UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, April 26, 1995
14
Dancer, film star Ginger Rogers dies
7B
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Ginger Rogers, whose glittering string of Depression-era musicals with Fred Astaire helped Americans forget the emptiness of their wallets and the grumbling in their stomachs, died Tuesday. She was 83.
Miss Rogers, who won an Oscar for the 1940 drama "Kitty Foyle," died at her home in Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs.
From vaudeville to television, Miss Rogers' career spanned 65 years.
"She was a genuine, 14-karat gold legend," said actress and dancer Ann Miller, who at age 14 starred with Miss Rogers in the 1937 classic "Stage Door."
"She was the one who stuck up for me," Miller said from her home in Sedona, Ariz. "She got me a speaking part. She's a very special lady, and she was a very dear friend. I'm heartbroken."
Former President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, were her friends for nearly five decades.
"We are deeply saddened by the death of Ginger Rogers today," the couple said in a written statement. "She was a dear friend for almost 50 years who delighted millions with her incredible ability to dance and perform."
"She was one of the truly great ladies of the silver screen; she had few equals," Bob Hope said.
Miss Rogers became one of Hollywood's highest-paid female stars in the 1940s, appearing in hits such as "The Major and the Minor," "Lady in the Dark" and "Weekend at the Waldorf."
OBITUARY
But it was her celluloid partnership with Astraire that made her a legend.
Their most notable pairing was in "Top Hat," a 1935 musical. The dance numbers, complete with feathers and arcing kicks that sent Miss Rogers' hem skyward, included "Cheek to Cheek" and "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails."
"Her male counterpart got the lion's share of publicity, but Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did and did it with high heels on and did it backwards," Reagan commented in 1986.
Astaire died in 1987.
"I am certain that somewhere in heaven Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are doing 'just the way you look tonight,'" Mickey Rooney said.
The two first danced during Broadway rehearsals for "Girl Crazy," a 1930 Gershwin musical.
The producers weren't happy with a dance routine featuring "Embraceable You." Astaire, then starring on Broadway with his sister Adele, was watching one day.
"Here, Ginger, try it with me," he said. And so began their first dance.
"We had fun, and it shows," she wrote in her 1991 autobiography, "Ginger: My Story." "True, we were never bosom buddies off the screen; we were different-people with different interests. We were a couple only on film."
Rogers' stardom, as well as her relationship with Astaire, which despite its on-screen incarnation, never included real-life romance.
"Girl Crazy" established Miss
And besides, she wrote, Astraire's first wife, Phyllis, "didn't want him kissing other women."
They were paired in 10 films. The first was "Flying Down to Rio" in 1933. It was Astaire's second film and Miss Rogers' 21st.
Their 1930s musicals, all but one made for RKO, were: "The Gay Divorcee," "Roberta," "Top Hat," "Follow the Fleet," "Swing Time," "Shall We Dance?" "Carefree" and "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle."
By 1939 the Astraire-Rogers vogue had run its course. Their careers separated.
Ten years later, they made one last film together, "The Barkles of Broadway" for MGM. Again, their partnership was unplanned. Astraire replaced Gene Kelly, who had broken his leg. Miss Rogers replaced Judy Garland, who became ill.
"She made such a great contribution to movie dance that we should never forget it," Kelly said Tuesday in a statement released by his wife, Patricia.
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