Syon House, with its 200-acre (80 hectare/800,000 m²) park, is situated in west London, England. It belongs to the Duke of Northumberland and is now his family's London residence. The family's traditional central London residence was Northumberland House.

History

Syon House derives its name from Syon Abbey, a medieval monastery of the Bridgettine Order, founded in 1415 on a nearby site by King Henry V. The Abbey moved to the site now occupied by Syon House in 1431. In 1539, the abbey was closed by royal agents during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the monastic community was expelled.

In 1541 and part of the following year, Henry VIII's fifth wife, Catherine Howard, was brought to Syon for her long imprisonment. In February 1542, she was taken to the Tower of London and executed on charges of adultery.

In the late 17th century, Syon was in the possession of Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, through his wife, Elizabeth Seymour (''née'' Percy). After the future Queen Anne had a disagreement with her sister, Mary II (wife of William III, also known as William of Orange), over her friendship with Sarah Churchill, Countess of Marlborough, she was evicted from her court residence at the Palace of Whitehall and stayed at Syon with her close friends, the Somersets, in 1692. Anne gave birth to a stillborn child there. Shortly after the birth, Mary came to visit her, again demanding that Anne dismiss the Countess of Marlborough, and stormed out again when Anne flatly refused.

In the 18th century, Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, commissioned architect and interior designer Robert Adam and landscape designer Lancelot "Capability" Brown to redesign the house and estate. Work began on the interior reconstruction project in 1762. Five large rooms on the west, south and east sides of the House, were completed before work ceased in 1769. A central rotunda, which Adams had intended for the interior courtyard space, was not implemented, due to cost.

Syon Park

Syon Park borders the Thames, looking across the river to Kew Gardens, and near its banks is a tidal meadow flooded twice a day by the river. It contains more than 200 species of rare trees. Although the park and lake were designed by Capability Brown in 1760, their character today is nineteenth century. The circular pool has a copy of Giambologna's Mercury.

The Great Conservatory in the gardens, designed by Charles Fowler in 1828 and completed in 1830, was the first conservatory to be built from metal and glass on a large scale. The conservatory was shown in a dream sequence in Meera Syal's 1993 film ''Bhaji on the Beach''. It was also the setting for the music video to The Cure's 1984 single "The Caterpillar", directed by Tim Pope.

Henry Percy, 11th Duke of Northumberland, who was head of the family from 1988 to 1995, was noted for planting many trees in the grounds of Syon.

In 2002, the English poet Geoffrey Hill released a booklength poem, "The Orchards of Syon", to much acclaim. "The Orchards of Syon", focuses on the history of the region and in particular on the orchard of rare trees first planted in Syon Abbey.

Robert Altman's 2001 film ''Gosford Park'' was partly filmed at Syon House.

The London Butterfly House was based in the grounds of Syon Park until its closure on 28 October 2007 due to the Duke of Northumberland's plans to build a hotel complex on the land.

In 2004, planning permission was granted for the deluxe £35-million Radisson Edwardian Hotel but was never actually built. Work on a Hilton Hotel started in December 2008 and is expected to open mid-2010.

In November 2010, the results from an archaeological dig made two years before on the site of the new hotel were reported, with the excavations uncovering the remains of a Roman village that existed in what was then the rural outskirts of Londinium. Artifacts uncovered included 11,500 pottery fragments, 100 coins, and pieces of jewellery. Some of finds remain unexplained, such as the discovery of skeletons "buried in ditches placed on their side". Although the skeletons date from the Roman period, this burial practice was said by the senior archaeologist to be "more suggestive of unknown prehistoric rites than Roman practice".

Syon House was one of the wealthiest nunneries in the country and a local legend recalls that the monks of Shean had a Ley tunnel running to the nunnery at Syon.

See also

Alnwick Castle – the principal seat of the Dukes of Northumberland

Northumberland House – the former central London residence of the Dukes of Northumberland

References

Notes

Sources

Further reading

''Syon House; The Story of a Great House'' – With a short guide for visitors, and with 4 (colour) plates, 2 endpaper maps (in colour), and 22 illustrations in Monochrome (The illustrations mainly relate to paintings, artefacts and the building). First published by Syon House Estate (UK) in 1950 with 48 pages and no ISBN.

External links

Syon Park official site

Syon House entry from The DiCamillo Companion to British & Irish Country Houses

Syon House on Images of England website with architectural details

Aerial photo and map

Drawings and photos

A detailed historical record of Syon House

Category:Sites of Special Scientific Interest in London Category:Grade I listed houses Category:Grade I listed buildings in London Category:Parks and open spaces in Hounslow Category:Houses in Hounslow Category:Historic house museums in London Category:Museums in Hounslow Category:Gardens in London

de:Syon House es:Syon House fr:Syon House ms:Rumah Syon nl:Syon House pt:Syon House ru:Сайон-хаус sv:Syon House

name	Ginger Rogers
birth name	Virginia Katherine McMath
birth date	July 16, 1911
birth place	Independence, Missouri, U.S.
death date	April 25, 1995
death place	Rancho Mirage, California, U.S.
occupation	Actress, singer, artist, and dancer
years active	1925–94
spouse	Jack Pepper (1929–31; divorced)Lew Ayres (1934–41; divorced)Jack Briggs (1943–49; divorced)Jacques Bergerac (1953–57; divorced)William Marshall (1961–69; divorced) }}

Ginger Rogers (July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century.

During her long career, she made a total of 73 films, and is noted for her role as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten Hollywood musical films that revolutionized the genre. She also achieved great success in a variety of film roles and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in ''Kitty Foyle'' (1940). She ranks #14 on the AFI's 100 Years…100 Stars list of actress screen legends.

Early life

Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri, the daughter of William Eddins McMath, an electrical engineer, and his wife Lela Emogene Owens (1891–1977). Ginger's parents separated soon after her birth, and she and her mother went to live with her grandparents, Walter and Saphrona (née Ball) Owens, in nearby Kansas City. Rogers' parents fought over her custody, with her father even kidnapping her twice. After her parents divorced, Rogers stayed with her grandparents while her mother wrote scripts for two years in Hollywood.

Rogers was to remain close to her grandfather (much later, when she was a star in 1939, she bought him a home at 5115 Greenbush Avenue in Sherman Oaks, California so that he could be close to her while she was filming at the studios).

One of Rogers' young cousins, Helen, had a hard time pronouncing her first name, shortening it to "Ginga"; the nickname stuck.

When Rogers was nine years old, her mother married John Logan Rogers. Ginger took the name of Rogers, though she was never legally adopted. They lived in Fort Worth, Texas. Her mother became a theater critic for a local newspaper, the ''Fort Worth Record''. Ginger attended but did not graduate from Fort Worth's Central High School.

As a teenager, Rogers thought of becoming a schoolteacher, but with her mother's interest in Hollywood and the theater, her early exposure to the theater increased. Waiting for her mother in the wings of the Majestic Theatre, she began to sing and dance along with the performers on stage.

Vaudeville and Broadway

Rogers' entertainment career was born one night when the traveling vaudeville act of Eddie Foy came to Fort Worth and needed a quick stand-in. She then entered and won a Charleston dance contest which allowed her to tour for six months, at one point in 1926 performing at an 18-month-old theater called ''The Craterian'' in Medford, Oregon. This theater honored her many years later by changing its name to the ''Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater''.

At 17, Rogers married Jack Culpepper, a singer/dancer/comedian/recording artist of the day who worked under the name Jack Pepper (according to Ginger's autobiography, she knew Culpepper when she was a child, as her cousin's boyfriend). They formed a short-lived vaudeville double act known as "Ginger and Pepper". The marriage was over within months, and she 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'', which opened on Christmas Day, 1929.

Within two weeks of opening in ''Top Speed'', Rogers was chosen to star on Broadway in ''Girl Crazy'' by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, the musical play widely considered to have made stars of both her and Ethel Merman. Fred Astaire was hired to help the dancers with their choreography. Her appearance in ''Girl Crazy'' made her an overnight star at the age of 19. In 1930, she was signed by Paramount Pictures to a seven-year contract.

Film career

1929-1933

Rogers' first movie 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''.

Rogers would soon get herself out of the Paramount contract—under which she had made five feature films at Astoria Studios in Astoria, Queens—and move with her mother to Hollywood. When she got to California, she signed a three-picture deal with Pathé. She made feature films for Warner Bros., Monogram, and Fox in 1932 and was named one of fifteen "WAMPAS Baby Stars". She then made a significant breakthrough as "Anytime Annie" in the Warner Brothers film ''42nd Street'' (1933). She went on to make a series of films with Fox, Warner Bros. ("Gold Diggers of 1933"), Universal, Paramount, and RKO Radio Pictures and, in her second RKO picture, ''Flying Down to Rio'' (1933), she worked for the first time with Fred Astaire. (Note, however, that the Wikipedia entry for 'Embraceable You' claims that they worked together previously on the stage production of Girl Crazy).

1933-1939: Astaire and Rogers

Rogers was most famous for her partnership with Fred Astaire. Together, from 1933 to 1939, they made nine musical films at RKO: ''Flying Down to Rio'' (1933), ''The Gay Divorcee'' (1934), ''Roberta'' (1935), ''Top Hat'' (1935), ''Follow the Fleet'' (1936), ''Swing Time'' (1936), ''Shall We Dance'' (1937), ''Carefree'' (1938), and ''The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle'' (1939) (''The Barkleys of Broadway'' (1949) was produced later at MGM). They revolutionized the Hollywood musical, introducing dance routines of unprecedented elegance and virtuosity, set to songs specially composed for them by the greatest popular song composers of the day.

Arlene Croce, Hannah Hyam and John Mueller all consider Rogers to have been Astaire's finest dance partner, principally because of her ability to combine dancing skills, natural beauty, and exceptional abilities as a dramatic actress and comedienne, thus truly complementing Astaire, a peerless dancer who sometimes struggled as an actor and was not considered classically handsome. The resulting song and dance partnership enjoyed a unique credibility in the eyes of audiences. Of the 33 partnered dances she performed with Astaire, Croce and Mueller have highlighted the infectious spontaneity of her performances in the comic numbers "I'll Be Hard to Handle" from ''Roberta'' (1935), "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket" from ''Follow the Fleet'' (1936) and "Pick Yourself Up" from ''Swing Time'' (1936). They also point to the use Astaire made of her remarkably flexible back in classic romantic dances such as "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" from ''Roberta'' (1935), "Cheek to Cheek" from ''Top Hat'' (1935) and "Let's Face the Music and Dance" from ''Follow the Fleet'' (1936). For special praise, they have singled out her performance in "Waltz in Swing Time" from ''Swing Time'' (1936), which is generally considered to be the most virtuosic partnered routine ever committed to film by Astaire. She generally avoided solo dance performances: Astaire always included at least one virtuoso solo routine in each film, while Rogers performed only one: "Let Yourself Go" from ''Follow the Fleet'' (1936).

Although the dance routines were choreographed by Astaire and his collaborator Hermes Pan, both have acknowledged Rogers's input and have also testified to her consummate professionalism, even during periods of intense strain, as she tried to juggle her many other contractual film commitments with the punishing rehearsal schedules of Astaire, who made at most two films in any one year. In 1986, shortly before his death, Astaire remarked, "All the girls I ever danced with thought they couldn't do it, but of course they could. So they always cried. All except Ginger. No no, Ginger never cried". John Mueller summed up Rogers's abilities as follows: "Rogers was outstanding among Astaire's partners not because she was superior to others as a dancer but because, as a skilled, intuitive actress, she was cagey enough to realize that acting did not stop when dancing began...the reason so many women have fantasized about dancing with Fred Astaire is that Ginger Rogers conveyed the impression that dancing with him is the most thrilling experience imaginable". According to Astaire, when they were first teamed together in "Flying Down to Rio", "Ginger had never danced with a partner before. She faked it an awful lot. She couldn't tap and she couldn't do this and that ... but Ginger had style and talent and improved as she went along. She got so that after a while everyone else who danced with me looked wrong." Astaire also had this to say to Raymond Rohauer, curator at the New York Gallery of Modern Art: "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."

Rogers also introduced some celebrated numbers from the Great American Songbook, songs such as Harry Warren and Al Dubin's "The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)" from ''Gold Diggers of 1933'' (1933), "Music Makes Me" from ''Flying Down to Rio'' (1933), "The Continental" from ''The Gay Divorcee'' (1934), Irving Berlin's "Let Yourself Go" from ''Follow the Fleet'' (1936), the Gershwins' "Embraceable You" from ''Girl Crazy'' and "They All Laughed (at Christopher Columbus)" from ''Shall We Dance'' (1937). Furthermore, in song duets with Astaire, she co-introduced Berlin's "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket" from ''Follow the Fleet'' (1936), Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields's "Pick Yourself Up" and "A Fine Romance" from ''Swing Time'' (1936) and the Gershwins' "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" from ''Shall We Dance'' (1937).

After 1939

After 15 months apart and with RKO facing bankruptcy, the studio hired Fred and Ginger for another movie called ''Carefree'', but it lost money. Next came ''The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle'', but the serious plot and tragic ending resulted in the worst box office receipts of any of their films. This was driven not by diminished popularity, but by the hard 1930s economic reality. The production costs of musicals, always significantly more costly than regular features, continued to increase at a much faster rate than admissions. Everyone agreed it was time to stop.

Both before and immediately after her dancing and acting partnership with Fred Astaire ended, Rogers starred in a number of successful dramas and comedies. ''Stage Door'' (1937) demonstrated her dramatic capacity, as the loquacious yet vulnerable girl next door, a tough minded, theatrical hopeful, opposite Katharine Hepburn. In ''Roxie Hart'' (1942), based on the same play which served as the template for the musical ''Chicago'', Ginger played a wise-cracking wife on trial for a murder her husband committed. In the neo-realist ''Primrose Path'' (1940), directed by Gregory La Cava, she played a prostitute's daughter trying to avoid the fate of her mother. Further highlights of this period included ''Tom, Dick, and Harry'', a 1941 comedy where she dreams of marrying three different men; ''I'll Be Seeing You'', an intelligent and restrained war time "weepie" with Joseph Cotten; La Cava's ''5th Avenue Girl'' (1939), where she played an out-of-work girl sucked into the lives of a wealthy family; and especially the sharp and highly successful comedies: ''Bachelor Mother'' (1939), where she played Polly Parrish, a shop girl who is falsely deemed to have abandoned her baby; and Billy Wilder's first Hollywood feature film: ''The Major and the Minor'' (1942), in which she played a woman who masquerades as a 12-year-old to get a cheap train ticket and finds herself obliged to continue the ruse for an extended period. This film featured a performance by Rogers's own real mother, Lela, playing her film mother.

Her greatest skills were as a comedienne; as a master of the wisecrack, the deadpan, and the sidelong glance, she became well established as one of the major actresses of the screwball comedy era.

In 1941, Ginger Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in 1940's ''Kitty Foyle''. She enjoyed considerable success during the early 1940s, and was RKO's hottest property during this period. Becoming a free agent, she made hugely successful films with other studios in the mid-'40s, including "Tender Comrade" (1943), "Lady in the Dark" (1944), and "Week-End at the Waldorf" (1945), and became the highest-paid performer in Hollywood. However, by the end of the decade, her film career had peaked. Arthur Freed reunited her with Fred Astaire in ''The Barkleys of Broadway'' in 1949, a delightful Technicolor MGM musical which succeeded in rekindling the special chemistry between them one last time.

Ginger Rogers' film career entered a period of gradual decline in the 1950s, as parts for older actresses became more difficult to obtain, but she still scored with some solid films. She starred in ''Storm Warning'' (1950) with Ronald Reagan and Doris Day, the noir, anti Ku Klux Klan film by Warner Brothers, and in ''Monkey Business'' (1952) with Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe, directed by Howard Hawks. In the same year, she also starred in ''We're Not Married!'', also featuring Marilyn Monroe, and in ''Dreamboat''. She played the female lead in ''Tight Spot'' (1955), a mystery thriller, with Edward G. Robinson. Then, after a series of unremarkable films, she scored with a great popular success, playing Dolly Levi in the long-running ''Hello, Dolly!'' on Broadway in 1965.

In later life, Rogers remained on good terms with Astaire: she presented him with a special Academy Award in 1950, and they were co-presenters of individual Academy Awards in 1967, during which they elicited a standing ovation when they came on stage in an impromptu dance. In 1969, she had the lead role in another long-running popular production of ''Mame'', from the book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in the West End of London, arriving for the role on the Liner QE2 from New York. Her docking there occasioned the maximum of pomp and ceremony at Southampton. She became the highest paid performer in the history of the West End up to that time. The production ran for 14 months and featured a Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth the Second. The Kennedy Center honored Ginger Rogers in December 1992. This event, which was shown on television, was somewhat marred when Astaire's widow, Robyn Smith, who permitted clips of Astaire dancing with Rogers to be shown for free at the function itself, was unable to come to terms with CBS Television for broadcast rights to the clips (all previous rights holders having donated broadcast rights gratis).

From the 1950s onwards, Rogers would make occasional appearances on television. In the later years of her career, she made guest appearances in three different series by Aaron Spelling; ''The Love Boat'' (1979), ''Glitter'' (1984), and ''Hotel'' (1987) which would be her final screen appearance as an actress.

Personal life

Rogers was an only child, and maintained a close relationship with her mother throughout her life. Lela Rogers (1891–1977) was a newspaper reporter, scriptwriter, and movie producer. She was also one of the first women to enlist in the Marine Corps, was a founder of the successful "Hollywood Playhouse" for aspiring actors and actresses on the RKO set, and was a founder of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Mother and daughter had an extremely close professional relationship as well. Lela Rogers was credited with many pivotal contributions to her daughter's early successes in New York and in Hollywood, not to mention contract negotiations with RKO.

In her classic 1930s musicals with Astaire, Ginger Rogers, co-billed with him, was paid less than Fred, the creative force behind the dances, who also received 10% of the profits. But she was also paid less than many of the supporting "farceurs" billed beneath her, in spite of her much more central role in the films' great financial success. This was personally grating to her, and had effects upon her relationships at RKO, especially with director Mark Sandrich, whose disrespect of Rogers prompted a sharp letter of reprimand from producer Pandro Berman, which Rogers deemed important enough to publish in her autobiography. Like many actresses of the time, Ginger Rogers fought hard for her contract and salary rights, and for better films and scripts. She also found it necessary to fight for respect and dignity as an actress, and against the type casting as just the studio's "dancing girl". She eventually succeeded in all these endeavors.

Rogers' first marriage was 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 actor Lew Ayres (1908–1996). At a time when Rogers' career was skyrocketing and Ayres' career was faltering, they separated, and were amicably divorced seven years later. To add to Rogers' woes in 1934, she sued Sylvia of Hollywood for $100K for defamation. Sylvia, Hollywood's fitness guru and radio personality, had claimed that Rogers was on Sylvia’s radio show when, in fact, she was not.

In 1940, Rogers purchased a 1000-acre (4 km²) ranch in Jackson County, Oregon between the cities of Shady Cove and Eagle Point. The ranch, located along the Rogue River, supplied dairy products to nearby Camp White, a cantonment established for the duration of World War II. While not performing or working on other projects, she would live at the ranch with her mother.

In 1943, Rogers married her third husband, Jack Briggs, a Marine. Upon his return from World War II, Briggs showed no interest in continuing his incipient Hollywood career. They divorced in 1949. In 1953 she married Jacques Bergerac, a Frenchman 16 years her junior, whom she met on a trip to Paris. A lawyer in France, he came to Hollywood with her and became an actor. They divorced in 1957. Her fifth and final husband was director and producer William Marshall. They married in 1961, and divorced in 1971, after his bouts with alcohol, and the financial collapse of their joint film production company in Jamaica.

Rogers was good friends with Lucille Ball — a distant cousin on Rogers' mother's side. Another friend, Bette Davis, had in common with Rogers a close maternal relationship. As early Hollywood actresses, all three shared a common interest in directing and producing. In fact, Ginger Rogers starred in one of the earliest films co-directed and co-scripted by a woman: Wanda Tuchock's ''Finishing School'' in 1934. In 1985, Rogers fulfilled a long-standing wish to direct by directing the musical ''Babes in Arms'' off-Broadway in Tarrytown, New York, when she was 74 years old. She appeared with Lucille Ball in an episode of ''Here's Lucy'' on November 22, 1971, where, with Lucie Arnaz, Rogers gave a demonstration of the Charleston in her famous high heels.

Rogers maintained a close friendship with her cousin, actress/writer/socialite Phyllis Fraser (whom she aided in a brief acting career), but was not Rita Hayworth's natural cousin as has been reported. Hayworth's maternal uncle, Vinton Hayworth, was married to Rogers's maternal aunt, Jean Owens.

In 1977, Rogers's mother died. Rogers remained at the 4-Rs (Rogers's Rogue River Ranch) until 1990, when she sold the property and moved to nearby Medford, Oregon. Her last public appearance was on March 18, 1995 when she received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award.

For many years, Rogers regularly supported, and held in-person presentations, at the Craterian Theater, in Medford, Oregon, where she had performed in 1926 as a vaudevillian. The theater was comprehensively restored in 1997, and posthumously renamed in her honor, as the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater.

Rogers would spend winters in Rancho Mirage and summers in Medford. She died in Rancho Mirage on April 25, 1995 of congestive heart failure at the age of 83. She was cremated; her ashes are interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California, with Lela's, and just a short distance from the grave of Fred Astaire.

She was a lifelong conservative and a member of the Republican Party.

She was also a Christian Scientist.

Portrayals of Rogers

No films have been made about Ginger Rogers, possibly because Fred Astaire stipulated in his will that no film representations of him were ever to be made. As Rogers' career history is inevitably linked to Astaire, it would be difficult to portray her in film.

No portrayal was made of her in ''The Aviator'' (2004), in spite of the fact that many of her fellow actresses who, like her, dated Howard Hughes. According to Rogers' autobiography ''Ginger: My Story'', published in 1991, Hughes was very intent on marrying her, and had proposed to her, until she discovered his infidelity and broke off the engagement.

Likenesses of Astaire and Rogers, apparently painted over from the ''Cheek to Cheek'' dance in ''Top Hat'', are in the ''Lucy in the Skies'' section of The Beatles film ''Yellow Submarine'' (1968).

Rogers' image is one of many famous women's images of the 1930s and 40s featured on the bedroom wall in the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, a gallery of magazine cuttings pasted on the wall created by Anne and her sister Margot while hiding from the Nazis. When the house became a museum, the gallery the Frank sisters created was preserved under glass. Rogers' image is one of the larger and more prominent, which clearly indicates her global and mass appeal amongst the youth of the time.

A musical about the life of Rogers, entitled ''Backwards in High Heels'', premiered in Florida in early 2007.

Rogers was the heroine of a novel, ''Ginger Rogers and the Riddle of the Scarlet Cloak'' (1942, by Lela E. Rogers), where "the heroine has the same name and appearance as the famous actress but has no connection ... it is as though the famous actress has stepped into an alternate reality in which she is an ordinary person." The story was probably written for a young teenage audience and is reminiscent of the adventures of Nancy Drew. It is part of a series known as "Whitman Authorized Editions", 16 books published between 1941-1947 that featured a film actress as heroine.

Filmography

Features

Monta Bell 1930 1930 1930 1931 1931 1931 1932 1932 1932 1932 1932 1933 1933 1933 1933 1933 1933 1933 1933 1933 1934 1934 1934 1934 1934 1934 1934 1935 1935 1935 1935 1936 1936 1937 1937 1938 1938 1938 1939 1939 1939 1940 1940 1940 1942 1942 1942 1942 1942 1943 1944 1944 1945 1946 1946 1947 1949 1950 1950 1951 1952 1952 1952 1953 1954 1954 1955 1956 1956 Nunnally Johnson 1965 1965

Title !! Date !! Director !! Co-Starring !! Notes
''Young Man of Manhattan''	1930	|	Claudette Colbert, Norman Foster (director)>Norman Foster	The line, "Cigarette me, big boy" became a popular catchphrase during the 1930s after audiences heard Ginger Rogers repeat it throughout the movie.
''Queen High''	|	Fred Newmeyer
''The Sap from Syracuse''	|	A. Edward Sutherland	Jack Oakie
''Follow the Leader (1930 film)	Follow the Leader''	|	Norman Taurog
''Honor Among Lovers''	|	Dorothy Arzner	Claudette Colbert
''The Tip Off''	|	Albert Rogell
''Suicide Fleet''	|	Albert Rogell
''Carnival Boat''	|	Albert Rogell
''The Tenderfoot''	|	Ray Enright	Joe E. Brown
''The Thirteenth Guest''	|	Albert Ray
''Hat Check Girl''	|	Sidney Lanfield		Sidney Lanfield was the most frequent director on the Addams Family 1960s television show.
''You Said a Mouthful''	|	Lloyd Bacon	Joe E. Brown
''42nd Street (film)	42nd Street''	|	Lloyd Bacon	Warner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell
''Broadway Bad''	|	Sidney Lanfield
''Gold Diggers of 1933''	|	Mervyn LeRoy	Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell
''Professional Sweetheart''	|	William A. Seiter	Norman Foster
''A Shriek in the Night''	|	Albert Ray
''Don't Bet on Love''	|	Murray Roth	Lew Ayres	Ginger Rogers and Lew Ayres were married for seven years following this film.
''Sitting Pretty (1933 film)	Sitting Pretty''	|	Harry Joe Brown	Jack Oakie, Jack Haley
''Flying Down to Rio''	|	Thornton Freeland	Dolores Del Rio, Gene Raymond, Fred Astaire	The first of the Astaire-Rogers pairing. This is the only movie where Rogers is billed above Astaire.
''Chance at Heaven''	|	William A. Seiter	Joel McCrea
''Rafter Romance''	|	William A. Seiter	Norman Foster
''Finishing School (film)	Finishing School''	|	Wanda Tuchock and George Nicholas	Beulah Bondi
''Twenty Million Sweethearts''	|	Ray Enright	Dick Powell
''Change of Heart (1934 film)	Change of Heart''	|	John G. Blystone	Shirley Temple
''Upperworld''	|	Roy Del Ruth	Mary Astor
''The Gay Divorcee''	|	Mark Sandrich	Fred Astaire
''Romance in Manhattan''	|	Stephen Roberts
''Roberta''	|	William A. Seiter	Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Randolph Scott	Lucille Ball has an uncredited appearance as a model. She had lines deleted since her character was supposed to be a French model and she could not perfect the accent.
''Star of Midnight''	|	Stephen Roberts	William Powell
''Top Hat''	|	Mark Sandrich	Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball
''In Person''	|	William A. Seiter	George Brent
''Follow the Fleet''	|	Mark Sandrich	Fred Astaire, Randolph Scott, Lucille Ball
''Swing Time''	|	George Stevens	Fred Astaire
''Shall We Dance (1937 film)	Shall We Dance''	|	Mark Sandrich	Fred Astaire
''Stage Door''	|	Gregory La Cava	Katherine Hepburn, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Lucille Ball
''Having Wonderful Time''	|	Alfred Santell	Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Lucille Ball, Red Skelton	This used much of the same cast as ''Stage Door''.
''Vivacious Lady''	|	George Stevens	James Stewart, Charles Coburn, Hattie McDaniel
''Carefree (film)	Carefree''	|	Mark Sandrich	Fred Astaire, Jack Carson, Hattie McDaniel
''The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle''	|	H. C. Potter	Fred Astaire
''Bachelor Mother''	|	Garson Kanin	David Niven, Charles Coburn
''Fifth Avenue Girl''	|	Gregory La Cava
''Primrose Path (film)	Primrose Path''	|	Gregory La Cava	Joel McCrea
''Lucky Partners''	|	Lewis Milestone	Ronald Colman, Jack Carson
''Kitty Foyle (film)	Kitty Foyle''	|	Sam Wood	Dennis Morgan, James Craig (actor)>James Craig	Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress the first year that the Academy was not announcing the winners before the ceremony. She beat Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine, Martha Scott, and her former co-star Katherine Hepburn for the award.
''Tom, Dick, and Harry''	|	Garson Kanin	Burgess Meredith
''Roxie Hart''	|	William A. Wellman	Adolphe Menjou
''Tales of Manhattan''	|	Julien Duvivier	Henry Fonda, Cesar Romero, Rita Hayworth, Gail Patrick
''The Major and the Minor''	|	Billy Wilder	Ray Milland	Rogers campaigned hard for Billy Wilder and as a result this became his debut film. This remains one of Rogers' favorite movies. Near the end of the movie her real life mother, Lela Rogers, played her character's mother.
''Once Upon a Honeymoon''	|	Leo McCarey	Cary Grant
''Tender Comrade''	|	Edward Dmytryk
''Lady in the Dark (film)	Lady in the Dark''	|	Mitchell Leisen	Ray Milland, Warner Baxter
''I'll Be Seeing You (1944 film)	I'll Be Seeing You''	|	William Dieterle	Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple
''Week-End at the Waldorf''	|	Robert Z. Leonard	Lana Turner	Grand Hotel (film)>Grand Hotel'' portraying the ballerina whom was first played on screen by Greta Garbo.
''Heartbeat (1946 film)	Heartbeat''	|	Sam Wood	Adolphe Menjou
''Magnificent Doll''	|	Frank Borzage	David Niven, Burgess Meredith
''It Had to Be You (1947 film)	It Had to Be You''	|	Don Hartman and Rudolph Mate	Cornel Wilde
''The Barkleys of Broadway''	|	Charles Walters	Fred Astaire	Originally Rogers' role was meant for Judy Garland who had recently starred in the successful musical ''Easter Parade'' with Astaire. However she had to drop out of the project due to health issues and Rogers was sought as a last minute replacement. This is the only Astaire-Rogers film not released by RKO and the only one filmed in color (although the "I Used to Be Color Blind" number in ''Carefree'' was originally filmed in Technicolor).
''Perfect Strangers''	|	Bretaigne Windust	Dennis Morgan
''Storm Warning (1951 film)	Storm Warning''	|	Stuart Heisler	Ronald Reagen, Doris Day
''The Groom Wore Spurs''	|	Richard Whorf	Jack Carson
''We're Not Married''	|	Edmund Goulding	Marilyn Monroe, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Victor Moore
''Monkey Business (1952 film)	Monkey Business''	|	Howard Hawks	Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn
''Dreamboat''	|	Claude Binyon
''Forever Female''	|	Irving Rapper	William Holden
''Black Widow (1954 film)	Black Widow''	|	Nunnally Johnson	Gene Tierney
''Twist of Fate''	|	David Miller		This was released in Great Britain as "Beautiful Stranger." Rogers' husband at the time, Jacques Bergerac, appeared in the film.
''Tight Spot''	|	Phil Karlson	Edward G. Robinson
''The First Traveling Saleslady''	|	Arthur Lubin	Clint Eastwood
''Teenage Rebel''	|	Edmund Goulding
''Oh	Men, Oh! Women''	1957	|	David Niven
''The Confession''	|	William Dieterle	Ray Milland	Also known as "Quick, Let's Get Married."
''Harlow (Magna film)	''Harlow'' (Magna film)''	|	Alex Segal	Carol Lynley	Roger's last film.

Short subjects

''A Day of a Man of Affairs'' (1929)

''A Night in a Dormitory'' (1930)

''Campus Sweethearts'' (1930)

''Office Blues'' (1930)

''Hollywood on Parade'' (1932)

''Screen Snapshots'' (1932)

''Hollywood on Parade No. A-9'' (1933)

''Hollywood Newsreel'' (1934)

''Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 3'' (1936)

''Show Business at War'' (1943)

''Battle Stations'' (Narrator, 1944)

''Screen Snapshots: The Great Showman'' (1950)

''Screen Snapshots: Hollywood's Great Entertainers'' (1954)

Television

''The DuPont Show with June Allyson'', as Kay Neilson in "The Tender Shoot" (October 18, 1959)

''What's My Line?'' (1954, 1957, 1963)

''The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom'' (1959)

''Cinderella'' (1965)

''Here's Lucy'' (1971)(episode 4.11)

''The Love Boat'' (1979) (episodes 3.10 and 3.11)

''Glitter'' (1984) (episode 1.3)

''Hotel'' (1987) (episode 5.1) (final screen role)

References

Bibliography

Fred Astaire: ''Steps in Time'', 1959, multiple reprints.

Arlene Croce: ''The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book'', Galahad Books 1974, ISBN 0-88365-099-1

Jocelyn Faris: ''Ginger Rogers - a Bio-Bibliography'', Greenwood Press, Connecticut, 1994, ISBN 0-313-29177-2

Hannah Hyam: ''Fred and Ginger - The Astaire-Rogers Partnership 1934-1938'', Pen Press Publications, Brighton, 2007. ISBN 978-1-905621-96-5

John Mueller: ''Astaire Dancing - The Musical Films of Fred Astaire'', Knopf 1985, ISBN 0-394-51654-0

Ginger Rogers: ''Ginger My Story'', New York: Harper Collins, 1991

External links

Ginger Rogers - Appreciations

Backwards in High Heels: The Ginger Musical

Ginger Rogers biography from Reel Classics

John Mueller's 1991 ''New York Times'' review of ''Ginger: My Story''

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Photographs and literature

Category:1911 births Category:1995 deaths Category:20th-century actors Category:American ballroom dancers Category:American Christian Scientists Category:American film actors Category:American tap dancers Category:Best Actress Academy Award winners Category:Burials at Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery Category:California Republicans Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in California Category:Deaths from congestive heart failure Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Missouri Republicans Category:People from Eagle Point, Oregon Category:People from Independence, Missouri Category:People from Rancho Mirage, California Category:Traditional pop music singers Category:Vaudeville performers

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