Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri. Her mother, Lela McMath, divorced soon after Virginia’s birth. One of Virginia’s young cousins had a hard time pronouncing her name and came out instead with variations on it, which evolved into “Ginger.” At five, Ginger appeared in filmed commercials produced in Kansas City for movie theaters. Shortly thereafter, her mother made a trip to Hollywood to get an essay she had written made into a film and stayed on to write scripts at Fox Studios. Aware of the treatment afforded to child actresses on movie sets, Lela did not allow Ginger to accept movie offers when they started coming her way. When Ginger was nine years old, her mother married John Logan Rogers, and Ginger took up the new surname. The family having moved to Texas, Ginger won a statewide Charleston contest in 1925, and her prize was a short-term vaudeville booking on the Interstate Theatre Circuit. Ginger’s popularity was such that the short-term booking for Texas and Oklahoma became a four-year tour of every major theater in the country, and Lela Rogers became her daughter’s manager. Ginger’s Broadway debut was a major role in a 1929 musical comedy called “Top Speed.” Walter Wanger saw her at the premiere and got her a screen test, which resulted in a Paramount contract, so that she was, in the custom adopted by many New York performers, appearing in locally-shot films by day and performing live at night. Harold Ross took her to “The Bandwagon” and backstage to meet Fred and Adele Astaire for the first time. Her role in George Gershwin’s musical “Girl Crazy” made her an overnight star at the age of 19, and an offer to come to Hollywood soon followed. In Hollywood, Ginger appeared in Fox, Universal, Paramount, Monogram and RKO films, and was named one of fifteen WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1932.

While at Warner Bros. she played several memorable small roles, sang “We’re in the Money” in GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 (1933) and began to be considered for bigger parts. When RKO teamed her with Fred Astaire to dance the Carioca in FLYING DOWN TO RIO (1933), there was little thought that their number would ignite audience enthusiasm to such a degree that they would be immediately starred in a musical. The studio adapted Astaire’s stage vehicle “The Gay Divorce” into an Astaire-Rogers musical comedy film called THE GAY DIVORCEE (1934) with dances choreographed by Astaire; the result was one of the highest-grossing films of the year. Naturally, RKO then turned out a profitable series of Astaire-Rogers films (most of them directed by Mark Sandrich), which, many feel, revolutionized the Hollywood musical, created dance routines of unprecedented elegance and virtuosity, and introduced songs especially composed for them by some of the greatest popular song composers of the day: Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields. For three years running, Astaire and Rogers were listed among the top ten moneymakers in Hollywood in the poll of exhibitors conducted by “Motion Picture Herald.” The team’s films grossed an estimated $18 million for RKO and reportedly saved the studio from bankruptcy. Neither member of the team wanted to be pigeonholed, so, with Lela’s guidance and input, Ginger fought hard for her contract and salary rights and for better films and scripts. She succeeded in distinguishing herself opposite Katharine Hepburn in STAGE DOOR (1937), and in PRIMROSE PATH (1940), and won an Academy Award as best actress for KITTY FOYLE (1940). She was America’s highest salaried woman in 1941, as well as the highest-paid star in Hollywood and the 8th-highest salaried worker in the country in 1945. When motion picture roles for her dried up in the 1960s, Ginger made a successful return to the stage in “Hello Dolly!” and “Mame,” and also made television and nightclub appearances. In 1992, Rogers was recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors. She was ranked 14th on the American Film Institute’s “100 Years...100 Stars” list of female performers of classic American film.