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Ginger Rogers Quotes

Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer. She won an Academy Award for her starring role in Kitty Foyle , but is best remembered for performing during the 1930s in RKO's musical films . Her career continued on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century.

Born in Independence, Missouri, and raised in Kansas City, Rogers and her family moved to Fort Worth, Texas, when she was nine years old. After winning a 1925 Charleston dance contest that launched a successful vaudeville career, she gained recognition as a Broadway actress for her debut stage role in Girl Crazy. This led to a contract with Paramount Pictures, which ended after five films. Rogers had her first successful film role as a supporting actress in 42nd Street . Rogers made nine films in the 1930s with Astaire, which were some of her biggest successes such as Swing Time and Top Hat . After two commercial failures with Astaire, Rogers began to branch out into dramatic and comedy films. Her acting was well received by critics and audiences as she became one of the biggest box-office draws and highest paid actresses of the 1940s. Her performance in Kitty Foyle won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.Rogers popularity had peaked by the end of the decade. She reunited with Astaire in 1949 in the commercially successful The Barkleys of Broadway. After an unsuccessful period in the 1950s, Rogers returned to Broadway in 1965, playing the lead role in Hello, Dolly! More lead roles on Broadway followed, along with her stage directorial debut in 1985 on an off-Broadway production of Babes in Arms. Rogers also made television acting appearances until 1987. In 1992, Rogers was recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors. She died of a heart attack in 1995, at the age of 83.

Rogers is associated with the phrase "backwards and in high heels", which is attributed to Bob Thaves' Frank and Ernest 1982 cartoon with the caption "Sure he [Astaire] was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did...backwards and in high heels". This phrase is sometimes incorrectly attributed to Ann Richards, who used it in her keynote address to the 1988 Democratic National Convention.A Republican and a devout Christian Scientist, Rogers married five times with all of them ending in divorce, and having no children. During her long career, Rogers made 73 films, and her musical films with Fred Astaire are credited with revolutionizing the genre. Rogers was a major movie star during the Golden Age of Hollywood, and is often considered an American icon. She ranks number 14 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of female stars of classic American cinema. Rogers' autobiography Ginger: My Story was published in 1991. Wikipedia  

✵ 16. July 1911 – 25. April 1995
Ginger Rogers photo
Ginger Rogers: 7   quotes 3   likes

Famous Ginger Rogers Quotes

“I loved Fred so, and I mean that in the nicest, warmest way: I had such affection for him artistically. I think that experience with Fred was a divine blessing. It blessed me, I know, and I don't think blessings are one sided.”

Ginger Rogers

Reported by Dick Richards in "Ginger: Salute to a Star", quoting Rogers from Francis Wyndham's story about Ginger Rogers, in London's "Sunday Times Magazine".

“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels.”

Ginger Rogers

The line originated in a 1982 Frank and Ernest cartoon ( image http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/Ginger/ginger-article2.htm) by Bob Thaves as "Sure he was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, ...backwards and in high heels." On the internet and in many publications the line is incorrectly attributed to Faith Whittlesey (see [List of Websites That Have Attributed Thaves' Line to Whittlesey, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=en-us&num=100&newwindow=1&q=%22Faith+Whittlesey%22+%22Ginger+Rogers%22+-incorrect+-incorrectly+-%22Bob+Thaves%22+-%22Ann+Richards%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi=, 2009-07-25, Google]) or Rogers herself. Ann Richards popularized the line by using it in a speech but she credits Linda Ellerbee with giving her the line, and Ellerbee credits an anonymous passenger on an airplane with giving her the line (see [Keyes, Ralph (2006), The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When, St. Martin's Griffin, 77, 0312340044]). The official Ginger Rogers website http://www.gingerrogers.com/about/quotes.html attributes the line to Thaves.
About

“Believe me, Ginger was great. She contributed her full fifty percent in making them such a great team. She could follow Fred as if one brain was thinking. She blended with his every step and mood immaculately. He was able to do dances on screen that would have been impossible to risk if he hadn't had a partner like Ginger - as skillful as she was attractive.”

Ginger Rogers

Edward Everett Horton to Dick Richards. Ginger - Salute to a Star, p. 162.
About

“Ginger was brilliantly effective. She made everything work for her. Actually she made things very fine for both of us and she deserves most of the credit for our success.”

Ginger Rogers

Fred Astaire to Raymond Rohauser, Film Curator of the New York Gallery of Modern Art, at the San Francisco Film Festival, in 1966.
About

“That's pure bunk. I adored Fred. We were good friends. Our only problem is that we never aspired to be any kind of a team. We didn't want to be Abbott and Costello. We thought of ourselves as individuals. We didn't intend to be another Frick and Frack. [smiling, after a pause] But it happened anyway, didn't it? And I'll be forever grateful it did.”

Ginger Rogers

Responding to assertions of discord between herself and Fred Astaire; quoted in "Leading Couples", by TCM's Robert Osborne, p. 11.

“What's all this talk about me being teamed with Ginger Rogers? I will not have it Leland--I did not go into pictures to be teamed with her or anyone else, and if that is the program in mind for me I will not stand for it. I don't mind making another picture with her but as for this teams idea, it's out.”

Ginger Rogers

Fred Astaire in a letter to his agent Leland Hayward dated February 9, 1934. He went on to make a further nine musical films with Rogers.
About

“The hardest working actress I ever knew.”

Ginger Rogers

Fred Astaire's description of Rogers' discipline and willingness to work, from Steps in Time.
About

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