|
Elvis Presley Ginger Rogers article page
of the Elvis Presley biography story
This Elvis Presley biography Ginger Rogers page is dedicated to providing quality Elvis Presley biography information, pictures and articles for your entertainment. The contents of this Elvis Presley site is written by a fan for his fans about Ginger Rogers.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Ginger Rogers, (July 16, 1911 — April 25, 1995), was a legendary American actress and dancer.
Born Virginia Katherine McMath, in Independence, Missouri, the daughter of Eddins McMath and Lela Owens McMath.
Her mother Lela separated from Ginger's father soon after she was born, Lela and Ginger went to live with her maternal grandparents in nearby Kansas City.
Her parents became estranged, and fought for custody of Ginger, her father even going as far as taking Ginger without consent from Lela.
After they divorced Ginger stayed with her grandparents, Walter and Saphrona Owens, while Lela wrote screenplays for two years in Hollywood. Several of Ginger's cousins had a hard time pronouncing her first name Virginia, they shortened it to "Ginga".
When Ginger was nine-years-old her mother remarried, to John Logan Rogers.
Ginger took the name of Rogers, although never legally. They lived in Fort Worth, Texas, and Lela became a theater critic for a local newspaper, the Fort Worth Record. As a teenager Ginger thought of teaching school, but with Lela's interest in Hollywood and the theater, young Ginger would get more and more exposure to the theater.
Waiting in the wings of the Majestic Theater, for her mother, Rogers began to sing and dance along to the performers on stage.
Five years later her entertainment career was born one night when the traveling Vaudeville act of Eddie Foy (Bob Hope would play Foy in The Seven Little Foys) came to Fort Worth and needed a quick stand-in.
She would enter and win a Charleston contest and then hit the road on a Vaudeville tour. Her and Lela would tour for four years. During this time Lela divorced John Rogers.
When Ginger was 17 she married Jack Culpepper, another dancer on the circuit.
The marriage was over within months and Ginger went back to touring with her mother.
When the tour got to New York City, she stayed, getting radio singing jobs and then her Broadway theater debut in a musical called Top Speed, December 25, 1929.
Within two weeks of opening in Top Speed she was hired to star in Girl Crazy by George and Ira Gershwin. Fred Astaire was hired to help the dancers with their choreography, and he briefly dated Ginger.
Her appearance in Girl Crazy made her an overnight star at the age of 19. In 1930 she was signed with Paramount Pictures for a seven-year contract.
Rogers would soon get herself out of the Paramount contract and head with her mother to Hollywood.
When she got to California, she signed a three-picture deal with Pathй, three forgettable pictures.
After getting bit parts for singing and dancing for most of 1932, in 1933 she made her screen break-through in 42nd Street with Warner Brothers. She would then make a couple more forgettable films with RKO. But in the second of those, Flying Down to Rio, she again met up with Fred Astaire.
She is most remembered as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten all-singing all-dancing Hollywood musicals, but her acting career spanned over thirty years.
Her first roles were in a trio of short films made in 1929 — Night in the Dormitory, A Day of a Man of Affairs, and Campus Sweethearts. In 1939, she played opposite David Niven in Bachelor Mother.
In 1941 Ginger Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her starring role in 1940 's Kitty Foyle.
In 1940 she purchased a 1000-acre ranch between Shady Cove and Eagle Point, Oregon along the Rouge River, just north of Medford.
The ranch, named the 4-R's (for Rogers' Rogue River Ranch), is where she would live, along with her mother, when not doing her Hollywood business, for 50-years. The ranch was also a dairy, and would supply milk for the war effort during World War II, to Camp White.
Rogers loved to fish in Rogue every summer. She sold the ranch in 1990, and moved to Medford.
She was a right-wing Republican politically, and lived for much of her life with her mother, Lela Owens McMath Rogers (1891–1977), a Christian Scientist (like Ginger) who was a newspaper reporter, scriptwriter, movie producer, one of the first women to enlist in the Marine Corps, and a founder of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.
Ginger's mother "named names" to the HUAC, and both mother and daughter were staunchly anti-Communist.
This extremely close mother-daughter relationship -- Ginger's mother even denied Ginger's father visitation rights after their divorce -- has been proffered to explain, in part, Rogers's history of marital disappointments and childlessness.
After her first marriage (to her dancing partner Jack Pepper; real name Edward Jackson Culpepper; on March 29, 1929; they divorced in 1931, having separated soon after the wedding), in 1934, she married her second husband, actor Lew Ayres (1908–1996); they separated quickly and were divorced in 1941.
In 1943, she married her third husband, Jack Briggs, a Marine; they divorced in 1949.
In 1953, she married her fourth husband, lawyer Jacques Bergerac (16 years her junior, he became an actor and then a cosmetics company executive); they divorced in 1957 and he soon remarried actress Dorothy Malone.
In 1961, she married her fifth husband, director and producer William Marshall, but separated from him within weeks of their marriage, eventually divorcing him in 1969.
Ginger was good friends with Lucille Ball for many years until Ball's death in 1989, at the age of 77, although Lucy did not seem to share Ginger's political views, but evidently still enjoyed her company, as did Bette Davis, a Democrat who definitely did not share Ginger's views and called her a "moralist", but still professed to enjoying Ginger's company.
She would spend the winters in Rancho Mirage, California, and the summers in Medford, Oregon. Ginger Rogers died on April 25, 1995, of complications from diabetes, at the age of 83, in Rancho Mirage, California, and was interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California.
The Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater in Medford, Oregon is named in her honor.
[edit]
Filmography
Campus Sweethearts RKO short subject, 1929
A Day of a Man of Affairs Columbia short subject, 1929
A Night in a Dormitory Pathe short subject, 1930
Young Man of Manhattan Paramount, 1930
The Sap from Syracuse Paramount, 1930
Queen High Paramount, 1930
Office Blues Paramount short subject, 1930
Follow the Leader Paramount, 1930
Honor Among Lovers Paramount, 1931
The Tip-Off RKO, 1931
Suicide Fleet RKO, 1931
Carnival Boat RKO, 1932
The Tenderfoot First National, 1932
Hollywood on Parade MGM short subject, 1932
The Thirteenth Guest Monogram, 1932
Screen Snapshots Columbia short subject, 1932
Hat Check Girl Fox, 1932
You Said a Mouthful First National, 1932
42nd Street Warner Bros., 1933
Broadway Bad Fox, 1933
Hollywood on Parade No. 9 Paramount short subject, 1933
Gold Diggers of 1933 Warner Bros., 1933
Professional Sweetheart RKO, 1933
Don't Bet on Love Universal, 1933
A Shriek in the Night Allied, 1933
Rafter Romance RKO, 1933
Chance at Heaven RKO, 1933
Sitting Pretty Paramount, 1933
Flying Down to Rio RKO, 1933
Twenty Million Sweethearts First National, 1934
Upperworld Warner Bros., 1934
Finishing School RKO, 1934
Change of Heart Fox, 1934
The Gay Divorcee RKO, 1934
Hollywood Newsreel Warner Bros. short subject, 1934
Romance in Manhattan RKO, 1935
Roberta RKO, 1935
Star of Midnight RKO, 1935
Top Hat RKO, 1935
In Person RKO, 1935
Follow the Fleet RKO, 1936
Swing Time RKO, 1936
Shall We Dance RKO, 1937
Stage Door RKO, 1937
Vivacious Lady RKO, 1938
Having Wonderful Time RKO, 1938
Carefree RKO, 1938
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle RKO, 1939
Bachelor Mother RKO, 1939
5th Ave Girl RKO, 1939
Primrose Path RKO, 1940
Lucky Partners RKO, 1940
Kitty Foyle RKO, 1940
Tom Dick and Harry RKO, 1941
Roxie Hart 20th Century-Fox, 1942
Tales of Manhattan 20th Century-Fox, 1942
The Major and the Minor Paramount, 1942
Once Upon a Honeymoon RKO, 1942
Show Business at War 20th Century-Fox short subject, 1943
Tender Comrade RKO, 1943
Lady in the Dark Paramount, 1944
Battle Stations 20th Century-Fox short subject, 1944
I'll Be Seeing You Selznick, 1945
Week-End at the Waldorf MGM, 1945
Heartbeat RKO, 1946
Magnificent Doll Universal, 1946
It Had to Be You Columbia, 1947
The Barkleys of Broadway MGM, 1949
Screen Snapshots: The Great Showman Columbia short subject, 1950
Perfect Strangers Warner Bros., 1950
Storm Warning Warner Bros., 1951
The Groom Wore Spurs Universal, 1951
We're Not Married! 20th Century-Fox, 1952
Dreamboat 20th Century-Fox, 1952
Monkey Business 20th Century Fox, 1952
Forever Female Paramount, 1953
Screen Snapshots: Hollywood's Great Entertainers Columbia short subject, 1953
Black Widow 20th Century-Fox, 1954
Beautiful Stranger United Artists, 1954
Tight Spot Columbia, 1955
The First Traveling Saleslady RKO, 1956
Oh, Men! Oh, Women! 20th Century-Fox, 1957
The Confession Golden Eagle, 1964
Harlow Magna, 1965
[edit]
Quotations about Rogers
"Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, and she did it backwards and in high heels." Faith Whittlesey, former US ambassador to Switzerland. Responsibility for this quote also has been traced to a 1982 Frank and Ernest cartoon.
"Fred gave Ginger class, and Ginger gave Fred sex." Katharine Hepburn, actress. Variants include "Astaire gave her class, and Rogers gave him sex" and "He gave her class, and she gave him sex."
Download the free autobiography book version of “Elvis Presley Forever” with his life story in full
This autobiography page is dedicated to providing quality Elvis Presley biography information, pictures and articles for your entertainment. The contents of this Elvis Presley biography site is written by a fan for his fans.
What Elvis Presley biography information are you looking for?
Try a local search of our site for your answers
Back to Top of page
Terms of Use |
Privacy Policy |
Site Map |
Elvis Presley Forever Links Directory |
Contact Us |
Subscribe to “Elvis Presley Forever!” newsletter |
Download Site as a Book |
HOME PAGE |
Elvis Presley biography Blog |
About Us
=================================================
SITE DISCLAIMER: The Elvis Presley biography information and resources on this Elvis Presley biography site are provided for your entertainment only. No content on this site is intended to be a substitute for therapy or professional advice. While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this Elvis Presley biography publication, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions or contrary interpretation of the Elvis Presley biography or Elvis Presley picture subject matter herein. There is no guarantee of validity of accuracy of any Elvis Presley biography content. Any perceived slight of specific people or organizations is unintentional. This Elvis Presley biography website and its creators are not responsible for the content of any sites linked to.
The Elvis Presley biography contents are solely the opinion of the author and should not be considered as a historical fact or authority on the facts. The author and the Publisher of Elvis Presley biography assume no responsibility or liability and specifically disclaim any warranty, express or implied for any products or services mentioned, or any techniques or practices described. The purchaser or reader of this Elvis Presley biography publication assumes responsibility for the use of these Elvis Presley biography materials and articles and information. Neither the Elvis Presley biography, author nor the Elvis Presley biography Publisher assumes any responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of any purchaser or reader of these Elvis Presley biography, materials.
Description of Elvis Presley biography site contents: This site contains Elvis Presley biography information, Elvis Presley biography, history on Elvis Presley life story, Elvis Presley pictures and photos, Elvis Presley song lyrics, Elvis Presley movie resources, free e-books and articles listed for your convenient search in subjects of: Elvis Presley pictures and photos, Elvis Presley song lyrics, Elvis Presley movie resources, Elvis Presley childhood, Elvis Presley Band members biography, Elvis Presley girlfriends, Elvis Presley biography, Elvis Presley spiritual medium stories, Elvis Presley Memphis mafia stories, Elvis Presley biography, Elvis Presley diary quotes, Elvis Presley movie and music details in relation to the Elvis Presley autobiography and interviews of friends and family members for the Elvis Presley biography website written by a fan for his fans.
=================================================
Back to Top of page Elvis Presley biography
|
|
