Carioca (Portuguese: [kaɾiˈɔkɐ] ( listen)) is a Portuguese adjective or demonym that is used to refer to the native inhabitants of the city of Rio de Janeiro - capital of the homonym state (RJ), in Brazil. The original word, "Kara'i oca," comes from the indigenous Amerindian language of the Tupi people, meaning "White Man's House." The demonym meaning for the state of Rio de Janeiro is Fluminense, taken from the Latin word "flumen", meaning "River". So for instance, someone from Niterói is Fluminense and Niteroiense and someone from Rio is Fluminense and Carioca.

It is said that the first Portuguese dwellings in Rio de Janeiro were placed along a limpid stream, which soon got the Portuguese name "Carioca". The last PNAD (National Research for Sample of Domiciles) census numbers for the Rio de Janeiro (state) are: 8,576,000 white people (53.6%), 5,376,000 Pardo people (33.6%), 1,920,000 black people (12%) and 128,000 Asian or Amerindian people (0.8%). The last PNAD census for Rio de Janeiro (city) is: 3,193,588 white people (50.5%), 2,244,997 Pardo people (35.5%), 809,463 black people (12,8%) and 75,887 Asian or Amerindian people (1.2%). Cariocas, like other Brazilians, speak Portuguese.

Cariocas love beach, sun, sea and parties. Carioca women are known for their tanned skin and body shapes. Rio bikinis are the best sellers in the whole world. Cariocas have a privileged view. Some of the turistic points they have are the Sugarloaf Mountain (Brazil), Christ the Redeemer (statue) and Estádio do Maracanã/Ginásio do Maracanãzinho.

Carioca people invented some sports, but the most famous are footvolley and beach tennis.

Cariocas are credited with creating the bossa nova, mpb, samba and funk carioca, famous rhythms in Brazil. Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes, João Gilberto, Toquinho, Elis Regina, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, Gal Costa and Maria Bethânia are some of the singers who are inspired by people from Rio to make their songs.

According to a survey published in American Scientist Magazine, the Cariocas of Rio de Janeiro exhibited great friendliness and offered to help in various situations. A quote from the article mentioned pointed to the following :^[1]

Accent/Dialect[link]

This section requires expansion.

Language: The Brazilian Portuguese variety spoken in the city of Rio de Janeiro (and metropolitan area) is called "Carioca". It is known for a number of distinctive traits, most notably:

1. /s/ and /z/ when not pre-vocalic become the postalveolar [ʃ] and [ʒ].
2. /r/, and /ɾ/ when not pre-vocalic (see guttural R) become a voiceless velar [x], or a similar sound (e.g. uvular [χ], glottal [h] or a pharyngeal [ħ]). Voiced versions of at least some of these can be heard as well.^[2][3]
3. The consonants /t/ and /d/ before /i/ become affricates [t͡ʃ] and [d͡ʒ], respectively.

These traits (particularly the chiado, i.e. pronouncing [ʃ] [ʒ] instead of [s], and the pronunciation [tʃi] [dʒi]) were once specifically characteristic of Rio de Janeiro speech, and distinguished particularly from the pronunciation of São Paulo and areas further south, which formerly had none of these characteristics. The chiado is thought to date from the early 1800's occupation of the city by the Portuguese royal family (as the Portuguese of Portugal has the same characteristic), while the pronunciation [tʃi] [dʒi] is known to have originated in early 20th-century Rio speech. More recently, however, all of these traits have spread throughout much of the country due to the cultural influence of the city. The use of [tʃi] [dʒi] is now nearly universal among younger speakers throughout Brazil. The "guttural R" is also found country-wide, although to a lesser extent in speakers in the far south (Rio Grande do Sul) and certain rural (Caipira) speakers. The chiado has the least national presence, although it too is found in other areas, e.g. in the Northeast.

Another common characteristic of Rio speech is the addition of /j/ before stressed final /s/ (e.g. mas, dez become [majʃ], [dɛjʃ]). This change may have originated in the Northeast, where pronunciations such as Jesús [ʒeˈzujs] have long been heard.

There are some grammatical characteristics in speech, an important one is the mixing of second person pronouns você and tu, even in the same speech. For instance, while normative Portuguese requires lhe as oblique for você, and te as oblique for tu, in Carioca Portuguese the once formal você (now widespread as informal pronoun in many Brazilian Portuguese varieties) is used for all cases. In informal speech, the pronoun tu is retained, but with the verb forms belonging to the form você: Tu foi na festa? (Did you go to the party?); so the verbal forms are the same for both você and tu.

Many Cariocas, as well as many Paulistas, will shorten "você", using "cê" instead: "Cê vai pra casa agora?" (Are you going home now?), this practice, however, is only on the spoken language, it is usually not written this way.

The slightly different variety of Brazilian Portuguese language spoken in the remainder of the state of Rio de Janeiro is called "Fluminense". The so called chiado (pronouncing /ʃ/ instead of [s]), typical of the city of Rio, is absent in the Southwestern varieties of Fluminense (around Paraty, Barra Mansa and Volta Redonda). In the Northern varieties of Fluminense (from the city of Niterói northwards), usage similar to the Capixaba accent may be observed. For instance, the article is most likely dropped before personal names (using Maria where Cariocas would say a Maria) and with certain words such as papai, mamãe, fulano (de papai instead of do papai; por mamãe instead of pela mamãe; com fulano instead of com o fulano).

Slang words among youngsters from Rio de Janeiro include caraca! (gosh!) [now spread throughout Brazil], e aê? and qualé/quaé/coé? (whuzzup?), and maneiro (cool, fine, interesting, amusing) and sinistro (in Standard Portuguese, "sinister"; in slang, "awesome", "terrific", but also "terrible", "troublesome", "frightening", "weird"). Many of these slang words can be found in practically all of Brazil. Carioca accents are the most famous in Brazil, because Rede Globo, the third largest television network in the world, is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro and a lot of programs, be it news and documentary or entertainment, such as the novelas, have carioca artists.

See also[link]

• Caipira
• Gaucho
• Carcamano
• Funk carioca

References[link]

Fred Astaire
in You'll Never Get Rich (1941)
Born	Frederick Austerlitz (1899-05-10)May 10, 1899 Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Died	June 22, 1987(1987-06-22) (aged 88) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, dancer, singer, choreographer, percussionist
Years active	1904–1981
Spouse	Phyllis Livingston Potter (m. 1933–1954; her death) Robyn Smith (m. 1980–1987; his death)
Relatives	Adele Astaire (sister, deceased)

Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz;^[1] May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. He is particularly associated with Ginger Rogers, with whom he made ten films.

Gene Kelly, another major innovator in filmed dance, said that "the history of dance on film begins with Astaire". Beyond film and television, many classical dancers and choreographers, Rudolf Nureyev, Sammy Davis, Jr., Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines, Mikhail Baryshnikov, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins among them, also acknowledged his importance and influence.

Life and career[link]

1899–1917: Early life and career[link]

Fred and Adele Astaire, c.1906

Astaire was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Johanna "Ann" (née Geilus) and Frederic "Fritz" Austerlitz (born September 8, 1868, as Friedrich Emanuel Austerlitz).^[1][2][3] Astaire's mother was born in the United States to Lutheran German immigrants from East Prussia and Alsace, while Astaire's father was born in Linz, Austria, to Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism.^[1][4][5][6]

After arriving in New York City at age 24 on October 26, 1892, and being inspected at Ellis Island,^[7] Astaire's father, hoping to find work in his brewing trade, moved to Omaha, Nebraska, and landed a job with the Storz Brewing Company. Astaire's mother dreamed of escaping Omaha by virtue of her children's talents, after Astaire's sister, Adele Astaire, early on revealed herself to be an instinctive dancer and singer. She planned a "brother-and-sister act," which was common in vaudeville at the time. Although Astaire refused dance lessons at first, he easily mimicked his older sister's step and took up piano, accordion and clarinet.

When their father suddenly lost his job, the family moved to New York City to launch the show business career of the children. Despite Adele and Fred's teasing rivalry, they quickly acknowledged their individual strengths, his durability and her greater talent. Fred and Adele's mother suggested they change their name to "Astaire," as she felt "Austerlitz" sounded as though it could be the name of a battle. They were taught dance, speaking, and singing in preparation for developing an act. Family legend attributes the name to an uncle surnamed "L'Astaire".^[8]

Their first act was called Juvenile Artists Presenting an Electric Musical Toe-Dancing Novelty. Fred wore a top hat and tails in the first half and a lobster outfit in the second. The goofy act debuted in Keyport, New Jersey, in a "tryout theater." The local paper wrote, "the Astaires are the greatest child act in vaudeville."^[9]

As a result of their father's salesmanship, Fred and Adele rapidly landed a major contract and played the famed Orpheum Circuit not only in Omaha, but throughout the United States. Soon Adele grew to at least three inches taller than Fred and the pair began to look incongruous. The family decided to take a two-year break from show business to let time take its course and to avoid trouble from the Gerry Society and the child labor laws of the time. In 1912, Fred became an Episcopalian.^[10]

The career of the Astaire siblings resumed with mixed fortunes, though with increasing skill and polish, as they began to incorporate tap dancing into their routines. Astaire's dancing was inspired by Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and John "Bubbles" Sublett.^[11] From vaudeville dancer Aurelio Coccia, they learned the tango, waltz and other ballroom dances popularized by Vernon and Irene Castle.

Some sources^[12] state that the Astaire siblings appeared in a 1915 film entitled Fanchon, the Cricket, starring Mary Pickford, but the Astaires have consistently denied this.^[13][14]:103

Fred Astaire first met George Gershwin, who was working as a song plugger in Jerome H. Remick's, in 1916.^[15] Fred had already been hunting for new music and dance ideas. Their chance meeting was to deeply affect the careers of both artists.

Astaire was always on the lookout for new steps on the circuit and was starting to demonstrate his ceaseless quest for novelty and perfection. The Astaires broke into Broadway in 1917 with Over the Top, a patriotic revue. The Astaires performed for U.S. and Allied troops at this time too.

1917–1933: Stage career in Broadway and London[link]

Fred and Adele Astaire in 1921

They followed up with several more shows, and of their work in The Passing Show of 1918 Heywood Broun wrote: "In an evening in which there was an abundance of good dancing, Fred Astaire stood out ... He and his partner, Adele Astaire, made the show pause early in the evening with a beautiful loose-limbed dance."^[16]

By this time, Astaire's dancing skill was beginning to outshine his sister's, though she still set the tone of their act and her sparkle and humor drew much of the attention, due in part to Fred's careful preparation and strong supporting choreography.

During the 1920s, Fred and Adele appeared on Broadway and on the London stage in shows such as George and Ira Gershwin's Lady Be Good (1924) and Funny Face (1927), and later in The Band Wagon (1931), winning popular acclaim with the theater crowd on both sides of the Atlantic. By then, Astaire's tap dancing was recognized as among the best, as Robert Benchley wrote in 1930, "I don't think that I will plunge the nation into war by stating that Fred is the greatest tap-dancer in the world."^[17]:5

After the close of Funny Face, the Astaires went to Hollywood for a screen test (now lost) at Paramount Pictures, but were not considered suitable for films.

They split in 1932 when Adele married her first husband, Lord Charles Arthur Francis Cavendish, a son of the Duke of Devonshire. Fred Astaire went on to achieve success on his own on Broadway and in London with Gay Divorce, while considering offers from Hollywood. The end of the partnership was traumatic for Astaire, but stimulated him to expand his range. Free of the brother-sister constraints of the former pairing and with a new partner (Claire Luce), he created a romantic partnered dance to Cole Porter's "Night and Day", which had been written for Gay Divorce. Luce stated that she had to encourage him to take a more romantic approach: "Come on, Fred, I'm not your sister, you know."^[17]:6 The success of the stage play was credited to this number, and when recreated in the film version of the play The Gay Divorcee (1934), it ushered in a new era in filmed dance.^{[17]:23,26,61} Recently, film footage taken by Fred Stone of Astaire performing in Gay Divorce with Luce's successor, Dorothy Stone, in New York in 1933 was uncovered by dancer and historian Betsy Baytos and now represents the earliest known performance footage of Astaire.^[18]

1933–1939: Astaire and Rogers at RKO[link]

The announcement of the Astaire–Rogers screen partnership—from the trailer to Flying Down to Rio. This is the only time Rogers took billing over Astaire.

According to Hollywood folklore, a screen test report on Astaire for RKO Radio Pictures, now lost along with the test, is reported to have read: "Can't sing. Can't act. Balding. Can dance a little." The producer of the Astaire-Rogers pictures, Pandro S. Berman, claimed he had never heard the story in the 1930s and that it only emerged years later.^[17]:7 Astaire later insisted that the report had actually read: "Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances".^[19] In any case, the test was clearly disappointing, and David O. Selznick, who had signed Astaire to RKO and commissioned the test, stated in a memo, "I am uncertain about the man, but I feel, in spite of his enormous ears and bad chin line, that his charm is so tremendous that it comes through even on this wretched test."^[17]:7 However, this did not affect RKO's plans for Astaire, first lending him for a few days to MGM in 1933 for his Hollywood debut, where he appeared as himself dancing with Joan Crawford in the successful musical film Dancing Lady.

On his return to RKO, he got fifth billing after fourth billed Ginger Rogers in the 1933 Dolores del Río vehicle Flying Down to Rio. In a review, Variety magazine attributed its massive success to Astaire's presence: "The main point of Flying Down to Rio is the screen promise of Fred Astaire ... He's assuredly a bet after this one, for he's distinctly likable on the screen, the mike is kind to his voice and as a dancer he remains in a class by himself. The latter observation will be no news to the profession, which has long admitted that Astaire starts dancing where the others stop hoofing."^[17]:7

Having already been linked to his sister Adele on stage, Astaire was initially very reluctant to become part of another dance team. He wrote his agent, "I don't mind making another picture with her, but as for this 'team' idea, it's 'out!' I've just managed to live down one partnership and I don't want to be bothered with any more."^[17]:8 He was persuaded by the obvious public appeal of the Astaire-Rogers pairing. The partnership, and the choreography of Astaire and Hermes Pan, helped make dancing an important element of the Hollywood film musical. Astaire and Rogers made ten films together, including The Gay Divorcee, Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and Carefree (1938). Six out of the nine Astaire-Rogers musicals became the biggest moneymakers for RKO; all of the films brought a certain prestige and artistry that all studios coveted at the time. Their partnership elevated them both to stardom; as Katharine Hepburn reportedly said, "He gives her class and she gives him sex appeal."^[20]:134

Astaire received a percentage of the films' profits, something extremely rare in actors' contracts at that time; and complete autonomy over how the dances would be presented, allowing him to revolutionize dance on film.^[21]

Astaire is credited with two important innovations in early film musicals.^[17]:23,26 First, he insisted that the (almost stationary) camera film a dance routine in a single shot, if possible, while holding the dancers in full view at all times. Astaire famously quipped: "Either the camera will dance, or I will."^[17]:420 Astaire maintained this policy from The Gay Divorcee (1934) onwards (until overruled by Francis Ford Coppola, who directed Finian's Rainbow (1968), Astaire's last film musical).^[22] Astaire's style of dance sequences thus contrasted with the Busby Berkeley musicals, which were known for dance sequences filled with extravagant aerial shots, quick takes, and zooms on certain areas of the body, such as the arms or legs. Second, Astaire was adamant that all song and dance routines be seamlessly integrated into the plotlines of the film. Instead of using dance as spectacle as Busby Berkeley did, Astaire used it to move the plot along. Typically, an Astaire picture would include a solo performance by Astaire—which he termed his "sock solo"—a partnered comedy dance routine, and a partnered romantic dance routine.

Dance commentators Arlene Croce,^[20]:6 Hannah Hyam^[23]:146,147 and John Mueller^[17]:8,9 consider Rogers to have been Astaire's greatest dance partner, a view shared^[24] by Hermes Pan and Stanley Donen.^[24] Film critic Pauline Kael adopts a more neutral stance,^[25] while Time magazine film critic Richard Schickel writes "The nostalgia surrounding Rogers-Astaire tends to bleach out other partners."^[26]

Mueller sums 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, "Ginger had never danced with a partner before ["Flying Down to Rio"]. 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."^[27]

For her part, Rogers described Astaire's uncompromising standards extending to the whole production, "Sometimes he'll think of a new line of dialogue or a new angle for the story ... they never know what time of night he'll call up and start ranting enthusiastically about a fresh idea ... No loafing on the job on an Astaire picture, and no cutting corners."^[17]:16

Astaire was still unwilling to have his career tied exclusively to any partnership, however. He negotiated with RKO to strike out on his own with A Damsel in Distress in 1937 with an inexperienced, non-dancing Joan Fontaine, unsuccessfully as it turned out. He returned to make two more films with Rogers, Carefree (1938) and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). While both films earned respectable gross incomes, they both lost money due to increased production costs^[17]:410 and Astaire left RKO. Rogers remained and went on to become the studio's hottest property in the early forties. They were reunited in 1949 at MGM for their final outing, The Barkleys of Broadway.

1940–1947: Drifting to an early retirement[link]

In 1939, Astaire left RKO to freelance and pursue new film opportunities, with mixed though generally successful outcomes. Throughout this period, Astaire continued to value the input of choreographic collaborators and, unlike the 1930s when he worked almost exclusively with Hermes Pan, he tapped the talents of other choreographers in an effort to continually innovate. His first post-Ginger dance partner was the redoubtable Eleanor Powell—considered the finest female tap-dancer of her generation—in Broadway Melody of 1940 where they performed a celebrated extended dance routine to Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine". In his autobiography Steps in Time, Astaire remarked, "She 'put 'em down like a man', no ricky-ticky-sissy stuff with Ellie. She really knocked out a tap dance in a class by herself."

He played alongside Bing Crosby in Holiday Inn (1942) and later Blue Skies (1946), but in spite of the enormous financial success of both, was reportedly dissatisfied with roles where he lost the girl to Crosby. The former film is particularly remembered for his virtuoso solo dance to "Let's Say it with Firecrackers" while the latter film featured an innovative song and dance routine to a song indelibly associated with him: "Puttin' on the Ritz". Other partners during this period included Paulette Goddard in Second Chorus (1940), in which he dance-conducted the Artie Shaw orchestra.

with Rita Hayworth in You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

He made two pictures with Rita Hayworth, the daughter of his former vaudeville dance idols, the Cansinos: the first You'll Never Get Rich (1941) catapulted Hayworth to stardom and provided Astaire with his first opportunity to integrate Latin-American dance idioms into his style, taking advantage of Hayworth's professional Latin dance pedigree. His second film with Hayworth, You Were Never Lovelier (1942) was equally successful, and featured a duet to Kern's "I'm Old Fashioned" which became the centerpiece of Jerome Robbins's 1983 New York City Ballet tribute to Astaire. He next appeared opposite the seventeen-year-old Joan Leslie in the wartime drama The Sky's the Limit (1943) where he introduced Arlen and Mercer's "One for My Baby" while dancing on a bar counter in a dark and troubled routine. This film which was choreographed by Astaire alone and achieved modest box office success, represented an important departure for Astaire from his usual charming happy-go-lucky screen persona and confused contemporary critics.

His next partner, Lucille Bremer, was featured in two lavish vehicles, both directed by Vincente Minnelli: the fantasy Yolanda and the Thief which featured an avant-garde surrealistic ballet, and the musical revue Ziegfeld Follies (1946) which featured a memorable teaming of Astaire with Gene Kelly to "The Babbit and the Bromide", a Gershwin song Astaire had introduced with his sister Adele back in 1927. While Follies was a hit, Yolanda bombed at the box office and Astaire, ever insecure and believing his career was beginning to falter surprised his audiences by announcing his retirement during the production of Blue Skies (1946), nominating "Puttin' on the Ritz" as his farewell dance.

After announcing his retirement in 1946, Astaire concentrated on his horse-racing interests and went on to found the Fred Astaire Dance Studios in 1947—which he subsequently sold in 1966.

1948–1957: Productive years with MGM and second retirement[link]

In Daddy Long Legs (1955)

However, he soon returned to the big screen to replace the injured Kelly in Easter Parade opposite Judy Garland, Ann Miller and Peter Lawford, and for a final reunion with Rogers in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949). He then went on to make more musicals throughout the 1950s: Let's Dance (1950) with Betty Hutton, Royal Wedding (1951) with Jane Powell, Three Little Words (1950) and The Belle of New York (1952) with Vera-Ellen, The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957) with Cyd Charisse, Daddy Long Legs (1955) with Leslie Caron, and Funny Face (1957) with Audrey Hepburn.

During 1952 Astaire recorded The Astaire Story, a four-volume album with a quintet led by Oscar Peterson. The album provided a musical overview of Astaire's career, and was produced by Norman Granz. The Astaire Story later won the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999, a special Grammy award to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."^[28]

His legacy at this point was 30 musical films in 25 years. Afterwards, Astaire announced that he was retiring from dancing in film to concentrate on dramatic acting, scoring rave reviews for the nuclear war drama On the Beach (1959).

1958–1981: Branching out into televised dance and straight acting[link]

Astaire did not retire from dancing completely. He made a series of four highly rated Emmy Award-winning musical specials for television in 1958, 1959, 1960, and 1968, each featuring Barrie Chase, with whom Astaire enjoyed an Indian summer of dance creativity. The first of these programs, 1958's An Evening with Fred Astaire, won nine Emmy Awards, including "Best Single Performance by an Actor" and "Most Outstanding Single Program of the Year." It was also noteworthy for being the first major broadcast to be prerecorded on color videotape, and has recently been restored. The restoration won technical Emmy in 1988 for Ed Reitan, Don Kent, and Dan Einstein, who restored the original videotape, transferring its contents to a modern format, and filling in gaps where the tape had deteriorated with kinescope footage. Astaire personally won the Emmy for Best Single Performance by an Actor but the choice had a controversial backlash because many felt that his dancing in the special was not the type of "acting" the award was designed for. At one point Astaire even offered to return the award, but the Television Academy refused to consider it.^[29]

Fred played the role of Julian Osborne in the 1959 movie On the Beach and was nominated a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor award for his performance, losing to Stephen Boyd in Ben Hur . Astaire's last major musical film was Finian's Rainbow (1968), directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He shed his white tie and tails to play an Irish rogue who believes if he buries a crock of gold in the shadows of Fort Knox it will multiply. His dance partner was Petula Clark, who portrayed his skeptical daughter. He admitted to being as nervous about singing with her as she confessed to being apprehensive about dancing with him. Unfortunately, the film was a box-office failure, though it has gained a strong reputation over the years since its release.

Astaire continued to act into the 1970s, appearing on television as the father of Robert Wagner's character of Alexander Mundy in It Takes a Thief and in films such as The Towering Inferno (1974), in which he danced with Jennifer Jones and for which he received his only Academy Award nomination, in the category of Best Supporting Actor. He voiced the mailman narrator in 1970's classic animated film Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (TV special). He appeared in the first two That's Entertainment! documentaries in the mid 1970s. In the second, aged seventy-six, he performed a number of song-and-dance routines with Kelly, his last dance performances in a musical film. In the summer of 1975, he made three albums in London, Attitude Dancing, They Can't Take These Away From Me, and A Couple of Song and Dance Men, the last an album of duets with Bing Crosby. In 1976, he played a supporting role as a dog owner in the cult movie The Amazing Dobermans, co-starring Barbara Eden and James Franciscus. Fred Astaire played Dr. Seamus Scully in the French film The Purple Taxi (1977). In 1978, he co-starred with Helen Hayes in a well-received television film, A Family Upside Down, in which they play an elderly couple coping with failing health. Astaire won an Emmy Award for his performance. He made a well-publicized guest appearance on the science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica in 1979, as Chameleon, the possible father of Starbuck, in "The Man with Nine Lives", a role written for him by Donald P. Bellisario. Astaire asked his agent to obtain a role for him on Galactica because of his grandchildren's interest in the series. His final film role was the 1981 adaptation of Peter Straub's novel Ghost Story. This horror film was also the last for two of his most prominent castmates, Melvyn Douglas and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Working methods and influence on filmed dance[link]

Astaire dancing on the walls and ceiling in "You're All the World to Me"^[30] from Royal Wedding (1951)

Astaire was a virtuoso dancer, able to convey light-hearted venturesomeness or deep emotion when called for. His technical control and sense of rhythm were astonishing. Long after the photography for the solo dance number "I Want to Be a Dancin' Man" was completed for the 1952 feature "The Belle of New York", it was decided that Astaire's humble costume and the threadbare stage set were inadequate and the entire sequence was re-shot. The 1994 documentary That's Entertainment! III shows the two performances side-by-side in split screen. Frame for frame, the two performances are absolutely identical, down to the subtlest gesture.

Astaire's execution of a dance routine was prized for its elegance, grace, originality and precision. He drew from a variety of influences, including tap and other black rhythms, classical dance and the elevated style of Vernon and Irene Castle, to create a uniquely recognizable dance style which greatly influenced the American Smooth style of ballroom dance, and set standards against which subsequent film dance musicals would be judged. He termed his eclectic approach his "outlaw style", an unpredictable and instinctive blending of personal artistry. His dances are economical yet endlessly nuanced, as Jerome Robbins stated, "Astaire's dancing looks so simple, so disarming, so easy, yet the understructure, the way he sets the steps on, over or against the music, is so surprising and inventive."^[17]:18 Astaire further observes:

Working out the steps is a very complicated process—something like writing music. You have to think of some step that flows into the next one, and the whole dance must have an integrated pattern. If the dance is right, there shouldn't be a single superfluous movement. It should build to a climax and stop!^[17]:15

With very few exceptions, Astaire created his routines in collaboration with other choreographers, primarily Hermes Pan. They would often start with a blank slate:

For maybe a couple of days we wouldn't get anywhere—just stand in front of the mirror and fool around ... Then suddenly I'd get an idea or one of them would get an idea ... So then we'd get started ... You might get practically the whole idea of the routine done that day, but then you'd work on it, edit it, scramble it, and so forth. It might take sometimes as long as two, three weeks to get something going.^[17]:15

Frequently, a dance sequence was built around two or three principal ideas, sometimes inspired by his own steps or by the music itself, suggesting a particular mood or action.^[17]:20 Many of his dances were built around a "gimmick", such as dancing on the walls in "Royal Wedding," or dancing with his shadows in Swing Time, that he or his collaborator had thought up earlier and saved for the right situation. They would spend weeks creating all the dance sequences in a secluded rehearsal space before filming would begin, working with a rehearsal pianist (often the composer Hal Borne) who in turn would communicate modifications to the musical orchestrators.

His perfectionism was legendary; however, his relentless insistence on rehearsals and retakes was a burden to some. When time approached for the shooting of a number, Astaire would rehearse for another two weeks, and record the singing and music. With all the preparation completed, the actual shooting would go quickly, conserving costs. Astaire agonized during the entire process, frequently asking colleagues for acceptance for his work, as Vincente Minnelli stated, "He lacks confidence to the most enormous degree of all the people in the world. He will not even go to see his rushes ... He always thinks he is no good."^[17]:16 As Astaire himself observed, "I've never yet got anything 100% right. Still it's never as bad as I think it is."^[17]:16

Although he viewed himself as an entertainer first and foremost, his consummate artistry won him the admiration of such twentieth century dance legends as Gene Kelly, George Balanchine, the Nicholas Brothers, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Margot Fonteyn, Bob Fosse, Gregory Hines, Rudolf Nureyev, Michael Jackson and Bill Robinson. Balanchine compared him to Bach, describing him as "the most interesting, the most inventive, the most elegant dancer of our times", while for Baryshnikov he was "a genius ... a classical dancer like I never saw in my life".

Influence on popular song[link]

Extremely modest about his singing abilities (he frequently claimed that he could not sing,^[31] but the critics rated him as among the finest), Astaire introduced some of the most celebrated songs from the Great American Songbook, in particular, Cole Porter's: "Night and Day" in Gay Divorce (1932); Irving Berlin's "Isn't This a Lovely Day?", "Cheek to Cheek" and "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" in Top Hat (1935), "Let's Face the Music and Dance" in Follow the Fleet (1936) and "Change Partners" in Carefree (1938). He first presented Jerome Kern's "The Way You Look Tonight" in Swing Time (1936); the Gershwins' "They Can't Take That Away From Me" in Shall We Dance (1937), "A Foggy Day" and "Nice Work if You Can Get it" in A Damsel in Distress (1937); Johnny Mercer's "One for My Baby" from The Sky's the Limit (1943) and "Something's Gotta Give" from Daddy Long Legs (1955); and Harry Warren and Arthur Freed's "This Heart of Mine" from Ziegfeld Follies (1946).

Astaire singing in Second Chorus (1940)

Astaire also co-introduced a number of song classics via song duets with his partners. For example, with his sister Adele, he co-introduced the Gershwins' "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" from Stop Flirting (1923), "Fascinating Rhythm" in Lady, Be Good (1924), "Funny Face" in Funny Face (1927); and, in duets with Ginger Rogers, he presented Irving Berlin's "I'm Putting all My Eggs in One Basket" in Follow the Fleet (1936), Jerome Kern's "Pick Yourself Up" and "A Fine Romance" in Swing Time (1936), along with The Gershwins' "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" from Shall We Dance (1937). With Judy Garland, he sang Irving Berlin's "A Couple of Swells" from Easter Parade (1948); and, with Jack Buchanan, Oscar Levant, and Nanette Fabray he delivered Betty Comden and Adolph Green's "That's Entertainment" from The Band Wagon (1953).

Although he possessed a light voice, he was admired for his lyricism, diction and phrasing^[32]—the grace and elegance so prized in his dancing seemed to be reflected in his singing, a capacity for synthesis which led Burton Lane to describe him as "The world's greatest musical performer."^[17]:21 Irving Berlin considered Astaire the equal of any male interpreter of his songs—"as good as Jolson, Crosby or Sinatra, not necessarily because of his voice, but for his conception of projecting a song."^[33] Jerome Kern considered him the supreme male interpreter of his songs^[17]:21 and Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer also admired his unique treatment of their work. And while George Gershwin was somewhat critical of Astaire's singing abilities, he wrote many of his most memorable songs for him.^[17]:123,128 In his heyday, Astaire was referenced^[33] in lyrics of songwriters Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart and Eric Maschwitz and continues to inspire modern songwriters.^[34]

Astaire was a songwriter of note himself, with "I'm Building Up to an Awful Letdown" (written with lyricist Johnny Mercer) reaching number four in the Hit Parade of 1936.^[35] He recorded his own "It's Just Like Taking Candy from a Baby" with Benny Goodman in 1940, and nurtured a lifelong ambition to be a successful popular song composer.^[36]

Awards, honors and tributes[link]

• 1938: Invited to place his hand and foot prints in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood.^[37]
• 1950: Ginger Rogers presented an honorary Academy Award to Astaire "for his unique artistry and his contributions to the technique of musical pictures".

Astaire's hand and foot prints at Grauman's Chinese Theater

• 1950: Golden Globe for "Best Motion Picture Actor -Music/Comedy" for Three Little Words
• 1958: Emmy Award for "Best Single Performance by an Actor" for An Evening with Fred Astaire
• 1959: Dance Magazine award
• 1960: Nominated for Emmy Award for "Program Achievement" for Another Evening with Fred Astaire
• 1960: Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for "Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures"
• 1961: Emmy Award for "Program Achievement" in 1961 for Astaire Time
• 1961: Voted Champion of Champions—Best Television performer in annual television critics and columnists poll conducted by Television Today and Motion Picture Daily
• 1965: The George Eastman Award^[38] from the George Eastman House for "outstanding contributions to motion pictures"
• 1968: Nominated for an Emmy Award for Musical Variety Program for The Fred Astaire Show
• 1972: Named Musical Comedy Star of the Century by Liberty, "The Nostalgia Magazine".^[39]
• 1973: Subject of a Gala by the Film Society of Lincoln Center
• 1975: Academy Award nomination for The Towering Inferno
• 1975: Golden Globe for "Best Supporting Actor", BAFTA and David di Donatello awards for The Towering Inferno

Plaque honoring Astaire in Lismore

• 1978: Emmy Award for "Best Actor—Drama or Comedy Special" for A Family Upside Down
• 1978: Honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
• 1978: First recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors
• 1978: National Artist Award from the American National Theatre Association for "contributing immeasurably to the American Theatre"
• 1981: The Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute
• 1982: The Anglo-American Contemporary Dance Foundation announces the Astaire Awards "to honor Fred Astaire and his sister Adele and to reward the achievement of an outstanding dancer or dancers". The awards have since been renamed The Fred and Adele Astaire Awards
• 1987: The Capezio Dance Shoe Award (co-awarded with Rudolph Nureyev)
• 1987: Inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York
• 1989: Posthumous award of Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
• 1989: Posthumous induction into the Television Hall of Fame
• 1991: Posthumous induction into the Ballroom Dancer's Hall of Fame
• 1999: Posthumous award of Grammy Hall of Fame Award for 1952 The Astaire Story album
• 2000: Ava Astaire McKenzie unveils a plaque in honor of her father, erected by the citizens of Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland
• 2008: Conference to honor the life and work of Fred Astaire at Oriel College, University of Oxford, June 21–24.^[40]

Built in 1905, the Gottlieb Storz Mansion in Astaire's hometown of Omaha includes the "Adele and Fred Astaire Ballroom" on the top floor, which is the only memorial to their Omaha roots.^[41]

Astaire is referenced in the 2003 animated feature, The Triplets of Belleville, in which he is eaten by his shoes after a fast-paced dance act.

Personal life[link]

Politically, Astaire was a conservative and a lifelong Republican Party supporter,^[42] though he never made his political views publicly known.^[43] Along with Bing Crosby, George Murphy, Ginger Rogers and others he was a charter (founding) member of the Hollywood Republican Committee.^[44] He was churchgoing, supportive of American military action and was dismissive of the more open sexiness of movies in the 1970s.^[43]

Always immaculately turned out, he and Cary Grant were called "the best-dressed actor[s] in American movies".^[45] Astaire remained a male fashion icon even into his later years, eschewing his trademark top hat, white tie and tails (for which he never really cared)^[46] in favor of a breezy casual style of tailored sports jackets, colored shirts, cravats and slacks—the latter usually held up by the idiosyncratic use of an old tie in place of a belt.

Astaire was married for the first time in 1933, to the 25-year-old Phyllis Potter (née Phyllis Livingston Baker; born 1908, died September 13, 1954), a Boston-born New York socialite and former wife of Eliphalet Nott Potter III (1906–1981), after pursuing her ardently for roughly two years. Phyllis's death from lung cancer, at the age of 46, ended 21 years of a blissful marriage and left Astaire devastated.^[47] Astaire attempted to drop out of the film Daddy Long Legs (1955), offering to pay the production costs to date, but was persuaded to stay.^[48]

In addition to Phyllis Potter's son, Eliphalet IV (known as Peter), the Astaires had two children. Fred, Jr. (born January 1, 1936) appeared with his father in the movie Midas Run, but became a charter pilot and rancher instead of an actor. He married Gale (born 1938) in 1956. Ava Astaire McKenzie (born March 19, 1942; married Richard MacKenzie) remains actively involved in promoting her late father's heritage.

His friend, David Niven, described him as "a pixie—timid, always warm-hearted, with a penchant for schoolboy jokes." Astaire was a lifelong golf and Thoroughbred horse racing enthusiast. In 1946 his horse Triplicate won the prestigious Hollywood Gold Cup and San Juan Capistrano Handicap. He remained physically active well into his eighties. At age seventy-eight, he broke his left wrist while riding his grandson's skateboard.^[49]

On June 24, 1980, he was married again, to Robyn Smith (born August 14, 1944), a jockey 45 years his junior, who rode for Alfred G. Vanderbilt II.

Astaire died from pneumonia on June 22, 1987. He was 88 years old. He was interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California.^[50] One last request of his was to thank his fans for their years of support.

Astaire's life has never been portrayed on film.^[51] He always refused permission for such portrayals, saying, "However much they offer me—and offers come in all the time—I shall not sell."^[52] Astaire's will included a clause requesting that no such portrayal ever take place; he commented, "It is there because I have no particular desire to have my life misinterpreted, which it would be."^[53]

Stage, film and television work[link]

Musical films[link]

*Performances with Ginger Rogers

See also[link]

Dance portal

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Astaire, Fred. Steps in Time, 1959, OCLC 422937
• Billman, Larry. Fred Astaire: A Bio-bibliography, Greenwood Press 1997, ISBN 0-313-29010-5
• Boyer, G. Bruce. Fred Astaire Style, Assouline 2005, ISBN 2-84323-677-0
• Croce, Arlene. The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book, Galahad Books 1974, ISBN 0-88365-099-1
• Crouse, Jeffrey. "Letting His Wish Provide the Occasion: Fred Astaire in Top Hat", Film International, No. 5, 2003.
• Freeland, Michael. Fred Astaire: An Illustrated Biography, Grosset & Dunlap, 1976. ISBN 0-448-14080-2
• Garofalo, Alessandra. Austerlitz sounded too much like a battle: The roots of Fred Astaire family in Europe, Editrice UNI Service, 2009. ISBN 978-88-6178-415-4
• Giles, Sarah. Fred Astaire: His Friends Talk, Bloomsbury, London, 1988, ISBN 0-7475-0322-2
• Green, Benny. Fred Astaire, Bookthrift Co. 1980, ISBN 0-89673-018-2
• Green, Stanley, & Burt Goldblatt. Starring Fred Astaire, Dodd 1973, ISBN 0-396-06877-4
• Hyam, Hannah. Fred and Ginger: The Astaire-Rogers Partnership 1934–1938, Pen Press Publications, Brighton, 2007. ISBN 978-1-905621-96-5
• Jarman, Colin. Dancing On Astaire: The Quotable Fred Astaire. Blue Eyed Books, London. 2010. ISBN 978-1-907338-08-3
• Lamparski, Richard. Manhattan Diary. BearManor Media 2006 ISBN 1-59393-054-2
• Mueller, John. Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films of Fred Astaire, Knopf 1985, ISBN 0-394-51654-0
• Mueller, John. Astaire Dancing - The Musical Films of Fred Astaire, 25th Anniversary Edition—Digitally Enhanced, The Educational Publisher 2010, ISBN 1-934849-31-6
• Satchell, Tim. Astaire, The Biography. Hutchinson, London. 1987. ISBN 0-09-173736-2
• Thomas, Bob. Astaire, the Man, The Dancer. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1985. ISBN 0-297-78402-1
• The Astaire Family Papers, The Howard Gotleib Archival Research Center, Boston University, MA, U.S.A.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Fred Astaire

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Fred Astaire

• Fred Astaire at AllRovi
• Fred Astaire at the Internet Broadway Database
• Fred Astaire at the Internet Movie Database
• Fred Astaire at the TCM Movie Database
• Fred Astaire tribute site
• Fred Astaire biography at AlsoDances.Net
• Time.com: The Great American Flyer Fred Astaire:1899-1987
• Time Magazine archive: Astaire essay by Richard Corliss
• Astaire's religious views incl. many extracts from his biographers
• Astaire or Kelly: A Generation Apart at Indian Auteur
• Ava Astaire discusses her father's legacy (BBC Television—Realplayer required)]
• "He's in Heaven ... "—In Memoriam Fred Astaire
• Radio Interview—Fred Astaire—1968
• Links to photos of Astaire
• "Fred Astaire and the art of fun": an essay on the Oxford Fred Astaire conference from TLS, July 16, 2008.
• Fred Astaire in the 1900 US Census, 1910 US Census, and Social Security Death Index.

Ginger Rogers
Born	Virginia Katherine McMath (1911-07-16)July 16, 1911 Independence, Missouri
Died	April 25, 1995(1995-04-25) (aged 83) Rancho Mirage, California
Occupation	Actress, singer, artist, and dancer
Years active	1929–1987
Spouse	Jack Pepper (m.1929–1931; divorced) Lew Ayres (m.1934–1941; divorced) Jack Briggs (m.1943–1949; divorced) Jacques Bergerac (m.1953–1957; divorced) William Marshall (m.1961–1969; 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 was best known as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten Hollywood musical films that revolutionized the genre. She achieved great success on her own 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[link]

Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri, the only child of William Eddins McMath, an electrical engineer, and his wife, Lela Emogene (née Owens; 1891–1977).^[1] 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. After her mother denied him visitation, her father reportedly absconded with his daughter 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).^{[citation needed]}

One of Rogers' young cousins, Helen, had a hard time pronouncing "Virginia", shortening it to "Ginga"; the nickname stuck. When "Ginga" was nine years old, her mother remarried, to John Logan Rogers. Ginger took the surname Rogers, although 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. She 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.^{[citation needed]}

Vaudeville and Broadway[link]

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.^[2]

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[link]

1929–1933[link]

Pre-blonde, early career portrait

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 Exchange. 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.

1933–1939: Astaire and Rogers[link]

The announcement of the Astaire-Rogers screen partnership – from the trailer to Flying Down to Rio

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".^{[citation needed]} 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".^{[citation needed]} 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."^{[citation needed]} 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."^{[citation needed]}

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[link]

Ginger Rogers's feet and hand prints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre

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 later 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 in which she dreams of marrying three different men; I'll Be Seeing You, 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), with David Niven, in which she played Polly Parrish, a shop girl who is falsely thought 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.

Ginger Rogers in the Oscar-winning, title role of Kitty Foyle

In 1941, 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.

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 movies. 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. 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.^{[citation needed]}

With Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe in Monkey Business (1952)