his own samples, washed down with water from the cooler, Fulton begins to act just like a twenty-year-old and believes his potion is working. Soon his wife and boss are also behaving like children.

Monkey Business

1952

Cinderella poster
6.5

After the success of the live 1957 Cinderella on CBS (with Julie Andrews), the network decided to produce another television version. The new script hewed closer to the traditional tale, although nearly all of the original songs were retained and performed in their original settings. Added to the Rodgers and Hammerstein score was "Loneliness of Evening", which had been composed for South Pacific but not used.

Cinderella

1965

Top Hat poster
7.3

Showman Jerry Travers is working for producer Horace Hardwick in London. Jerry demonstrates his new dance steps late one night in Horace's hotel room, much to the annoyance of sleeping Dale Tremont below. She goes upstairs to complain and the two are immediately attracted to each other. Complications arise when Dale mistakes Jerry for Horace.

Top Hat

1935

Roberta poster
7.1

Football player John Kent tags along as Huck Haines and the Wabash Indianians travel to an engagement in Paris, only to lose it immediately. John and company visit his aunt, owner of a posh fashion house run by her assistant, Stephanie. There they meet the singer Scharwenka (alias Huck's old friend Lizzie), who gets the band a job. Meanwhile, Madame Roberta passes away and leaves the business to John and he goes into partnership with Stephanie.

Roberta

1935

Swing Time poster
6.8

Lucky is tricked into missing his own wedding to Margaret and has to make $25,000 so her father will allow him to marry her. He and business partner Pop go to New York where they run into dancing instructor Penny. She and Lucky form a successful dance partnership, but romance is blighted by his old attachment to Margaret and hers for Ricky.

Swing Time

1936

Teenage Rebel poster
7.0

Nancy Fallon gets her teenage daughter back from her ex-husband when she remarries and must win her love.

Teenage Rebel

1956

Kitty Foyle poster
6.6

A hard-working, white-collar girl falls in love with a young socialite, but meets with his family's disapproval.

Kitty Foyle

1940

Black Widow poster
6.4

When a young stage hopeful is found dead, suspicion falls on her mentor, a successful Broadway producer.

Black Widow

1954

Sem Título #1: Dance of Leitfossil poster
10.0

Experimental Short, Brazil

Sem Título #1: Dance of Leitfossil

2014

Hollywood: The Dream Factory poster
7.2

A documentary about the glorious history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its decline leading to the sale of its back lot and props. By extension this provides a general history of Hollywood's Golden Age and the legendary studio system.

Hollywood: The Dream Factory

1972

Storm Warning poster
6.6

A fashion model witnesses the brutal assassination of an investigative journalist by the Ku Klux Klan while traveling to a small town to visit her sister.

Storm Warning

1951

Shall We Dance poster
7.3

Ballet star Petrov arranges to cross the Atlantic aboard the same ship as the dancer and musical star he's fallen for but barely knows. By the time the ocean liner reaches New York, a little white lie has churned through the rumour mill and turned into a hot gossip item—that the two celebrities are secretly married.

Shall We Dance

1937

Professional Sweetheart poster
6.0

Radio singer Glory Eden is publicized as the ideal of American womanhood in order to sell the sponsor's product Ippsie-Wippsie Washcloths. In reality, Glory would like to at least sample booze, jazz, gambling, and men. When the strain of representing "purity" brings her to rebellion, the sponsor and his nutty henchmen pick her a public-relations "sweetheart" from fan mail, who turns out to be a hayseed.

Professional Sweetheart

1933

Carefree poster
6.7

Dr. Tony Flagg's friend Steven has problems in the relationship with his fiancée Amanda, so he persuades her to visit Tony. After some minor misunderstandings, she falls in love with him. When he tries to use hypnosis to strengthen her feelings for Steven, things get complicated.

Carefree

1938

Stage Door poster
7.1

A spirited heiress wishing to break into theatre on her own merit arrives at a boardinghouse where aspiring young actresses and showgirls are brought together through their cynicism and disappointments.

Stage Door

1937

Vivacious Lady poster
7.0

College town life gets turned upside down after a button-down botany professor secretly weds a sizzling night-club singer.

Vivacious Lady

1938