Why is Ginger Rogers never compared to Hepburn, Davis, Crawford, or Stanwyck?

You never recover from singing "We're in the Money" in Pig Latin.

Or a giant coin covering your cootch.

She has one Oscar more than Stanwyck.

If you have to ask... 🙄

Ginger had a life. She was very close with her mother even though Ginger was married five times.

Granted I don't know that much of her but when I hear her name I immediately think she was a blonde bombshell, i.e. a sex symbol. Hepburn, Davis, Crawford and Stanwyck most certainly were not.

Crawford was a sex symbol in the 30s and considered the most beautiful woman in the world, besides maybe Garbo. I don't recall Ginger ever being considered a great beauty, especially not after the 30s.

R7, you're probably right about Rogers. For some reason I only remember seeing her in tons of swimsuit images but now that I google her I don't see any so I was probably thinking of other blondes from the period. It's hard to image Crawford being a huge sex symbol since she always seemed so masculine but I guess you're right.

Ginger was an excellent comic actress in her prime, but after winning the Oscar for a not so great dramatic performance, she started taking herself VERY seriously. Her last great performance is probably THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR in 1942. She's brilliant in it, and it's a great picture. (and Billy WIlder's first as a director.)

She's excellent in Carefree (the only Fred/Ginger movie that really focuses on her) and Stage Door where she steals the movie from Katharine Hepburn. Kitty Foyle was a very mediocre performance which any of her contemporaries could have done in their sleep. Her absolute worst must be when she's playing a dramatic stage queen in Black Widow.

No, far worse, is in BARKLEYS OF BROAWAY, playing Sarah Bernhardt. So bad, it's hilarious.

She lost her looks and her features coarsened early.

R11 Is that where she has a full scene in French? I don't know enough French to tell if she was giving a deliberately bad performance or not.

Her good movie roles dried up in the late 1940s, and she never really came back. She had better luck with "Hello Dolly" and "Mame" on the stage...

Who?

I love her in Storm Warning. Even though Ronald Reagan is in it, it's worth it to see Ginger get whipped, and Doris Day dies! What more could you want?

Dammit R16. Next time put a spoiler warning!

She always looked cheap and over-accessorized.

She was a lousy actress who only had a career because Fred Astaire was such a great dancer.

Ginger and her mother were notorious right wing cunts always on the lookout of 'reds under the beds'.

Pathetic in old age when she'd be wheeled out in her wheel chair. People applauded just to be polite.

Hepburn, Davis, Crawford, Stanwyck were stars in their own right. They didn't need a talented male co-star to prop them up.

Good God, r19. Just stick a cucumber up that sour cunt of yours and you'll have a pickle in just fifteen minutes.

Rogers was terrific at comedy--she was nothing short of hilarious in STAGE DOOR and TOM, DICK, AND HARRY, and BACHELOR MOTHER. Her masterpiece, though, is really THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR, whichw as probably the best screenplay she ever got to work with, and allowed her to show her superb gift at mimicry (doing both her mother mother Leila Rogers and Rita Johnson). It helped that she had such a wonderful supporting cast: Diana Lynn is very funny as Johnson's wise-beyond-her-years kid sister, and Ray Milland was never more winning.

The one thing Rogers was not good at, though, was straight drama, and she's a huge disappointment in KITTY FOYLE and TENDER COMRADE. And I agree her beauty coarsened as she aged--after the War, she just wasn't attractive onscreen anymore.

She was coarse.

I bet her real name was Gertrude.

Watching Kitty Foyle you can't help but think that Crawford or Stanwyck would have really elevated the role. Crawford especially excelled in playing roles like this, whether it was Mildred Pierce, Daisy Kenyon, or Sadie McKee.

Ginger tried to do drama but they wouldn't let her. You know, "No one'll go see Ginger in a drama!" She was , in fact, much more impressive in the musicals than the sporadic sentimental tearjerkers she did, when she registered pretty plain. You had to be a hardcover Ginger lover to enjoy those.

hardcore* Ginger lover

Never changed her hairstyle. Looked kike a burned out 80 year old WHORE.

I know her only from the Madonna song.

Which, I admit, is sad on my part.

All the other actresses you listed I am very aware of and have seen in multiple films.

That's my guess as to why.

[Quote] when she's playing a dramatic stage queen

Now I'm visualizing Ginger Rogers playing Mandy Patinkin.

I avoid watching movies with certain stars: Bing Crosby (no exceptions), Loretta Young (except The Bishop's Wife and The Stranger) and Ginger Rogers (except Stage Door and The Major and the Minor). She is not a dramatic actress and looks too harsh. And ever since I read that Judy Garland sent her a shaving kit to "congratulate" her after being replaced in "The Barkleys of Broadway" I can't look at her without seeing a face covered in peach fuzz.

Wrigley's … …

Her acting was much better in the 1930s. I recommend Romance in Manhattan, with the delicious, adorable Czech Francis Lederer

OP Because she was neither a great actress, a great beauty, or a great style icon.

If she hadn't been in the right place T the right time to team up with Astaire, she'd have stayed a chorine back-row chorus dancer for her entire life.

Hepburn? The Hepburn from THE NUN'S STORY? The Hepburn from CHARADE?

The Stanwyck from DOUBLE INDEMNITY?

Please.

Disagree. At her best, Ginger was great. She wasn't simply lucky.

If you hunt down and watch "Storm Warning" co-starring Doris Day and Ronald Reagan, you will note that the other co-star is the amazingly sexy Steve Cochran who was mentioned as being in the league of hung actors along with Forrest Tucker and John Ireland.

Also, the film is really good and kind of shocking as the spoiler that was revealed upthread notes.

My sister loves Rogers. To me she is excellent in her teaming with Fred. No one ever really gave a damn about the plots. She is dancing backwards in a dress. Sorry but that is a great dancer. I like her in “Storm Warning “and “ The Major and the Minor “ but that’s it. She always looks and speaks like a low brow- although that works for her in “ Primrose Path”. Ginger also never has good chemistry with her male co-stars outside of Fred. Not with Joel McCrea, or Cary Grant or Ray Milland. As for acting chops none the other actors mentioned were not craft workers- actors trying to make great performances. During the war she had no memorable roles. During the fifties she looked like your friend’s mother who had smoked too much and stayed out in the sun, and kept her hair blonde to look young.

[quote]Why is Ginger Rogers never compared to Hepburn, Davis, Crawford, or Stanwyck?

Says who, you repetitive and stupid cunt?

I think her mother was more annoying than she was. Rogers was a loyal friend and had a wide circle of friends including Bette Davis, Lucille Ball, and Harriet Nelson---it must have been exhausting to be a friend of both Davis and Ball. She lacked a certain "class" and tried to compensate for it in later years---probably at her best singing "We're in the Money" in Pig Latin, out mugging Ruby Keeler. Her last film for RKO was one of several that have been credited with sinking the studio. She, of course, turned up on "Love Boat"; perhaps she was too infirm for "Murder, She Wrote".

I'm still laughing at R20's comment.

She's pretty funny as Roxie in "Roxie Hart" and works well with Adolphe Menjou. The movie has some great bits, but, for me, the laughs were hit and miss; I was surprised to see Stanley Kubrick had it on his list of 10 favorite films.

Could not stand her. She was lucky to get gifted with her Oscar because her performance was hardly a breakthrough. Hardcore Republican red-baiting bigot to boot. She couldn’t have had much of a life if she was joined at the hip with her mother. Not a great dramatic actress to me. Not at all. She was fine as long as she was dancing.

She danced on air!

Her Roxie deserves a clip...

Rockin' a wedding dress...

That wedding dress in r43 is ridiculous.

Well, r44, it *is* a dream sequence.

Seriously? She was an entertainer. She didn’t create memorable characters on screen, always played a variation on the same light personality. That’s not a criticism because she’s an immortal.?

I love Ginger. She was at her best in musicals and comedies, but that is no small thing. She was delightful in movies like the Astaire-Rogers musicals, Gold Diggers of 1933, 42nd Street, Stage Door, Vivacious Lady, Roxie Hart, Bachelor Mother, and The Major and the Minor--charming, down-to-earth, and incredibly likable.

While she lacked the depth to excel in the kind of dramatic roles that were catnip to Hepburn, Davis, et al., when she was well cast she could still shine even in "serious" movies. For example, she's quite moving in The Primrose Path and in I'll Be Seeing You (one of my favorite Christmas movies).

But she was at her best in lighter material. That's okay. It's not like Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, or Joan Crawford would have done well in the Busby Berkeley or Astaire-Rogers musicals, or any of them had the particular kind of comic gifts demanded by films like Roxie Hart or The Major and the Minor.

The people saying that she only had a career because of Fred Astaire's dancing are half right. Fred Astaire was a sexless deadweight on screen who couldn't manage to eke out romantic chemistry with any of the top tier female dancers they kept throwing at him. Ginger was the only one who could stare at him adoringly in a convincing way while they danced, and she could follow him perfectly instead of trying to do her own thing or take the spotlight. In that way, she made him a believable romantic lead and he made her a believable star. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

Yeah, yeah, r48, he gave her class and she gave him sex appeal.

Apparently not enough because half this thread has been "She was nothing without Fred Astaire" comments from people who have probably never seen any of her films.

Everyone's right about her nightmare of a mother though.

Darlings, she's your Auntie Mame!

Funny, just yesterday I saw a picture of Fred Astaire and his wife on the golf course. I had never thought about him having a wife and have never heard anything about them as a couple. He did always seem sexless to me.

Pauline Kael, a notoriously tough critic who could be brutal on actors, loved Ginger Rogers. Some examples:

on Ginger in Bachelor Mother: "Ginger Rogers was an astonishingly straightforward, good-natured comedienne. She played dozens of variations on Cinderella, and looked surprised each time she caught the prince."

on Ginger in Stage Door: "Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers are terrific wisecracking partners. (Rogers, at her liveliest, holds her own with apparent ease.)"

on Ginger in Vivacious Lady: "Ginger Rogers (supremely likable here)"

Kael didn't care for Ginger's Oscar-winning performance in Kitty Foyle, but even so she makes it clear how much she admired Rogers generally. "In a long career of giving pleasure, this is one of the few occasions when she failed; it isn't her worst acting (that's probably in Tender Comrade) but there's nothing in the soggy material to release the distinctive Ginger Rogers sense of fun."

As for Rogers' right-wing political views: well, she certain wasn't alone. Many beloved Hollywood icons had perfectly awful politics, including Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Rosalind Russell, and many more.

But honestly, why would you expect any better from a bunch of rich white people, a group that historically has always been a bastion of reaction?

I am always pleasantly surprised when I learn that my favorite old school Hollywood stars had progressive politics. But left-leaning stars like Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Bogie, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, John Garfield, Orson Welles, Myrna Loy, and Robert Ryan tended to be the exception rather than the rule.

I prefer to judge artists and entertainers, past and present, on their work rather than their politics (unless there is evidence that their politics negatively influenced their work). Many individuals who who have had terrible politics and/or were terrible people have nevertheless been enormously talented and produced first-rate work. Ginger Rogers is one among many.

Joan Crawford was a Democrat.

I bet Ginger hated Doris

There's an interview Bette Davis gave back in the early 70s I believe. Where she said out of her own mouth that Democrats are for the people, that they want to help make people's lives better. And Republicans are greedy and only care about money & business interests.

It made me live Bette even more. That interview is on YouTube. I forgot who was interviewing her, but the interview took place in a hotel room in NYC in the in either the late 60s or early 70s. It's one of the more recent of her interviews to be posted on YouTube.

Davis was definitely a Democrat!

She wore GOWNS BY TRAVILLA in three of her films: Dreamboat, Monkey Business and Black Widow.

Ginger & Bob '56

Ginger doing the Charleston with Lucy. They're the same age and Ginger looks like she's auditioning for Baby Jane.

One of the many reasons why the Astaire-Rogers dance numbers work so well is because the emotion Ginger brings to performing those dances. Astaire is all excellent technique, but Rogers acts her way through them, portraying whatever emotion the character is experiencing. That's where she's best as an actress.

In her later years, I think Ginger Rogers gave one of her best performances as the mother seeking to re-connect with her long estranged teenage daughter in the misleadingly titled "Teenage Rebel". Ginger brings a warmth and maturity to the role and a bit of a fun. The archness that came into her later performances isn't there in Teenage Rebel.

R55, do you have any evidence that Crawford was a Democrat? I looked and couldn't find any.

That said, I acknowledge that I was wrong to list her as a conservative. I identified her as such because I've seen her name on some lists of Hollywood conservatives. But just now, I did an internet search as well as a search in several of the biographies that have been written about her, and I wasn't able to find any definitive or detailed info about her politics. There was no mention of any causes, candidates, or parties she supported--nada.

As best as I can tell, she seems to have been pretty apolitical. Though if anyone has info to the contrary please provide it.

'78

“ Judy Garland sent her a shaving kit to "congratulate" her after being replaced in "The Barkleys of Broadway"”

Shit….that’s delicious.

For r62:

R54 You lost all credibility when you called Joan Crawford a Republican when it's well documented she was a Democrat. She was an ardent supporter of FDR and JFK. At the end of her life, she had only two pictures in her room: Barbara Stanwyck and JFK.

I find the people hating on Ginger for being a Republican to be hypocritical because there is no shortage of Barbara Stanwyck fans here on DL and she was a hardcore Republican who was a fan of Ayn Rand and married to Robert Taylor who listed names during the red scare. If you can love Barb despite all that then hating on Ginger for sharing similar views makes no sense.

Anne Baxter and Celeste Holm, two other DL favs, were both Republicans as well. And Rosalind Russell was already mentioned above for the same reason but she's practically a saint here.

Actually, r64, it was supposedly a large shaving mug with flowers in it, And supposedly Ginger was proudly showing them off and thrilled that Judy had sent her flowers. Whether or not she got the dig, well...

She was REALLY scary at the end of her life. She did not go gentle into that good night.

I heard Ginger had some gay friends plus she was besties with Lucille Ball so she couldn't have been that bad even for a Republican.

*3* GIRLS *3*

[quote]There's an interview Bette Davis gave back in the early 70s I believe. Where she said out of her own mouth that Democrats are for the people, that they want to help make people's lives better. And Republicans are greedy and only care about money & business interests.

R57 In the 70s, that was still true. Now they're both all about money and business interests and nobody is making people's lives batter.

I didn't have time to read every post but one of my favorites with Ginger is Monkey Business (1952), with Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, and Charles Coburn. Kind of falls apart and gets too frenetic, but there are a lot of laughs, and Ginger's charm She's very funny in one of the last movies with Fred, Carefree (1938). Vivacious Lady (directed by George Stevens) is great.

In the 40's Ginger was a pin-up and guys found her sexy. Other than Crawford, the other ones you mention weren't considered sex symbols.

*Ginger's charming.

Despite her hammy performance in it, I’ve always had a soft spot for “Tender Comrade.”

One of Hollywood’s number one right wingers extolling the joys of communism under the guise of a home front melodrama where all the gals pull together and do their part.

It’s almost as delightful as “Since You Went Away.” Almost.

R73 You should check out the tragic beauties thread where a certain heifer is trying to convince everyone that Joan wasn't a sex symbol in her day.

Be Kind Rewind did an excellent examination of this - you should check it out.

1940 was the worst year for the Oscars. Henry Fonda and Joan Fontaine were both robbed of Oscars by Jimmy Stewart and Ginger. At least Joan got her Oscar the very next year but poor Henry Fonda had to wait more than 40 years.

Rogers won for Kitty Foyle because the movie was based on a popular novel that had been serialized in The Saturday Evening Post, I think. She had the edge because the source material was popular. I want to thank the person who posted the sequence from Roxie Hart. I’m going to look for it now. I understand that the movie wasn’t popular and her career faltered a bit as a result.

It must have killed Joan Crawford that her performances in Susan and God and Strange Cargo were both snubbed by the Academy for Ginger's Kitty Foyle.

I'm pretty sure Ginger won because people thought of her as a musical comedy actress, and she "proved she could act" in a romantic drama. It had been building for her, for a while - people realizing what a good actress she was - in Vivacious Lady, Having Wonderful Time, Stage Door - she was proving she was more than just one half of a dance team. Though that dance team was incredibly popular, too.

Similarly, Stewart had been rising slowly for a long time and in '39 he had wowed everybody in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington - he was really great in The Philadelphia Story even though Fonda was brilliant in The Grapes Of Wrath. Comedy performances are often disparaged when they win an Oscar. But being great at comedy is also great acting.

For anybody here who speaks French, can they comment on Ginger's French speaking abilities when she's playing Sarah Bernhardt in The Barkleys of Broadway? Was it passable?

I quite liked Rogers in ‘Kitty Foyle’ and think her win would be much more popular had it not come in such an intensely competitive year (the field was so strong that the previous year’s winner, Vivien Leigh, was not even shortlisted for her fantastic performance in ‘Waterloo Bridge’). Fontaine, Hepburn, and Davis all won in other years and this ended up being the Academy’s only chance to honor one of the most important and well-liked stars of the time. She deserved an additional nomination for ‘The Major and the Minor,’ but it’s hard to be recognized for comedic performances.

By her own admission, she did not always have the best taste in material; post-‘Kitty Foyle,’ Rogers turned down Barbara Stanwyck’s part in ‘Ball of Fire’ and Olivia de Havilland’s in ‘To Each His Own.’ Maybe those would have kept her momentum going a little longer and she would be better remembered today.

Ginger's mom told the HUAC grand jury that she objected to her daughter having to say the lines "share and share alike, that's democracy" in Tender Comrade by Dalton Trumbo.

The FBI gave Reagan and Ginger names of actors and writers the FBI thought were subversive and they would denounce them as anti-American. They were both happy to comply.

Robert Taylor denounced people before the HUAC. I don't think Stanwyck did and she divorced him shortly after.

Ginger's punishment in life was being condemned to maintaining the same hair and make-up look she wore in her youth until her death.

R82 Her accent was a little weird, but it was the way she overacted it that was the real problem. Iirc, Judy Garland had also done the speech, I think, in one of those movies with Mickey Rooney (Babes On Broadway, maybe?) - and she was originally supposed to be the star of The Barkleys Of Broadway

R83 Vivien's performance was definitely overlooked although I wonder if the fact that she had just won an Oscar the year before was a factor in giving her a pass the next time around. I'd say Roz missing out for His Girl Friday was another major oversight.

Olivia may have won her 1st Oscar for To Each His Own but I wonder how much that actually helped her career since that movie's been completely forgotten and isn't even available on DVD.

R84 She still looked better than the first Mrs. Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman, who also never changed her hair throughout her life.

[quote]Ginger's punishment in life was being condemned to maintaining the same hair and make-up look she wore in her youth until her death

Tell me about it, r84...

Ginger Rogers was charming in Musicals & Romantic Comedies but (as a dramatic actress) she was never in the same league as either Davis, Hepburn, Stanwyck or Crawford. I'll go to my grave screaming that "BETTE DAVIS WAS ROBBED OF HER OSCAR IN 1940 FOR "THE LETTER"!" And (as someone else pointed out), Miss Rogers' Far Right Politics have also hurt her legacy.

With that said, Ginger made an excellent & sadly underrated Film Noir in 1955 while her Film career was on the decline. She was fantastic in it, had a few very touching scenes and IMO should have been rewarded for her work in it.

According to someone in a documentary I saw about RKO, "I doubt that she could have told you the difference between the Republican and Democratic parties." Some say she just followed her mother's lead in her political opinions.

R65, that is not evidence. No source is given for that quote--when did she say it? Where did it appear? And frankly, it doesn't sound like her.

I searched the four best biographies of Crawford that are out there (though honestly, none of them are great) and none of them mentioned what political party she belonged to, or indicated that she was much interested in politics at all. None of them mention that she supported any party, candidate, or cause.

But Bob Thomas's bio, which is probably the most reliable one, suggests that she was a social conservative: "She was following the normal middle-age trend to conservatism. She had been apolitical in her youth, became acquainted with—though did not embrace—Franchot's radical politics during her second marriage. Following her Christian Science beliefs in fixed values, she rejected the social change that inevitably followed the war years. She was totally without prejudice, but she took no interest in the rising sentiment for black equality. America had been good to her; she had become rich and famous beyond Billie Cassin's most extravagant dreams. She saw no reason to change a country that had proved so beneficent."

I think the fairest thing you could say about her politics is that she was personally tolerant but had conservative instincts, which grew stronger as she got older.

R91 That certainly explains why she was such a diehard supporter of FDR and JFK *rolls eyes*

Unlike the other OP ladies, Ginger had a career in stage musicals. She was the star of the Gershwin's "Girl Crazy," with Merman the supporting player who stole the show. She had respectable runs in "Dolly!" on Broadway (first replacement, following Channing) and as London's "Mame." And she did many musicals in stock, from "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Anything Goes" to Ms. Hepburn's role in "Coco."

Ginger was finished in the movies. That's why she came crawling back to Broad Way.

In 1969, she still had it. I met her at a book signing of her autobiography years ago, and while she was warm to the group, individually rather sign it and done, no time for even a quick comment or compliment. However she did ask everybody's name so each autograph was personalized. I met Ann Miller through the same venue (and she was there also that night), and she always took more than a few minutes with everybody who wanted to say hello.

If you watch Ginger Rogers and Ann Miller rehearsing their dance number in Stage Door, Miller looks like a pro while Rogers looks like she's sleep walking.

Didn't Ginger dislike Ann and try to expose her real age as 13 when they were working together on Stage Door?

One of Gingers worst films was "Having Wonderful Time" which had Eve Arden and Ann Miller, although Annie was cut out of the final print.

It's ironic that Ginger, Lucy, Ann and Eve all went on to play Mame. Eve did the play on tour. Could you imagine Kate as Mame?

^ Meant to reference in "Stage Door".

If this soup was any thicker, it would make great hot water!

[quote] Barbara Stanwyck fans here on DL and she was a hardcore Republican who was a fan of Ayn Rand and married to Robert Taylor who listed names during the red scare. If you can love Barb despite all that then hating on Ginger for sharing similar views makes no sense.

Because Barbara wasn’t a bigot like Ginger Rogers was. Barbara believed in pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps and admired anyone who could do the same.

When Lila Rogers died, Lucille Ball said that Lila took care of a lot of aspiring young actresses who had been raped soon after their arrival in Los Angeles.

Helen Lawson also did Mame, a tour and a sit down in Vegas.

"Knees together, Miss Lawson! Remember what happened last time!"

No one gets compared to Hepburn, OP. She's the greatest ever.

Because she was a good dancer, but a shitty actress and a vile person.

I don't think there was a tour, r102, just the Vegas run...which she left early because she was losing her voice. Celeste stepped in.

I'll be the out man out and say she wasn't a particularly outstanding dancer. Her personality meshed well with Astaire's but she was hardly the best dance partner he had over the years.

[quote]but she was hardly the best dance partner he had over the years

Oh, I don't think there's any argument there, r106. But she certainly had the most chemistry with him.

I seem to recall Barrie Chase being his favorite.

And he looked like her father dancing with her, r108.

Astaire said Rita Hayworth was his favorite partner.

He was very upset when first June Allyson and then Judy dropped out of Royal Wedding. He wasn't pleased about Jane Powell being assigned but was more than pleasantly surprised to find out she had started out as a dancer, taking lessons since childhood, and they are terrific together.

June ALLYSON! 😤

Does anybody here like June Allyson?

R100, what does supporting the which hunts (Stanwyck and Taylor did) have to do with pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?

Ginger deserved an Oscar for the Yama Yama Man alone

Oops, that should be "witch hunts"

Taylor wasn't her only awful husband. Frank Fay was a notorious anti-semite (I don't think Stanwyck was--she had close friends who were Jewish around that time) and general asshole to people.

r113 No.

R113 Agree with R118. That's a big no.

Rita Hayworth was Fred's favorite dance partner.

Rita danced with such abandon...

Both Hepburn and Davis hated Rogers. They showed great taste there.

She was a great dance, but a lousy actress.

Link, r122?

R124 Just watch Stage Door and you'll see the enmity between Hepburn and Rogers.

Gregory La Cava, the director of Stage Door, was famous for encouraging his actors to use the screenplay just as a template and to improvise and ad lib as much as they wanted. Kind of like a reality series.

Or not, r125...

Ginger Rogers' Oscar for Kitty Foyle was bullshit. Bette Davis should've won for The Letter.

[quote]There's an interview Bette Davis gave back in the early 70s I believe. Where she said out of her own mouth that Democrats are for the people, that they want to help make people's lives better. And Republicans are greedy and only care about money & business interests.

Bette Davis was a lifelong liberal Massachusetts Democrat. She campaigned for FDR and JFK, despised Nixon and thought Reagan was an imbecile.

[quote]Taylor wasn't her only awful husband. Frank Fay was a notorious anti-semite (I don't think Stanwyck was--she had close friends who were Jewish around that time) and general asshole to people.

When Frank Fay would go into drunken rages, Barbara would run to her next-door neighbor Joan Crawford's house and spend the night. They remained friends for the rest of Crawford's life. There have always been rumors that Joan and Barbara were bumping tacos together.

R128, I agree with you. Bette Davis gave her finest performance in “The Letter.” She deserved a third Oscar.

Bette was awesome in The Letter

The right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, of which Rogers, Stanwyck, along with Gary Cooper, were members was filled with people ranging from social liberals and fiscal conservatives to hardcore racists, all led by Ayn Rand. Rand herself detested racism, but believed that people had the right to think that way, that they were just cheating themselves. She didn't believe in creating laws banning discrimination, IIRC, but personally didn't believe in racism. Walter Brennan was also a member and he was a hateful piece of racist trash. Ginger herself was a red-baiter who hated Communists and she and her mother both were members of Daughters of the American Revolution, a group not known to welcome 'the others' with open arms. Just ask Marian Anderson.

R128 The Academy was never going to award her a 3rd Oscar, especially not that early on even if they wanted to. If it wasn't Ginger, the Oscar would have gone to Joan Fontaine, hence why she won the very next year.

Was she Irish?

God no. Her ancestry traces back to Great Britain.

^^"God no! Irish? What an insult! She's of pure Anglo stock, upright and sturdy. Not one of those degenerate Irish!"

Because it's always 1952 on Datalounge.

Ginger and Pauline Kael were guests on a radio afternoon talk show in the 70's. Ginger was going off about how her agent told her not to take Kitty Foyle because it was a terrible movie and she started laughing about how wrong he was because it won her the oscar.

Pauline then says that her agent was right after all, and left Rogers speechless.

Is there a clip?

No it was mentioned in Kael's biography.

Ginger was a lightweight versus the others mentioned and thus is usually not compared with them. I happen to think she was perfect in Kitty Foyle. It's a sweet little story, not a heavy drama, and she gave a tender, heartfelt performance in it. The others would have been too bombastic for something like that, but in that one instance, Ginger found a gravitas and sparkle that gave it warmth. I think she deserved the award.

No, Bette should've won for The Letter. That film is still well-known today, and revered. Kitty Foyle is not really known outside of classic film buffs.

KITTY FOYLE was hopelessly mediocre and so was Ginger Rogers.

The Philadelphia Story and Rebecca are two of the most iconic movies of all time so likely Hepburn or Fontaine should have won in hindsight.

Yeah, it's too bad they didn't give Oscars in 1940 based on what people in 2022 think is good.

As for Ginger vs the rest, they couldn't do what she could do, as has been said again and again. She was a very good (and skillful) comedienne. The Major And The Minor wouldn't have been as good with anyone else - and what she does in that movie is hard work - she even had to learn to "swallow" a cigarette in one scene. Must have taken some practice to muster. Imagine Joan Crawford in The Major And The Minor. Blech.

r145 The Letter was wildly popular and had excellent reviews at the time. It was one of the prestige films of the year.

R145 I was referring to this.

[quote]No, Bette should've won for The Letter. That film is still well-known today, and revered. Kitty Foyle is not really known outside of classic film buffs.

What does that have to do with what people voted for 82 years ago?

Anyway, The Letter is one of Bette's fine performances but James Stephenson stole the film right out from under her anyway.

Nobody stole The Letter from Davis. The opening scene alone is incredible.

[quote]They remained friends for the rest of Crawford's life. There have always been rumors that Joan and Barbara were bumping tacos together.

I don't know how true that is. If you listen to Shirley Eder's tape of an interview with Stanwyck, she doesn't hold back on how awful Crawford was to guests at a party they had both attended.

R146 But The Philadelphia Story and Rebecca were both more popular. They were in the top ten of the box office unlike The Letter. Rebecca was #3 and TPS was #2. And of course Rebecca won Best Picture whereas TPS revived Hepburn's whole career. Davis had already won 2 Oscars and nobody would have been eager to give her a third one, especially that early on. Hepburn or Fontaine had the best chances of winning after Rogers.

R149 That was a private conversation which was leaked. Are you telling me you've never bitched about your friends privately?

R150 Oops I meant The Philadelphia Story was #4 at the box office, not #2. The rest still stands.

It's so weird that Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis both lost an Oscar to Ginger Fucking Rogers.

That makes Ginger Rogers and Anne Bancroft both superior actors compared to Hepburn and Davis because both won their Oscars in years when Hepburn and Davis were also nomianted.

Rogers to me, was great, so long as she was dancing.

Joan Crawford was the better dancer. She would regularly win awards for her dancing during her ingenue days.

Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire is just immortal and on a totally different level from everything else in the movies - it deserves to be shown in museums until the end of time. Who the hell cares whether she deserved an Oscar for some dopey movie everyone has forgotten? She was pretty good at comedy, but only her dancing matters.

Her dancing was mediocre. Far from his best dance partner.

But their personalities had an incredible spark with each other.

Rita and Judy were much better dance partners for Fred. There's a reason anytime those two were on screen with him, all eyes were on them instead of Fred. That was not the case with Fred and Ginger.

Here is a 1943 photo of Ginger with Alice Faye. Interesting comparison between the two stars, who were, respectively, the glamor girls of RKO and 20th Century-Fox. Ginger is dolled up to the nines (and seems to have something strange going on with her left eye) but comes across as working really hard to look glamorous. Alice, on the other hand, seems almost plainly made up, but projects a very sexy look, almost anticipating Marilyn Monroe, who became the Fox beauty queen in the 1950s.

Two women who started out very young as chorines, both achieving top stardom in the 1930s. Ginger was ambitious to be more than just a light comedienne and dancer, but Alice didn't seem to care so much about being an "actress," and left movies when she got tired of Zanuck and Fox.

Was Alice Faye the one who was overshadowed by Linda Darnell in Fallen Angel and she consequently quit movies?

R160 The veil Ginger is wearing is covering up her left eye, hence why it looks weird.

I like her. She was a good actress. I liked Bachelor Mother (1939). I don't like Fred Astaire. He's goofy looking and not as good an actor as she was an actress.

Did Fred ever do non-musical roles?

On the Beach

The Towering Inferno

Ghost Story

and others...

Because Ginger Rogers shuffled off to Buffalo....

Ginger Rogers just wasn't in same league as Hepburn, Davis, Crawford or Stanwyck.

Yes, Ms. Rogers had talents, but took awhile for things to gel.

In very smart book "Stars" about the appeal of various movie stars during the classic Hollywood era, Jeannine Basinger points out that the classic movie stars were not always in competition with each other. June Allyson was very popular at the same time Elizabeth Taylor was, for example, but they were in no way intended to compete with one another: Taylor was a glamour gal,, which is why she still seems every inch a movie star today; but June Allyson was supposed to be the Girl next Door (Mgm even promoted her as :"The perfect Wife"), and was supposed to appear darling but attainable. Allyson's appeal seems hard to fathom today, but if the audience only had nothing but high glamour girls at the time (and there were plenty besides Taylor--Hedy Lamarr, Rhonda Fleming, Ava Gardner, Arlene Dahl...) they would have grown sick of them. Allyson was needed to change things up.

The same was true of Ginger Rogers. Her appeal was that she looked like an Everygal--she was pretty enough, but she was not supposed to compete with RKO's glamor girls like Dolores del Rio. She appealed to women who could see themselves in her situation, which is why she so often played working girls, either in comedies or in musicals. Fred Astaire could bring out the more glamorous side of her when they danced, which is why they worked so well together: as has been often said, "She gave him sex, and he gave her class." It helped that she could sing, that she could dance even better, and that she was very funny delivering wisecracks. And she had a great sexy figure, too.

Like many leading women of that era, she aspired to be like Katharine Hepburn or Bette Davis and be a real actress. Some of them took lessons to make themselves much better (like Olivia de Havilland), but some of them just believed they needed to play the right serious roles and they'd be taken seriously (like Joan Crawford and Irene Dunne). Rogers belonged to the latter camp. Fortunately her working class appeal made her seem plausible as working girls who got into fixes, like in "Kitty Foyle," even though it's not a very charming picture. But she was rewarded with an Oscar for it.

Ginger was not really a dancer, according to Chuck Walters, who *was* a dancer and who directed her in The Barkleys Of Broadway. He was thrilled to direct her and Fred, who were idols of his - but he did say she was not really a dancer,. She moved well (re his excellent biography).

This is true, as any real dancer would notice. Her numbers with Fred were total magic, but you did not see her take many solo turns, like Astaire, in their films. She was no Eleanor Powell, Vera Ellen, Marge Champion, Cyd Charisse, or Rita Hayworth.

Ginger as a youngster was incandescent. You can see it in photos from the original production of Girl Crazy. Also in the film Flying Down to Rio.

She was also stunning in two of the greatest sequences ever put on film. I'm not saying two of the greatest musical sequences ever put on film but simply two of the greatest sequences ever put on film. Let's Face the Music and Dance from Follow the Fleet and Never Gonna Dance from Swing Time. Filmmaking simply does not get better than that.

The era of the internet and cable TV/video recording has revived Oscar history, and arguments about who should have won. In the old days, before fans had Oscar stats at their fingertips, or could see old films at their whim, I don't remember much arguing - we didn't have easy access to box office stats, either. Fighting about Oscar wins from decades ago is a relatively new hobby. Nobody usually remembered who won two or three years before, never mind decades before. We had to find this stuff in the almanac, or the encyclopedia. People won Oscars, it was part of history, and that was it. I don't remember people saying so many winners were undeserving until fairly recently.

R171 Judy Garland losing for A Star is Born is the exception. That was considered an Oscar upset even in 1954 and Hollywood was horrified (the Hollywood that didn't make up Academy voters anyway). If you watch the premiere for A Star is Born, all the guests pretty much assumed it was a done deal that Judy would be winning the Oscar for the movie they were about to see.

Davis does not make the opening of The Letter great. It is William Wyler who makes it great. She then goes onto give a great performance. But she did her very best work under Wyler. Those three films are among the best ever made.

Davis did make the opening of The Letter great. The way she moved etc. It was pure Davis.

Nope you are as wrong as wrong can be. It is a slow languorous sequence all set up by Wyler with a shocking climax. He hands her one of the all time great entrances on a platter.

Yes Wyler directed the scene but Davis brought her own talents to it as well. It would not have been as memorable or a classic if Ginger Rogers had done it, for example.

Davis, in particular, made a lot of enemies. Even in her Warner Brothers days, when Davis would have had the Warner PR department behind her in its prime, she would have had trouble winning.

Ginger, pretty? I don’t think so. Passably attractive maybe. Looking at her in that photo with Alice Faye, Faye wins, although she wasn’t really beautiful either. Fox picked her because of her resemblance to Jean Harlow. In the early days of her film career, Alice was made u to look like Harlow - platinum blonde hair, thin eyebrows and both had pug noses and cherub cheeks. More cute than beautiful but quite similar.

All this talk of Ginger not really being a great dancer and yet she's all I look at when she dances with Fred, a lot of it, of course, are her glorious costumes by Bernard Newman (why isn't he better known?)......but can someone please point out to me how Ginger fails in those duets with Fred? I just don't see it.

[quote] That makes Ginger Rogers and Anne Bancroft both superior actors compared to Hepburn and Davis because both won their Oscars in years when Hepburn and Davis were also nominated.

What am I, chopped liver?

178 - tastes vary as to the differences between attractive, pretty, striking, gorgeous etc. In her early films Ginger is very very sexy, largely because she’s not an unattainable beauty; but also because of the personality she projects - smart, flirty, perhaps “easy” and in on the joke.

I remember my mom telling me to watch The Country Girl and that Grace Kelly won an Oscar for it. She never mentioned Judy, or said she was robbed. I think that was a Hollywood/critical opinion. The Oscars have become a much bigger deal to the public than they used to be. I mean they were big, but people moved on after a day or two. Entertainment Tonight, and shows like that, also made people more invested in things like the Oscars. And box office. I remember ET posting the box office weekend stats back when the show began, and that was so unusual, at the time. Unless you read the Hollywood Reporter or Variety you didn't know this information - or care.

By the way, since I mentioned my Mom, she was a big Garland fan, but didn't care for the Garland ASIB - or James Mason, in it. So when it was restored, I urged her to try that version, and she enjoyed it, and Mason. Because the first part - where a lot of the cuts took place - the courtship - had humor and was a sweet set up for the second half. She also enjoyed the restored numbers, The cut version was not only badly paced, but it was dark.

[quote]All this talk of Ginger not really being a great dancer and yet she's all I look at when she dances with Fred, a lot of it, of course, are her glorious costumes by Bernard Newman (why isn't he better known?)......but can someone please point out to me how Ginger fails in those duets with Fred? I just don't see it.

You're right, I never heard of Bernard Newman.

She doesn't fail, she's an amazing partner for him and they have something together he had with no one else (It helps that they both have very strong screen presence - that's one reason she went on to be a huge star). She just doesn't really have the raw dancing talent - precision or athletic skills - of a natural dancer. It's clear she was a good learner and mastered the routines and performed them beautifully. It's hard to explain.

I like Ginger up until the end of her RKO days. Roxie Hart is a classic, but it's a transition time for her that leads into disasters like Weekend at the Waldorf, Magnificent Doll, Heartbeat and The Groom Wore Spurs. She's secondary in Dreamboat, Monkey Business, Forever Female and Black Widow. Tight Spot is a good B picture, but Carol Channing steals The First tTaveling Saleslady (a film that is a guilty pleasure of mine), and her later films are all disasters. There's one with Barbara Eden that has several different titles and is completely unwatchable. Harlow is excruciating to watch. Then again so is the big budget version was Angela Lansbury in the same role.

Ginger had her heyday (1933 to 1941), and there are a lot of classics in that period, and not just the Astaire pictures. I like a screwball comedy she did called In Person which has a lake in the movie musical number that is just as good as anything she did with Astaire. Someone up thread mentioned Alice Faye, and I enjoy her early Harlow like pictures and her later classier musicals, but othere had more long lasting appeal to me, all of whom reinvented their career more successfully than Ginger who had to go back to the theater to find work which in the 1960's was a blessing for veteran stars who couldn't get damn work.

Joan Blondell, Ann Sothern and Joan Bennett had successful character actor transitions, but Ginger for the most part didn't get those roles. Blondell worked up until her death, and Sothern had great character parts after the Maise series ended. Of course Joan Bennett had started off as an optional, but once she darkened her hair, she had a resurgence that took her into film noir that had her close to Stanwyck as aging bad girls. Could you imagine Ginger taking a matriarchal role on a daytime soap? Certainly Ginger left a legacy in film, but other things prevent her from being the legend of other stars that were mentioned in the original post.

^ Optional was meant to be ingenue.

I love Ann Sothern and Joan Blondell but they were never leading ladies of the magnitude of Ginger and it was easier and less humbling for them to turn to character and supporting roles in film and TV.

I suspect Ginger was wealthy enough not to have to take TV roles that didn't appeal to her. Weren't most of her TV appearances confined to guest spots on musical variety hours? And she ultimately proved herself to be a creature of the theater where her career began; nothing to be ashamed of there.

I really think if Ginger had died young, say right after winning her Oscar, and DLers could only view her work from the 1930s. they'd adore her.

Alice Faye was originally going to play Roxie Hart, but she got pregnant and couldn't do it.

R187 - I heard that was a cover story and actually Gary talked her out of it.

Did her conservative values turned off her gay fans at some point, kind of like Donna Summer?

Isn't Eleanor Powell widely recognized as the best dancer from Classic Hollywood? I don't know if she ever made a film pairing with Astaire.

Eleanor Powell is SPECTACULAR dancing with Fred in BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940. Begin the Beguine and another number. The non-musical parts of the film drag horribly so just youtube their numbers. I don't know why they weren't paired again. There was no sexual chemistry (neither had it on their own) but Fred danced successfully with other ladies like Judy and Jane Powell where the sexual chemistry didn't need to be there.

Wow, r190, you never saw That's Entertainment?

This is just part of the number, the whole thing is over 10 minutes long.

Thanks, R191 and R192! I saw "Broadway Melody of 1940" probably 30 years ago, so I didn't remember it. I love Eleanor.

2 & 1/2 things to point out in that incredible Fred and Eleanor duet:

The entire dance is filmed with only 2 shots. And the camera never loses their entire bodies.

They never touch each other.

[quote]after the War, she just wasn't attractive onscreen anymore.

Right, R12. I guess it was ego, but I don't get why she didn't take herself in hand and admit she was older, thicker, and not as pretty as she once was, and go into character actress mode, like Joan Blondell or Shelly Winters. Then she should have gone after a TV show built around her, like Loretty Young or Miss Barbara Stanwyck. Fuck, even Bette Davis regularly did television in the 50s-80s, and SHE was a legend.

[quote]I like Ginger up until the end of her RKO days. Roxie Hart is a classic, but it's a transition time for her that leads into disasters like Weekend at the Waldorf, Magnificent Doll, Heartbeat and The Groom Wore Spurs. She's secondary in Dreamboat, Monkey Business, Forever Female and Black Widow. Tight Spot is a good B picture, but Carol Channing steals The First tTaveling Saleslady (a film that is a guilty pleasure of mine), and her later films are all disasters. There's one with Barbara Eden that has several different titles and is completely unwatchable. Harlow is excruciating to watch. Then again so is the big budget version was Angela Lansbury in the same role.

Dude, for every Ginger picture like The Groom Wore Spurs there's a Stanwyck picture like The Bride Wore Boots.

I think your memory is a little selective, since you somehow leave out her best post-RKO pictures like The Major And The Minor, I'll Be Seeing You, and The Barkleys Of Broadway. All of them big hits. Weekend At The Waldorf was also a big hit, even if you didn't like it. Lady In The Dark, though a bad adaptation of the Broadway show, made money. Forever Female was not very good but I would not call her "secondary" in it. She played the lead role. Teenage Rebel is actually a watchable movie, well directed by Edmund Goulding. No worse than what Stanwyck made that year - The Maverick Queen, Crime Of Passion, or These Wilder Years.

Eleanor Powell, Ann Miller and Cyd Charisse make Ginger Rogers look like shit. Like I said, that side by side comparison of Miller and Rogers rehearsing in "Stage Door" shows the difference between a great dancer and someone who is just going through the steps. Rogers did have chemistry with Fred Astaire, but for him to say his favorite was Rita Hayworth speaks volumes.

Eleanor Powell has my two favorite dance sequences in movies: "Begin the Beguine" with Fred Astaire in Broadway Melody of 1940, and dancing with her dog in "Lady Be Good." Supposedly she filmed the scene with her dog in her actual living room to make it easier for him.

That's clearly a set.

Ginger Rogers was a big ole country girl from the mid-west. Like many other females since, then and now the good lady was blonde (or at least light hair), and attractive enough as a young woman way most are.

As others have stated Ginger Rogers was pretty enough in an attainable way. Sort of girl any mid-west farm boy would go after to be his wife.

You can see from linked pictures and clips of early work (especially above linked video to "42nd Street" film, Ms. Rogers was never svelte, toned and with a good figure, yes. But over years as wont to happen with many such women she began to put on weight especially in face. This gave a coarsened sort of appearance, not entirely hard, but never the less....

All this talk here about what Ginger should have done with her career in the 40s and 50s and 60s is simply ignoring the fact that she was extremely successful in post WWII films and especially performing in stage musicals, especially as Dolly on Broadway and as Mame in London, And dozens of TV guest appearances. She was wealthy enough (and had no children to support) to do what she loved and never had to resort to the grind of a weekly TV series or the Grand Guignol of Davis, Crawford and,,,,ahem....de Havilland. And if she chose not to accept offers of supporting roles in film, even if it meant not acting in films at all in her later years, well, that was her choice and she never appeared to have any regrets.

More...

Ginger Rogers was never going to be a sophisticated glamour puss. Nor did she have sort of look and equipment to pull off roles that Joan Crawford (Crystal Allen /The Women). landed.

Sexual confidence always seemed to be Barbara Stanwyck's long suit when it came to many roles. Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Double Indemnity, etc.... Marlene Dietrich and some other actresses had same sort of talent. No they weren't the most drop dead gorgeous women, but they knew how to make what they had work for them, and power to make men desire want them.

Pictures, we love pictures...

Ginger looks fine in Teenage Rebel

r201 Marlene Dietrich was gorgeous. She made Jean Harlow look plain.

From link in R202

"As happened with many actresses of the era, Rogers’s career began to decline in the 1950s. She returned to Broadway, with a successful turn as the lead in “Hello, Dolly!” in 1965. In 1969, she performed the lead in “Mame” at the Theatre Royale Drury Lane in the West End of London, and was the highest paid performer in the history of the West End up to that time. At the age of 74, she directed an off-Broadway version of “Babes in Arms” in 1985. She also appeared in several popular television series in the 1970s and 1980s."

As many have noted already Ginger Rogers was well positioned to survive post WWII (1950's into 1960's and beyond) when two things otherwise killed work for her peers; end of studio system and age.

Musicals may have been on way out in Hollywood, but musical theatre was still alive and well in NYC, London, and elsewhere. Jane Russell, Yvonne DeCarlo and few more names one cannot recall atm managed to keep their careers going post 1950's with musical theatre, with perhaps odd film or television role.

Rogers was detested by the cast, crew and orchestra of Mame in London but she played the part OK. Likewise Dolly on Broadway.

Ginger Rodgers in London production of Mame...

Hello Dolly! Before The Parade Passes By....

Ginger Rodgers gets down with her own version of "That's How Young I Feel from "Mame" - 1971 television apperance.

Ginger should be commended for being hard-working enough and talented enough to keep up with Fred Astair's steps and to make his goofy ass seem a dreamy romantic partner. She also had fine comedic timing. Ironically enough for such a stauch anti-communist, she worked better as a team player than as a individual star.

Ginger Rodgers and Lucille Ball all girls together on "The Lucy Show"

Dancing with Johnny Carson....

Thanks for posting that Mame clip, r407. The main thing it shows is the glory of Onna White, who could easily handle Gower Champion at his own game. The films of The Music Man and Oliver! are testaments to her talent.

YW, anytime.

Thanks for posts of Ginger as Dolly and Mame. She's competent and professional. But as a very old eldergay I have to say that I've seen both parts done much better over the years both regionally and in stock.

[Quote] especially performing in stage musicals, especially as Dolly on Broadway and as Mame in London,

The London MAME didn't even get a cast recording.

Fred Astaire has a number of classics that he made long after his partnership with Ginger. Namely Easter Parade and The Band Wagon, and to a lesser extent his two musicals with Rita.

None of Ginger's movies after her partnership with Fred are well known at all today. If Kitty Foyle is remembered, it's usually more because of how she wasn't deserving of the Oscar for it.

r217, if THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR isn't well-known today, that's a loss for all those who don't know it, including, apparently, you.

I'd also make a guess that most people under 50 have never seen THE BANDWAGON or even EASTER PARADE. And that's no reflection on those films.

For that matter, most people under 50 have never watched a Fred and Ginger film. Time marches on.

IMO (oh so humble) Miss Rogers was in on the joke, the rest of those dames were more self-important.

R197 I'd like to see Ginger try THAT.

[quote]Thanks for posts of Ginger as Dolly and Mame. She's competent and professional. But as a very old eldergay I have to say that I've seen both parts done much better over the years both regionally and in stock.

Did you see GInger in these roles on stage, or are you comparing shows you saw with old video clips of Ginger in a single number?

There's bootlegs of Ginger as Dolly. A vocal presence she was not.

She was a lousy singer, it's kind of amazing she headlined stage musicals - but I think you can only judge if someone pulled off a role buy seeing them in the whole show. The powers that be didn't choose her to headline Mame in the West End because she sucked. I'm sure her acting ability and comic abilities, personality, presence, and all that, had a lot to do with her success in the role As for Dolly, there have been other less than perfect singers who played Dolly, including the original.

I've seen video of Angela Lansbury in Gypsy, and I also saw her in Gypsy. There's no comparison whatsoever.

R72 That's probably Lucy's best late-in-life interview. She looked cute and clearly wanted to be there and enjoyed discussing the topic -- not depressing like her appearance on Joan River's late night show.

Old-lady Ginger Rogers reminds me of Celia Weston.

Ginger (and Fred) used to vacation in Saratoga (NY) with the Whitney family. Even if she did look like an old whore in later life.

Gingerphobia.

R227 Ginger wouldn't have a career in this day and age because all gingers are recast with blacks

I prefer Ginger Grant.

Her lame 1986 lawsuit over Fellini's "Ginger and Fred" was rejected:

Ginger Rogers has filed an $8 million lawsuit to block release of a new Federico Fellini movie, 'Ginger and Fred.'

Miss Rogers, who is 73 years old and lives in Oregon, asked Judge Robert W. Sweet of Federal District Court in Manhattan to issue an injunction barring the film's distribution. 'I can't believe it,' Mr. Fellini said. The producer, Alberto Grimaldi, said the title 'is a form of compliment.' The suit charges that 'Ginger and Fred,' which is due to be released soon, is an illegal attempt by Mr. Grimaldi and MGM-United Artists, the distributor, to take advantage of the fame of the team of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, even though the movie's dance couple is fictional.The complaint accuses the defendants of depicting Miss Rogers in a false light, in part because the film's dance team is shown 'as having been lovers' and in 'a seedy manner.'Mr. Astaire, 86, did not join in his former partner's suit. In the movie, Marcello Mastroianni and Giulietta Masina, who is married to Mr. Fellini, portray two aging music-hall dancers popular in Italy in the 1940's for their imitation of Mr. Astaire and Miss Rogers. In the film, they are reunited for a Christmas television show, surrounded by vulgar characters.

It was an odd move to title the movie "Ginger and Fred."

Is that Ginger's peach fuzz?

If he walked into her life...

And I am tell you if he walked into my life...

Rogers is great fun sparring with Clifton Webb in the forgotten "Dreamboat" (1952).

She actually plays a much older woman, who used to be Webb's co-star in silent movies but hots a TV show that broadcasts their old flickers. Webb is a college professor who is much dismayed by this. Bosley Crowther in the NY Times review: "On a trip to New York to get an injunction against the further showing of his old films—to resist what he solemnly considers an invasion of his privacy—the character played by the actor runs afoul of a huckster (in spades!) and the remarkably preserved leading lady of his ancient swash-buckling films. And in his relations with these two phonies, whom Fred Clark and Ginger Rogers play, is brought out a slappy burlesque of the mechanics and material of TV shows.But it must be said that the fastest and most hilarious sport in the film is that generated in the travesties of old silent movies that are shown. It is the scenes of Mr. Webb and Miss Rogers as the heroic and gesticulating stars of an ancient World War I drama, a romance on the order of "The Sheik," a Foreign Legion adventure and a "Scaramouche"-sort of costume thing that achieve the highest ratings on the laugh-machine. These are the most inventive and satiric bits in the film."

While she was a top star, Rogers was a shark to younger women in supporting roles. Pretty blonde Phyllis Brooks had her close-ups cut in LADY IN THE DARK . In THE GAY DIVORCEE, the first star-painting of Astaire & Rogers, seventeen year old RKO starlet Betty Grable performs the comic ditty "Let's K-Nock K-nees" with Edward Everett Horton, and she got some nice reviews.

(Though released after the code, RKO was unaware that "A knee knocker is a specific act of casual sex, usually performed in an alley beside or behind a pub/bar/tavern. The act is performed standing up, with the woman secured against a wall with a combination of the mans upper body and holding her buttocks. The womans legs, usually wrapped around his waist. This unusual position, whilst having sex results in the knees of the male regularly knocking together (often with some force), hence the term)

By the time of FOLLOW THE FLEET (1936) Grable is reduced to backing Ginger on "Let Yourself Go" with forgotten RKO starlet Joy Hodges and Jeanne Gray and has a brief scene with wisecracking Lucille Ball. Interestingly, Ball became lifelong friends with both Rogers and Grable. But Grable realized that a long as Rogers was the musical Queen Bee at RKO she would go nowhere and left the studio.

Grable was one of Rogers replacements in HELLO, DOLLY! And while Ginger was a smash hit with critics and the box office she was very much "The Grand Star" to the cast backstage and the chorus kids hated her. Grable was much beloved by the cast and chorus and used to party with them after the show.

Oh, to have seen this!

Ginger doesn't sound bad at all in the bootleg from Mame. Considering she was no singer. She couldn't hold any notes, but I found myself enjoying it. And let's remember Angela Lansbury was not exactly the most brilliant singer of all time, either.

I don't remember which book I read it in, r239, but one of them said she did work at being a stronger singer while doing MAME.

[quote]And let's remember Angela Lansbury was not exactly the most brilliant singer of all time, either

Oh, her pipes were just fine, r239.

Some of the comments above surprise me. I've always read that Ginger was something of a diva in Dolly and Mame and wasn't well liked. There's the story of the communal box of chocolates she gave to her Mame orchestra members but I forget the details.

"In the London production, Ginger Rogers gave a fine performance, even if her singing was not especially worth preserving (no cast album was made), and I saw Juliet Prowse step for the vacationing Rogers in London as well (she was excellent, and continued to play the role on and off for the rest of her life). All in all, though, the producers were never quite able to come up with a musical Mame to match Lansbury (and what wouldn't I have given to have seen Judy Garland take over the role, as proposed!)."

"Angela Lansbury was not exactly the most brilliant singer of all time, either."

Excuse you?

As actresses go Angela Landsbury had a perfectly fine voice for stage.

Again...

[quote]"Angela Lansbury was not exactly the most brilliant singer of all time, either."

FOUR Tony Awards for Best Featured Actress In A Musical you bloody tosspot!

Best ACTRESS, you bloody stool.

FOUR were for Best Actress in a Musical you tit!

I read (Mandelbaum?) that the choices for MAME were Lansbury, Nanette Fabray and Dolores Gray. The producers made the right choice but I would have loved to have seen what Gay would have done with it, even though she totally lacked the essential warmth Angela had.

r237

Betty Grable appeared in a movie with Ginger Rogers and Ginger Rogers saw to it that Grable would appear in another of her movies?! The horror!

Gray never did "Hello Dolly" or "Mame," did she? I bet she held a grudge. Not long before she died, there was an interview for the CD release of one of her old cast recordings. Gray referenced still waking up and thinking of a particular show that she claimed was written for her but she failed to be cast. It could have been "Mame," though it was probably "Molly Brown."

I’m sorry but The Major and the Minor is creepy as shit. How can anyone watch it today and not immediately be creeped out by an adult man taking what he believes is a child to his bedroom and then what would be considered grooming her? The movie title even is creepy. There was a real thing for adult men and very young girls in movies in the 40s and 50s. Creepy as shit.

Because she can't act, and they can.

r230: No. she didn't want another musical blonde to get any attention. Grable basically spun her wheels at RKO while Rogers was there. She did better at Paramount, but didn't become a star till she hit Fox in 1940.

Between studios, she popped up at Fox in 1936 in PIGSKIN PARADE. In a radio interview from the '60s, Grable laughingly described her experience there as "I thought I would get some good exposure, but the studio also borrowed this little kid with pigtails from MGM. The minute she opened her mouth to sing I thought "Oh My God! That voice of hers! Nobody is even gonna notice I'm even in this picture!" When the interview noted that she became a star at Fox with DOWN ARGENTINE WAY, Grable laughed, yeah...the only reason I did was because Judy wasn't in it!"

[quote]Creepy as shit.

You seem unable to put things in historical context and being able to only view with a contemporary lens, r252.

from Pigskin Parade

^1936....she didn't have her pigtails yet, r254.

Thanks for that, r256! Can't have too much Judy.

My favorite PIGSKIN PARADE number - the 'alternate take' of "The Balboa" !

Sometimes things just happen when they're supposed to happen and in Betty Grable's case. she needed the all-American patriotism of WWII to make her the sensational pinup and Technicolor musical star she became in that decade. But her demeanor wasn't really right for the b&w art deco styled movie musicals of the 1930s.

Grable did have to compete against Carmen Miranda in Down Argentine way and a couple of other Fox musicals, but both managed to shine. Likely because they were so different.

Carmen Miranda was a novelty. Different lane.

Betty knew she was a song and dance girl and she wouldn't stray out of her lane.

Coco

Cory was clearly inspired by this DL thread.

“You got here how every Black woman in America has gotten anywhere has done, by being … like Ginger Rogers said, ‘I did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards in heels.’ "

Not the most powerful instrument, but Angela Landsbury certainly could sing....

R165 Yes, I saw her sing it even more live than that , because I saw Gypsy. I thought she was fantastic, and I never said she didn't have a strong voice or didn't win Tonys, I said she was/is not the most brilliant singer of all time. She's a singing actress, good at it, but do people really think she has a beautiful voice, or want to hear her sing outside of a stage musical? Before she did Broadway, had the average person ever thought of her as a singer? You're all star-struck. She had that weird crack in her voice among other odd vocal quirks. She's not Ethel Merman or Julie Andrews. She did a lot what what she'd got.

When I heard him say that, r264, I thought, no straight man would use that reference.

It also shows that Cory doesn't know black women.

[quote]but do people really think she has a beautiful voice

You think Merman has a beautiful voice, r266???

You think Jessica Walter has a beautiful voice?

Jessica has a very inviting voice.

Get me a vodka... And a piece of toast.

R269 Actually, Merman did have a beautiful voice as a young woman.

I doubt Lansbury would have had to go through all the endless auditions for Mame if everyone was so bowled over by her pipes. She didn't sell out concerts or make records. Nobody wanted to hear Angela Lansbury Sings Gershwin. Admit it.

And this isn't really about Merman vs. Lansbury. It's about Angela Lansbury wasn't/isn't a great singer.

[quote]Actually, Merman did have a beautiful voice as a young woman

Find me one source that says Merman had a *beautiful* voice.

Gertrude Lawrence, Elaine Stritch, Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera, Tammy Grimes....Broadway is littered with stars who could put over a song yet weren't "great" singers....

Fred Astaire’s favorite dance partner was Rita Hayworth. Also, he was complimentary of Joan Crawford, as a dancer.

Fred Astaire and Nelson Eddy both made their film debuts in Dancing Lady, starring our darling Joan and The Three Stooges when they were just Ted Healy's Stooges.

Joan is so ungainly in that Dancing Lady clip on Youtube.

Her dancing looks spastic.

Well, she was! That's what passed for dancing in 1933! At least Fred was there to show them how it was done.

The personification of youth and beauty and joy and happiness...

Ginger was the biggest cum dumpster at RKO. Even that fat pig Pat O'Brien got a chance to blow a load in her. She wasn't a classy dame like me.

I've always loved you Helen. Now keep those knees shut. I tried to find that photo of you in Mame but couldn't.

Joan was Fred's first ever onscreen dancing partner so that's another merit she will go down in history for.

They called it hoofin' for a reason.

Shut the fuck up, r284, you boozy hypocrite.

Lawson did everything Ginger did, but naked in heels.

That cooze Ginger gave Bruce Cabot and Joe Cotton a case of the clap so bad RKO had to shut down production on their pictures for two weeks while they recovered. Joan Bennett told me Ginger got it during a weekend in Tijuana and she spread it like wildfire once she got back to the studio.

Excuse me! He was just a guest star in MY picture!

Why did Crawford do shit like Straight Jacket, Berserk, and Trog? Hepburn never stooped to that. Was it because Kate was rich, and didn't have to? Or because she was just so talented and attractive, she got offered good stuff? Stanwyck did some junk - Roustabout (Elvis) and The Night Walker (with ex Bob Taylor), when she was older - but it was respectable enough. And Davis had some decent movies, later, and TV movies - even won an Emmy for one.

Hepburn ended up in TV movies.

Hepburn still got good roles while other actresses were doing hagsploitation. She also managed to get good roles rather than be cast in Ross Hunter soap operas.

If forced to choose, I would rather watch "Trog" again than "On Golden Pond."

Trog is more fun in concept than it is in practice--it's kind of dull, too dull to be real camp.

You still have to pay the rent, dear.

R297 The point is, this was the best material she could get.

Even at Imperial House you have to pay the monthly rent. Didn't Liza live there until she went back to LA?

[quote]Hepburn ended up in TV movies.

R293 Classy ones, mostly. There aren't that many feature films for women in their 80s.

The term is usually "women of a certain age."

When Ginger Rogers ended “Hello Dolly”, Betty Grable replaced her. Ginger was very cold to Betty and had an attitude. I despise Ginger Rogers. Betty Grable was a much better singer and was certainty warmer and kinder.

Cast and crew both loved much Betty more than Ginger, even when she toured. Ginger was a bitch.

^ Sorry for my word misplacement. Whatever.

R303, Betty Grable was a sweetheart. Ginger Rogers was a cunt. I never understood her appeal. She was even a cunt to Fred Astaire, who was a gracious gentleman. I despised her politics, as well.

R305 Her politics and Fred's were about the same.

[305] Grable was also a Republican.

R301

Une femme d’un certain âge in French culture long referred to women on verge of or reaching end of spinsterhood; that is between roughly 35 to late forties or had reached 50. Married, widows (or now) divorced they still often were attractive enough to lure younger men into their beds. These experienced women were often ones who broke young men into the world of sex. La Marquise de Merteuil from Les Les Liaisons Dangereuses would have been one such Frenchwoman.

English later took up the phrase "a woman of a certain age" to mean a woman who aged out of being addressed as "Miss", but was not a "Mrs."

" The phrase, in English, can be cited to 1754: "I could not help wishing," wrote an anonymous essayist in Connoisseur magazine, "that some middle term was invented between Miss and Mrs. to be adopted, at a certain age, by all females not inclined to matrimony."

Important difference is in French the phrase had (and still has) sexually charged overtones. While the English is more about what to with an inconvenient older woman who remains unmarried.

In any event once a woman reached her 60's and certainly was elderly term no longer applied. She was an "older woman" or "old woman", etc.. At 80 thus Katherine Hepburn was certainly not a "woman of a certain age", but firmly in another demographic.

R305 and others

Of course Betty Grable was a republican, as was most of Hollywood and much of "old California" back then. But GOP then was not like things are today.

Virtually good majority of famous actors from golden age of Hollywood were republicans.

Charlton Heston was firmly against racism and actually left democratic party to become a republican.

Wasn't Heston a bizarre case of being a liberal Democrat who later became a right-wing nut and NRA spokesperson?

While we're on subject of Hollywood, republicans and California, 2018 midterm elections in Orange County (home of Richard Nixon) marked shift in politics that reverberated nearly state wide.

"In the 2018 midterm election, something happened which would have been unthinkable just a couple decades earlier: all of Orange County’s congressional seats went to Democrats.

While this might not have been surprising for younger voters who came of age in the increasingly diverse region that is Orange County, for older voters the 2018 midterm was downright historic.

This is because, in the second half of the 20th century, Orange County was a very conservative place—home to Richard Nixon and the right-wing John Birch Society—a place known nationally as a hotbed of ultraconservative beliefs and politicians.

This strange history would be of interest only to local folks were it not for the fact that it was here, in sunny OC, that the Republican Party began its rightward shift from the moderate Republicanism of Dwight Eisenhower to the ultimate victory and takeover of a far more conservative variety—a trend that has run its course locally, but has gone national."

Old school actors and others in Hollywood who were old school republicans back in day would hardly recognize party today in age of Donald Trump. These were Goldwater conservative republicans often if anything, and like Barry Goldwater would have rejected GOP party becoming taken over by "cranks" and "kooks".

R294 Hag horror is better remembered today than the TV dross Hepburn made later in her career not to mention her last screen appearance in the Beatty/Benning 'Vanity Affair'.

R294 speaks the truth. And Strait-Jacket is actually quite good--a lot of fun and one of Crawford's best late-career vehicles and roles.

Sorry, meant to say R312 speaks the truth!

Before Orange County, it was DuPage County outside of Chicago.

[quote]Hag horror is better remembered today than the TV dross Hepburn made later in her career not to mention her last screen appearance in the Beatty/Benning 'Vanity Affair'.

Yeah I'm sure Joan was thinking of posterity and what would be better remembered in 2022, when she made that low-budget schlock. I'm sure she would have rather made Love Among The Ruins with Laurence Olivier on TV, directed by Cukor.

I don't think Joan would enjoy someone as competitive as Olivier.

There were MANY Democrats among the old guard of Hollywood. Gregory Peck, Bette Davis, Paul Newman, Judy Garland, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Ava Gardner, Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, James Garner, Kirk Douglas, Myrna Loy, Gene Kelly, Burt Lancaster, Marsha Hunt, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Frank Sinatra (became a Reagan Republican later), Lana Turner, Joan Fontaine, Marilyn Monroe, Jean Arthur, Ida Lupino, Paul Henreid, Robert Ryan, Angela Lansbury, Spencer Tracy, Jack Lemmon, Janet Leigh, Burgess Meredith, Rita Hayworth, Franchot Tone, Margaret Sullavan, Ralph Bellamy, Warren Beatty, Joan Bennett, Patricia Neal, Shirley MacLaine, Judy Holliday, Dorothy Malone, Shelley Winters, Mercedes McCambridge, Maureen O'Sullivan, Eva Marie Saint, Miriam Hopkins, Joan Leslie, Tony Curtis.

[quote]She lost her looks and her features coarsened early.

Rogers was a hardcore Christian Science devotee - she wouldn't consult a doctor much less a plastic surgeon.

Her looks fades and she aged badly.

In an interview with Dick Cavett, she offered as evidence of the power of Christian Science faith healing that two of her five husbands had been cured of anal warts by a CS practitioner...

which begged the question - why did her husbands keep contracting anal warts?

Some of you overexaggerate about Ginger's looks. She held on to them a long time. If anything, her styling from the 1960s onwards was the problem.

Ginger Rogers likely helped get Jacques Bergerac's career started.

Funny how he ended up on the isle of Jersey.

Lana, Ginger, and some supporting player in the movies.

For all his good looks (and the man certainly was quite attractive), M. Jacques Bergerac seemed always to play same set of roles in film or television roles.

You have to hand it to Ms. Rogers however, she sure could pick them. Many women (and likely more than a few men) would have like to have a bit of that themselves..

R318 If Joan Fontaine was a Democrat, what about her sister Olivia?

R317 Isn't there some alleged story that Larry and Mr. Joan Crawford the 1st used to regularly boink and sometimes Joan would join in? She also told Larry that they would both win Oscars together: her for Scarlett O'Hara and his for Heathcliff.

Yeah I think Olivia was also a Democrat.

Having Wonderful Time was not bad. It was about a single girl from New York who spends her 2 week vacation at a singles resort. The play was about Jewish kids, in the Catskills, as somebody already posted. The movie was a hybrid where some of the NY Jewish actors from the play were cast, along with people like Ginger, Doug Fairbanks, Jr, Red Skelton and Eve Arden. Apparently most of the cast including the leads did have New York accents when filming, but preview audiences couldn't understand them so they had to re-dub a lot of their dialogue.

By the way, Having Wonderful Time was the basis for the Broadway musical, Wish You Were Here, in the 50s. Featuring the song of the same name that was a hit for Eddie Fisher.

Olivia de Havilland had more problems then "To Each His Own" could solve at the time.

"This was Olivia de Havilland's first film role in three years. She was suspended by Warner Brothers when she filed suit against the studio on August 23, 1943, and was officially fired by the studio after she won her suit by unanimous decision on December 8, 1944. Because of this lawsuit and her reputation as a perfectionist, de Haviland was labeled "difficult" in show business, temporarily making her an undesirable choice for many producers."

Another thing, apparently "To Each His Own" has been released on DVD.

Or....

Has there been a TV movie on Olivia's lawsuit?

[quote]Has there been a TV movie on Olivia's lawsuit?

I'm pitching it to Netflix as we speak...

(Siri, how do I protect intellectual property ideas?)

Who would play Olivia?

May I just say

that had you moved your ass a little faster, you might have me, Dame Olivia herself, play the role

but now that's impossible, due to your lolly-gaying around

I will NOT suffer one of those young Kirsten-Dunst-type Hollywood actresses with bad skin, janky teeth, and armpit hair portraying me...

I WON'T STAND FOR IT!

Another ODH lawsuit to pitch for a movie -- maybe Ryan could play himself.

Hepburn returned to the legitimate stage stage throughout her career, often appearing in prestige projects on Broadway and on tour, if not financial hits, and it definitely created the impression that she was a more "serious" actor than Davis, Stanwyck and certainly Crawford.

Hepburn also often wisely played un-glamorous roles when she hit her 40s, as in Pat & Mike, Desk Set, The Rainmaker and Summertime, which further added to her rep as a serious actress. And then her late career starring roles in Long Day's Journey Into Night and The Lion in Winter really clinched that impression for the rest of her life. I don't think Hollywood producers would have dared to offer her one of the Grand Guignol horror films to which Bette and Joan succumbed,

Bette did stage work a few times in her career but her temperament was ill-suited for it.

^ Not to mention her heavy drinking

and pungent body odor...

Ah yes, r328, Josh Logan...

Speaking of golden age Hollywood actors who stooped to television in 1960's, have always loved Joan Fontaine paired with Gary Merrill in Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode "The Paragon".

^ That is one of the best!

She was horny all the time. She had her share of men. And she wasn’t shy about it. So they don’t compare because she got more dick than the rest of them

R342

Yes! Who would have thought same actress who played sweet Peggy Day in "The Women" could be such a high riding bitch some thirty years later....

When Alice Pemberton remarks to her sister that there is something "sissy" about the boy clinging to his mother, you want to reach through screen and punch her lights out...

"Ginger's punishment in life was being condemned to maintaining the same hair and make-up look she wore in her youth until her death."

You don't realize how terribly common that is for women of certain generations?

Hence Patsy Stone's famous quip about wealthy women sitting in front rows at couture fashion shows...

Eddie: Everybody's there, everybody! Big names, you know. Chanel, Dior, Lagerfeld, Givenchy, Gaultier, darling. Names, names, names. Every rich b*tch from New York is in there. Hockwenden, Ruttenstein, Vandebilt, Rothschild, Hookenfookenberger, Dachshund, Rottweiler, sweetie.

Patsy : A row of skeletons with Jackie O hairdos

No small number of hairdressers in New York City and elsewhere made their money on a steady flow of wash and set clients well into 1990's and even early 2000s when last of them began dying off.

Ginger was similar to Lucille Ball in that she had a very "workman" like talent.

They were both incredibly hard-working and disciplined...but they lacked versatility

They both needed the support of a good director, good script, good supporting cast, etc, etc.

Neither of them had the type of internal spark that could elevate a production

r303: The best off-stage comparison between Ginger and Betty wa when they were each introduced on-stage by David Merrick to the Broadways cast of HELLO, DOLLY! "Cast, Meet Your Star!" Holding a bouquet of roses, Rogers bowed graciously acknowledged the applause like a true. diva. Grable looked around nervously and cried :"HELLLP!" Instantly , everyone in the company laughed and LOVED her.

When HELLO, DOLLY! was touring in Chicago (before Betty took over from Ginger and Martha Raye on Broadway) , Every Thursday night, a group of chat members and chorus kids along with Betty would go to a bowling alley after the show. One night, word got around that the little blonde lady was indeed, Betty Grable . An older guy who had had too many drinks hollered at her every time she got up to bowl. “Hey, Betty. Show us your legs!" It went on and on. Finally, the guy who played Rudolph in the show went to her and said, “Betty, should we go to the manager and ask this guy to stop?” She said, “Are you kiddin? Spoil his night out? Every Thursday night he comes, has a few too many drinks and hollers at some old broad. Leave him alone.”

Since Hepburn' stage career was mentioned it's worth noting she was fired from several shows before she became famous, and was considered somewhat impossible - at least then. She also originally returned to Broadway from films in a colossal flop: The Lake. The one where Dorothy Parker said she ran the gamut of emotions from A to B. I think she bought herself out of that, as she bought herself out of her RKO contact after she was labeled Box Office Poison, and went on the stage again, in The Philadelphia Story - a hit - which she bought the rights to - with Howard Hughes's help. With the proviso that she star in the film version. She had also done Jane Eyre, on the stage just before that - not a hit. I don't think it got to Broadway.

Her next Broadway venture - Without Love - was not a big hit, either, but was made into a pretty good Tracy-Hepburn film. Her later stage triumphs were in The Millionairess, in London, and Coco, on Broadway. Other stuff was bad, or just ok. A Matter Of Gravity, e. g. She also did Shakespeare, at Stratford, CT.

Katharine came from money, she never had children so she didn't need to spend money raising them, and she also invested wisely (or her father did, for her) and she had the money to navagate her early career more effectively at an early age. She also was able to take @ 5 years off in the 60s and all but gave up her career at the time, to take care of Tracy.

Bette was in A Night With Carl Sandberg, on the stage, as well as the musical revue, Two's Company, The Night Of The Iguana, and the musical, Miss Marple. Ginger later tried to revive Miss Marple, by the way, and played the show. That may have already been mentioned, idk. Ginger also did a lot more stage work. Not just the shows mentioned but a lot of summer stock plays, and a one-woman song-and-dance show in summer stock.

Crawford once auditioned for the Broadway play, Kind Sir (later made into the Cary Grant-Ingrid Bergman movie, Indiscreet). Joshua Logan was directing, He thought her audition was great. He wanted to give her the part, but she replied she had no intention of doing a Broadway show, she just wanted to see if she could do it. Crazy bitch.

I don't think Stanwyck ever returned to the theater after she got into movies.

And Crawford never did theater at all.

Rogers definitely played the straw hat circuit, along luminaries like Ruta Lee and Barbara Eden.

Once movie musicals fell out of favor, lots of well-known performers played the Straw Hat Circuit.

[quote]Since Hepburn' stage career was mentioned it's worth noting she was fired from several shows before she became famous, and was considered somewhat impossible - at least then.

I don't think it was *several* shows, r348. And I I believe it wasn't that she was "impossible", but just still green.

Didn't Crawford start on the stage?

Just a wee bit, r353...

She was a chorus girl not really part of legitimate theater.

Someone I went to high school with worked at the Elitch Theatre. Ginger was doing 40 Carats. She asked him to go and buy some ammonia capsules (for her crying scene). She tipped him $10.00...in check form. How many un-cashed Ginger Rogers checks are out there?

Sometime during the 1960s, Ginger was appearing in stock somewhere. She and her last husband, William Marshall, had taken to speaking to each other exclusively in French whenever they were among the other company members, which did not endear them. One day she called out to him, "Ouvrez la fenetre," but he didn't hear her and asked her to repeat it. One of the company members yelled back, "Open the goddamned window!"

[quote]She was a chorus girl not really part of legitimate theater.

R355 = Arlene Francis.

The Winter Garden is a legitimate theatre, r355.

Miss Marple? A musical Miss Marple??? Over my dead body, Bette!

It's accurate to say that Joan Crawford never did Broadway. Lucille LeSueur did Broadway, but Joan didn't.

I can't believe that anyone didn't know Beanie's curtain call was a bit. I mean they gestured three times in different directions! Would have been funnier had they gestured once to the left and she came in from the right.

Dolly Sharp was never in the chorus!

Ruta is the Queen of Casa Mañana, r350...

Sad, r363...

A musical MISS MARPLE might have actually stood a chance with Bette Davis or even Ginger Rogers!

Ginger Rogers was on the board of directors of (or some such board) of my small liberal arts college in Texas. They actually convinced her to play the Stage Manager in a school production of OUR TOWN and the idea of a woman SM in the play was quite the novelty back in the 70s.

But she didn't show up for rehearsals until just a few days before techs and had so much trouble with her lines and stage business, they gave a student actor most of her lines and called him the Assistant Stage Manager, allowing Ginger to saunter around the stage gesturing grandly in one of her lovely gowns. I believe the feathered hat she wore is still in a show case in the theater lobby.

If they can make a Broadway musical out of "King Kong" they can damn well make a Broadway musical out of "Trog"!

I thought it was Zsa Zsa who really made Jacques Bergerac's career, such as it was, when she convinced Vincent Minnelli to cast him as her gigolo in Gigi.

At any rate, Vincent Minnelli was just like me. Such a sucker for a pretty face with a huge dick.

Oops, Miss Moffat. Guess I was tired.

A lot of good actors and big stars did the straw hat circuit. At the Ogunquit Playhouse I think their pictures are still up. I remember seeing pictures of Claudette Colbert. Bette Davis, Maurice Chevalier.

R353, yes. She was a dancer on stage.

R352. Okay, how many shows was it, then? I'm sure you won't give me a direct answer.

R352 Never mind. I looked it up. She was fired four times. I think that qualifies as "several."

Wikipedia says about one: On opening night, she turned up late, mixed her lines, tripped over her feet, and spoke too quickly to be understood. That might be considered green, it might also be considered ill-prepared.

"Breaking into theatre, 1928-1932"

Uh, r369, that was me in Gigi, not my untalented sister, dahling!

Jack & Ginger