16 July: Ginger Rogers

Fred Astaire's best known dance partner, Ginger Rogers, was born on this date in 1911. 10 things you might not know about her.

1. Her real name was Virginia Katherine McMath. She got the name Ginger from a young cousin who couldn't pronounce Virginia properly.
2. By the time she was born, her parents had split up. Her mother, Lelee, had lost a baby giving birth in a hospital - her father wanted Lelee to give birth in hospital again, so Lelee left him. Ginger's father kidnapped her twice when she was a child until eventually Lelee took him to court. When Ginger was nine, her mother married John Rogers, and even though she was never legally adopted by him, Ginger took his name.
3. Her mother had no more children so Ginger was raised an only child. She and her mother were close. Lelee, a scriptwriter, once wrote a children's book with Ginger as the central character.
4. Her dancing career started in 1925 when she won a Charleston contest at the age of 14. This got her a Vaudeville contract and for the next three years she appeared in several shows, under her mother's guidance.
5. She married five times. The first time was at the age of 17, to Jack Culpepper, an entertainer who used the stage name Jack Pepper. They formed an act together called Ginger and Pepper, but both the act and the marriage ended within a few months. In 1934, she married actor Lew Ayres. They divorced seven years later. She married Jack Briggs in 1943. He was a US marine. They divorced after her returned from World War II. In 1953, she met a French actor called Jacques Bergerac, who was 16 years younger than she was. They divorced in 1957. She married director and producer William Marshall in 1961. They divorced in 1969.
6. Ginger made her Broadway debut in a show called Top Speed. This was soon followed by a starring role in Girl Crazy by George and Ira Gershwin. This made her a star at the age of 19. One of the choreographers working on that show was none other than Fred Astaire.
7. She made 19 films before being paired with Fred. Flying Down to Rio (1933), was her 20th film appearance but only Fred's second. They made nine films together. Ginger was Fred Astaire's favourite partner. One factor was perhaps her resilience under stress. Astaire said of her "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".
8. Not all of her films had dancing in them. She starred in a number of non-musical films, too, including Stage Door, Vivacious Lady and Bachelor Mother. In 1941, Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in 1940's Kitty Foyle.
9. It's often said of her that, while Fred Astaire may have been great, Ginger Rogers did everything he did...backwards and in high heels. However, as is often the case even today, in the 1930s she didn't earn as much as Fred did. In fact, she didn't earn as much as some of the lesser actors. She'd fight for her salary and contract rights, which led to strained relationships with her bosses.
10. Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, were big fans of Ginger Rogers. She was included in the gallery of magazine cuttings they put up on the wall in the house where they hid from the Nazis. Now the house is a museum, the pictures are still there.

See also: Fred Astaire