When you think of Ginger Rogers, one usually thinks of her with her dance partner of many years, Fred Astaire. Although the two of them worked together for 11 films than span 16 years, few know that Ginger was working in Hollywood even before Fred arrived, having 73 films, from 1930 to 1965, to her credit.

After having won a Charlston contest and becoming the Texas State Charleston Champion at the age of 14, Ginger started touring the US billed as Ginger Rogers and The Redheads from 1925-1928 . Eventually, her finely-tuned vaudeville act took her to New York where she eventually won a role in the Broadway play Top Speed which played from 1929 to 1930. During this performance, Ginger got her first movie contract with Paramount, spanning seven years.

Ginger's next accomplishment was winning the lead role in an Ira and George Gershwin play, Girl Crazy. It was actually during rehearsals of Girl Crazy, where she met her future dance and film partner, Fred Astaire. The dance director for Girl Crazy, who was unsatisfied with the dance steps for the show, called in Fred to help out with the choreography. This was the first time Ginger and Fred danced together. Fred made little impression on Ginger at the time, that was until he called her one day to make plans for an evening of dining and dancing. Ginger said that if she had stayed in New York, she and Fred may have become more of a romantic item.

Eventually, after wrapping up her broadway performances, Ginger made her way to Hollywood, but Fred was not too far behind. Although Fred and Ginger were once very chummy while in New York, upon Fred's arrival, that was no longer the case. Ginger attributed his aloofness and new-found formality to his marriage to Phyllis Potter, a socialite who would rather sit around the movie set and clack her knitting needles together than mingle with the Hollywood crowd.

While under contract for RKO, Ginger was picked to receive fourth billing in the David O. Selznick musical, Flying Down to Rio. Selznick, the current head of RKO, had seen Fred on Broadway and eventually decided to team him with Ginger for secondary roles in the movie. Since this was their first movie together, this led people to believe that Ginger was Fred's first dancing partner on screen. Surprisingly, this is not the case. RKO had put the film on hold for a while, and loaned Fred out to MGM to play a minor role in Dancing Lady, opposite Joan Crawford. Joan was actually Fred's first on-screen dance partner.

Even though Ginger and Fred had secondary roles in Rio, their head-to-head dance steps for The Carioca led to a string of films where the two of them would be paired up, usually in some sort of romantic entanglement.

Perhaps one of the many reasons we loved to watch Ginger so much was the beautiful dresses she was able to wear for her dance sequences. Some might think that some smart wardrobe assistant could just pick these out and Ginger would get to wear them. Not always so. One memorable dress actually caused a lot of friction between Ginger and Fred, as well as many others on the set. This dress was worn for her role in Top Hat. The dress Designer, Bernard Newman, was always open to suggestions, and Ginger took full advantage of this. She had requested a high-neck, low-back blue feather dress. (This dress now resides in the Smithsonian).

Since the dress was late coming from the designer, Ginger never had a dress rehearsal while actually wearing the dress. On its way to Ginger's dressing room, Fred, the technicians and director got their first view of the dress, and then the feathers really started to fly! Their disapproval of the flying dress was made clear to Ginger, as they tried to pursuade her to wear a dress already worn in The Gay Divorcee. Ginger refused to wear a dress that had been worn in another film, primarily because she felt the viewing public would have remembered it. Before Ginger actually walked off the set in disgust, they finally agreed to let Ginger wear the dress, much to Fred's disapproval. And flying feathers in his face during rehearsal probably did not help matters much! Eventually, every feather had to be knotted on to prevent the feathers from flying everywhere. Eventually though, Fred mellowed, and a white gift box arrived at Gingers dressing room a few days later, holding a gold leaf (for Ginger's charm bracelet) with a note - Dear Feathers, I love Ya! Fred. Maybe Fred should have known better than to try to give his leading ladies wardrobe advice.

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