The Full Biography
Ginger Rogers. Actress. Dancer. The Independence, Missouri, kid who did everything Astaire did, backward, in heels, and then spent decades reminding the town she had done plenty without him.
This is her story.
The image most people still carry is a feathered gown, Fred’s hand, a smile that makes the turn look like a conversation. The RKO ten. What the still cannot show is Virginia Katherine McMath of Independence, a stage mother named Lela who was a career, an Oscar for Kitty Foyle that had nothing to do with a foxtrot, and a long life of fewer parts, five husbands, and a death in 1995 that the backward-and-in-heels line has never stopped introducing.
She was born on July 16, 1911, in Independence, Missouri. Her parents, William Eddins McMath and Lela Emogene Owens, separated before she could walk; Lela won a custody fight that included a kidnapping and a courtroom, and then became the first producer the girl would ever have. A young cousin could not say Virginia. The name came out Ginger. It stuck. They moved. Texas. Then the West Coast. At fourteen she won a Charleston contest in Fort Worth and went on a vaudeville tour. She was a contest kid, not a conservatory product. Broadway arrived in 1929. In 1930 she was in George and Ira Gershwin’s Girl Crazy, introducing “Embraceable You” and sharing a pit with a rehearsal pianist named Fred Astaire. Hollywood took the notices. Paramount, then RKO. She was already a talker who could dance. The town would spend ten years pretending the talk was extra.
The partnership began as a supporting number. Flying Down to Rio (1933) put her and Astaire in “The Carioca” while Dolores del Río and Gene Raymond held the plot. The audience left the theater talking about the supporting number. RKO, which understood a ledger, put them together again. The Gay Divorcee (1934) — “The Continental,” a number that won the first Oscar for a song. Roberta (1935), with Irene Dunne still billed above them. Top Hat (1935) — “Cheek to Cheek,” the ostrich feathers that shed on Astaire’s tuxedo, a smash that is still the civic object. Follow the Fleet (1936), sailors and “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” Swing Time (1936) — “Pick Yourself Up,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” a dance that is also an argument. Shall We Dance (1937), Gershwin, roller skates. Carefree (1938), a hypnotist plot and a golf-course dance. The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), a biopic that ends in a war. Ten pictures, 1933 to 1939. She was not a passenger. She was a comedienne who could also dance, which is a rarer double than the stills admit. The line about heels is a feminist punch line that is also true enough to keep using and incomplete enough to keep correcting.
She had already, between the musicals, been building a file that did not require a tailcoat. 42nd Street (1933) and Gold Diggers of 1933 used Anytime Annie as a wisecrack. Stage Door (1937), opposite Katharine Hepburn, is a boarding-house picture about actresses who are also workers; Rogers is the one who knows the joke and the rent. Then the statue. Kitty Foyle (1940), a working-girl drama from Christopher Morley’s novel, won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. No feathers. No Astaire. A white-collar woman who makes a choice the Production Code could barely stand. The “just the dancer” line fails this fact. She knew it. She spent the next decade proving it.
Billy Wilder’s first American picture, The Major and the Minor (1942), put her on a train pretending to be a twelve-year-old to save the fare, opposite Ray Milland — a comedy that is also a piece of nerve. Roxie Hart (1942) made her a murderess who understands publicity, the Chicago story that would become Chicago decades after. Tender Comrade (1943). Lady in the Dark (1944). I’ll Be Seeing You (1944) opposite Joseph Cotten. Weekend at the Waldorf (1945). Magnificent Doll (1946) as Dolley Madison. She was a leading woman who could do screwball, weepies, and a period gown. In 1949 MGM reunited her with Astaire for The Barkleys of Broadway, their only color picture together and their last. Judy Garland had been set for it. Rogers took the call. The glance still worked. The partnership was a chapter. She would not let it be the book.
The 1940s pictures the feather stills skip are the file that proves the Oscar was not a fluke. Tom, Dick and Harry (1941) is a comedy about a girl who dreams three husbands. Tales of Manhattan (1942) put her in an episode picture. Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) opposite Cary Grant is a wartime comedy that is also a spy story. Heartbeat (1946). It Had to Be You (1947). The Groom Wore Spurs (1951) opposite Jack Carson. She was a leading woman who could carry a picture that had no dance in it, and the town kept billing the dance anyway. That is the labor story Lela’s daughter would file in the memoir: the hours, the heels, the talk, the statue, and a partnership the search engine still will not unpair.
The only way to enjoy anything in this life is to earn it first.Ginger Rogers
The turn is Kitty Foyle and the insistence that the partnership was a chapter. She did not spend the rest of the life as a museum of 1936. She spent it as a working actress who happened to be the other half of the most famous dance in American pictures. The town preferred the museum. She preferred the Oscar and the talk.
Six things most people never knew
- Lela is the first producer. A stage mother who was also a careerist. Ginger is a daughter who learned the shop.
- The Charleston prizes came before RKO. She was a contest kid, not a conservatory product.
- Ten pictures with Astaire, not a marriage. Colleagues. The destiny stills are a studio’s idea.
- Kitty Foyle is a Best Actress statue for a picture without a tailcoat. 1940. The “just the dancer” line fails this fact.
- The heels line is true enough and not the whole résumé. She liked it and also outgrew being only it.
- The memoir is a labor document. Not a fan’s scrapbook. Lela’s daughter filing the hours.
She did not have children. Five husbands — Jack Pepper, Lew Ayres, Jack Briggs, Jacques Bergerac, William Marshall — a marital weather the columns treated as a second career. Friends from the RKO years describe a professional who knew the mark and the joke. She could still walk into a room and stop it without a feather. The politics were conservative in a town that, by the 1970s, did not always want that at dinner. She did not sand them.
The later years
Home, after the studio run, was a ranch in Oregon — the Rogue River country — and then houses in California that did not require a call sheet every morning. She kept working when the part was a part. Storm Warning (1951) put her in a Ku Klux Klan picture opposite Ronald Reagan and Doris Day, a Warner thriller that asked her to be frightened and then angry. Monkey Business (1952), for Howard Hawks, opposite Cary Grant, is a youth-serum farce; Marilyn Monroe is already in the frame as the other kind of blond. Forever Female (1953). Black Widow (1954). Tight Spot (1955). The 1950s pictures are not the RKO ten. They are a leading woman refusing to become only a clip. Television drama. Variety. She took the work that still used the talk.
The stage became the second parish. In 1965 she replaced Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly! on Broadway and then took the show on the road, a Dolly Gallagher Levi who had already been Kitty Foyle and Roxie Hart and knew how to hold a house. She played Mame in London and in the American houses that still wanted a star who could talk as well as she turned. She played the summer circuits a star of her age is supposed to decline and did not decline them. Television drama in the 1950s and 1960s — The DuPont Show of the Week, guest chairs — kept the talk in the room when the features thinned. In 1991 she published Ginger: My Story, a memoir that is Lela’s daughter telling the labor story: the Charleston, the ten pictures, the Oscar, the husbands, the ranch, the hours. It is not a fan’s scrapbook. It is a filing. In 1992 the Kennedy Center Honors put her in a box beside the men who had been billed above her and the one man the sentence will not unpair. She accepted the night. She had already written the correction.
The Oregon ranch — on the Rogue River, a place she had bought as a refuge from the lot — was the house she preferred to a premiere. She painted. She fished. She kept dogs. She was, to the neighbors, a woman who happened to have been in Top Hat, not a monument on a hill. When the body asked for a warmer climate she took the desert. Rancho Mirage was the last address. Independence was the first. The feathers stayed in the clip. The ranch was the life.
Astaire died in 1987. She outlived him by eight years. The clips still required him. That was the bargain she had spent fifty years widening. She kept the Oregon ranch as long as the body allowed and then made the desert the last parish — Rancho Mirage, a house that did not require a call sheet. She appeared at Kennedy Center and at the tributes a woman of her age is asked to walk, and she walked them as Kitty Foyle’s actress, not as a gown on a hanger. She died on April 25, 1995, in Rancho Mirage, of congestive heart failure. She was eighty-three. Independence still claims the girl. The feathers claim the clip. Kitty Foyle claims the statue. The heels line will outlive all three, and she knew that too.
The last working years were stage and honor, not another RKO ten. Hello, Dolly! on the road. Mame in the houses that still wanted a star who could talk. Television interviews in which she corrected the museum version of 1936 without raising her voice. The memoir on the table. Five husbands in the file and no children. A conservatism she did not sand. A ranch, then a desert house, then a funeral the industry attended as if it had invented her. She had already, in the working-girl picture and the Wilder comedy and the decades of stage work, written a file that did not require a tailcoat. The last address was the desert. The first town was Missouri. The glance is the climate. The Oscar is the work.
What those decades actually were is a long insistence: ranch, road company, memoir, honors, a politics that did not match the industry’s, and a refusal to sit still as a museum of 1936. She had earned the rest. She said so. The gown did not die with her. The talk should not either.
She kept the talk in the rooms that still paid for it. Summer stock. A Dolly on the road who had already been Kitty Foyle. Television interviews in which she named Lela as the first producer and Astaire as a colleague, not a fate. She painted at the ranch. She fished the Rogue. She kept dogs and a conservatism she did not sand when the town changed temperature. When the body asked for heat she took Rancho Mirage and the honors circuit: Kennedy Center, festival introductions, a woman in a box who had already written the correction in a book. Five husbands in the file. No children. A last house in the desert. A first town in Missouri. The glance is the climate. The Oscar is the work. The ranch is the life the feathers cannot photograph.
After she was gone
Every couple dance still steals the glance. Every sentence about women and labor still steals the heels. Astaire still arrives first in the search. The Oscar is the correction. Both should run. The RKO ten still play on a Saturday. Kitty Foyle still surprises people who thought she was only a gown. Lela’s shop is in the memoir if anyone bothers to open it.
She came out of Independence, won a Charleston, took Fred’s hand, took an Oscar without him, talked as well as she turned, and died as the other half of a sentence she had spent fifty years widening. If you only remember the feathers, you have the still. If you remember Lela, Kitty Foyle, the Oregon ranch, and the heels line’s limits, you have her. The gown did not die. The talk should not either. The statue is the correction. The ranch is the life the feathers cannot photograph. Both the glance and the Oscar should run. Independence still claims the contest kid. Rancho Mirage buried the actress. Lela’s shop is in the memoir if anyone opens it.
Portrait: John Miehle (1902-1952) · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons