The only two actors who could dance better than Fred Astaire, according to Ginger Rogers
In the late 1930s, no on-screen couple was as famous as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Starting in 1933 with Flying Down to Rio, they acted and danced in 10 films together, becoming Hollywood’s most iconic dancing duo. Although Astaire was known as the more experienced and skilled dancer, Rogers had also grown up doing vaudeville, dancing her way to Broadway before she hit her twenties.
They weren’t originally meant to be a duo at all. In Flying Down to Rio, they were merely supporting players in a much larger ensemble, receiving fourth and fifth billing. Rogers wasn’t even supposed to be in the film at all, but was brought in at the last minute when actor Dorothy Jordan dropped out to marry producer Merian C Cooper.
At the time, Rogers was the Hollywood veteran of the two, having appeared in more than a dozen films in only three short years. Astaire was a star on Broadway but had only appeared in one movie, in which he danced with Joan Crawford and played himself.
Despite their relative anonymity, however, Fred and Ginger stole the film, particularly with their dance number ‘The Carioca.’ The success of the movie helped revitalise RKO and establish it as a major player in the musical genre, and put Rogers and Astaire in hot demand. They went on to star in The Gay Divorcee, this time with top billing, and a legendary Hollywood duo was born.
Before Gene Kelly leapt and pirouetted his way to MGM in the mid-40s, no one could touch Astaire in the dance department. Sure, there were other actors who masqueraded as dancers in various musicals, but Astaire’s grace and technical skill was only rivaled by Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson, who, because of extreme racism, was never given the opportunity to be a leading man.
Given Astaire’s reputation and the number of films they made together, you’d probably assume that it was a foregone conclusion that he was the best dance partner Rogers ever had. But in her memoir, Ginger: My Story, she revealed something that was nothing short of scandalous.
“Of the hundreds of partners I’ve danced with over the years,” she wrote, “I would consider a scant dozen as able dancers.” The ones she listed were Los Angeles attorney Greg Bautzer, her Kitty Foyle co-star Dennis Morgan, producer and government official Cornelius ‘Sonny’ Vanderbilt Whitney, choreographer Hermes Pan, and businessman Earl Blackwell. The only two stars she mentioned were Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. “All of them rate a ten on my dance card,” she concluded.
She was quick to add that Astaire was one of the few performers who was just as “superb” on the dance floor as he was on the stage, saying that he also had the rare skill of being able to maintain conversation while dancing. “[T]here was nothing showy about Fred’s ballroom dancing,” she wrote. “[I]t was understated and elegant. You could put yourself in his hands and trust his feet.”
Her Astaire comments are not surprising. What is surprising, given how impeccable Grant and Stewart were as dancers, is that they were in so few musicals. Grant trained as an acrobat as a child and moved to the US as a teenager as part of a circus troupe. In his early days on Broadway, he appeared in many musicals, but in Hollywood, his dancing was limited to the 1946 Cole Porter biopic Night and Day.
Stewart’s dancing skills were given more screen time. Early in his career, he appeared in several musicals, including Born to Dance in 1936 and Ziegfeld Girl in 1941. However, like Grant, he became the consummate leading man, and his talents as an actor outweighed his utility as a musical star.
