Welcome to our collection of quotes by Ginger Rogers. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer, and singer during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starring role in Kitty Foyle (1940), and performed during the 1930s in RKO's musical films with Fred Astaire. Her career continued on stage, radio and television throughout much of the 20th century.
Rogers was born in Independence, Missouri, and raised in Kansas City. She and her family moved to Fort Worth, Texas, when she was nine years old. She won a 1925 Charleston dance contest which launched a successful vaudeville career. After that, she gained recognition as a Broadway actress for her stage debut in Girl Crazy. This led to a contract with Paramount Pictures, which ended after five films. Rogers had her first successful film roles as a supporting actress in 42nd Street (1933) and Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933).
In the 1930s, Rogers's nine films with Fred Astaire are credited with revolutionizing the genre and gave RKO Pictures some of its biggest successes, most notably The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935) and Swing Time (1936). But after two commercial failures with Astaire, she turned her focus to dramatic and comedy films. Her acting was well received by critics and audiences in films such as Stage Door (1937), Vivacious Lady (1938), Bachelor Mother (1939), The Major and the Minor (1942) and I'll Be Seeing You (1944). After winning the Oscar, Rogers became one of the biggest box-office draws and highest paid actresses of the 1940s.
Rogers's popularity was peaking by the end of the decade. She reunited with Astaire in 1949 in the commercially successful The Barkleys of Broadway. She starred in the successful comedy Monkey Business (1952) and was critically lauded for her performance in Tight Spot (1955) before entering an unsuccessful period of filmmaking in the mid-1950s, and returned to Broadway in 1965, playing the lead role in Hello, Dolly! More Broadway roles followed, along with her stage directorial debut in 1985 of an off-Broadway production of Babes in Arms. She continued to act, making television appearances until 1987 and wrote an autobiography Ginger: My Story which was published in 1991. In 1992, Rogers was recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors. She died of natural causes in 1995, at age 83.
During her long career, Rogers made 73 films and she ranks number 14 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of female stars of classic American cinema.
Like most actors, I've always been grateful for Chinese restaurants; they were often the only places that stayed open late enough for performers to get hot food after the show.
I cannot abide stupidity, in myself or in others.
During my seven-year contract with RKO, there were seven different studio presidents, from David O. Selznick to Charles W. Koerner. You literally had to check the name on the door so as not to call the new boss by the former boss's name.
Gossip is hardly uplifting.
Girls can do everything men can do...just backwards and in heels.
Beauty is a valuable asset, but it is not the whole cheese.
There's a verse in the Bible: 'Those who are barren have more children than those who give birth.' There are young people all over the world who come to me for advice and love. I have all the children I can handle.
Intelligence, adaptability and talent. And by talent I mean the capacity for hard work. Lots of girls come here with little but good looks. Beauty is a valuable asset, but it is not the whole cheese.
Rhythm is born in all of us. To be a desirable dancing partner, you don't have to do all the intricate fancy steps that happen to be in vogue. All you have to do is be a good average dancer, and anybody who spends the time and effort can accomplish this.
There's nothing a man can do, that I can't do better and in heels.
I do everything the man does, only backwards and in high heels!
You know, there's nothing damnable about being a strong woman. The world needs strong women.
Longer Version:
You know, there's nothing damnable about being a strong woman. The world needs strong women. There are a lot of strong women you do not see who are guiding, helping, mothering strong men. They want to remain unseen. It's kind of nice to be able to play a strong woman who is seen.
The fun, joy, and humor dry up in a relationship when one of the partners is swimming in gin. To my way of thinking, it is selfishness personified to see life through the bottom of a liquor bottle.
Even married people have differences of opinion, I'm told.
If I've learned any one lesson from life, it's this: If you don't stand for something, you will stand for anything.
One thing I turn my back on totally is the unsavory atmosphere at most discos.
I did everything he did but backwards and in high heels.
When you're happy, you don't count the years.
You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything.
Over the years, myths were built up about my relationship with Fred Astaire. The general public thought he was a Svengali, who snapped his fingers for his little Trilby to obey; in their eyes, my career was his creation.
I enjoy sports, and love being involved in any outdoor sport from volleyball to softball. I'm not being immodest when I say I'm a natural athlete.
At the age of ten, I thought if a boy kissed you on the lips, you would have a baby, and I surely wasn't the only youngster who believed that!
Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but black and white films still hold an affectionate place in my heart; they have an incomparable mystique and mood.
My faith in humanity leads me to believe that people are looking for something more elevating than the sordid details of the intimate aspects of one's personal life.
While I was making my solo films, RKO was busily trying to get me and Fred Astaire back together. The studio wanted to capitalize on the success of 'Flying Down to Rio' and realized that the pairing of Rogers and Astaire had moneymaking potential.
'Flying Down to Rio' established RKO as a leader in musical film production throughout the 1930s. The film helped to rescue the studio from its financial straits and it gave a real boost to my movie career.
I don't disagree with seeing a Rubens of a nude body, but I don't believe in a nude body in action. With Rubens, thank goodness, they aren't in action.
I won't go to movies with permissiveness, four-letter words, or violence. Show me 'E.T.' and 'Chariots of Fire' instead. That's entertainment, not exploitation of the human body.
My mother was a journalist, so writing is not unnatural to me.
The most important thing in anyone's life is to be giving something. The quality I can give is fun and joy and happiness. This is my gift.
I yearned for a long, happy marriage with one person.
I try to feed my hunger rather than my appetite.
I traveled with my mother, Lela, and there was never enough money. I always had to roll down my silk stockings and carry a doll when we bought train tickets so I could go half-fare. If we had $3, we always figured how to tip for the trunks and still eat.
My mother told me I was dancing before I was born. She could feel my toes tapping wildly inside her for months.
Part of the joy of dancing is conversation. Trouble is, some men can't talk and dance at the same time.
I had been making films for almost ten years, and the head men at RKO thought of me only in terms of musicals. I found no fault with that, except I just couldn't stand being typed or pigeonholed as only a singing and dancing girl. I wanted to extend my range.
I made my last motion picture in March 1965 for Magna Pictures. 'Harlow,' based on the life of actress Jean Harlow... I didn't know at the time that 'Harlow' would be my last motion picture.
You bring out a lot of your own thoughts and attitudes when acting. I think a great deal of it has to do with the inner you.
I believe in dressing for the occasion. There's a time for sweater, sneakers and Levis and a time for the full-dress jazz.
Looking back at my life's voyage, I can only say that it has been a golden trip.
The only way to enjoy anything in this life is to earn it first.
When two people love each other, they don't look at each other, they look in the same direction.
My love for ice cream emerged at an early age -- and has never left!