Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers (July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the twentieth century.
During her long career, she made a total of 73 films and is noted for her role as Fred Astaire's partner in a series of ten musical films. She achieved great success in a variety of film roles and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Kitty Foyle. After winning a 1925 Charleston dance contest that launched a successful vaudeville career, 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 role as a supporting actress in 42nd Street.
In the 1930s, Rogers' nine films with Fred Astaire gave RKO Pictures some of its biggest successes, most notably Top Hat and Swing Time. But after two commercial failures with Astaire, she branched out into dramatic and comedy films. Her acting was well received by critics and audiences, and she became one of the biggest box-office draws and highest paid actresses of the 1940s. Her performance in Kitty Foyle won her the Oscar for Best Actress.
Rogers' popularity peaked by the end of the decade. She reunited with Astaire in 1949 in the commercially successful The Barkleys of Broadway. After an unsuccessful period in the 1950s, she 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 also made television acting appearances until 1987. In 1992, Rogers was recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors. She died of a heart attack in 1995, at age 83.
Rogers is associated with the phrase "backwards and in high heels", which is attributed to Bob Thaves' Frank and Ernest 1982 cartoon with the caption "Sure he [Astaire] was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did...backwards and in high heels". This phrase is sometimes incorrectly attributed to Ann Richards, who used it in her keynote address to the 1988 Democratic National Convention.
A Republican and a devout Christian Scientist, Rogers married five times with all of them ending in divorce, and having no children. During her long career, Rogers made 73 films, and her musical films with Astaire are credited with revolutionizing the genre. Rogers was a major movie star during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood and is often considered an American icon. She ranks number 14 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of female stars of classic American cinema. Her autobiography Ginger: My Story was published in 1991.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 15.448 |
Birthday | 1911-07-16 |
Place of Birth | Independence, Missouri, USA |
Also Known As | Virginia Katherine McMath, |
1933
42nd Street
6.89/172
A producer puts on what may be his last Broadway show, and at the last moment a chorus girl has to replace the star.
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42nd Street
1935
Top Hat
7.292/279
Showman Jerry Travers is working for producer Horace Hardwick in London. Jerry demonstrates his new dance steps late one night in Horace's hotel room,...
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Top Hat
1936
Swing Time
6.803/211
Lucky is tricked into missing his own wedding again and has to make $25,000 so her father allows him to marry Margaret. He and business partner Pop go...
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Swing Time
1944
I'll Be Seeing You
6.9/32
Mary Marshall, serving a six year term for accidental manslaughter, is given a Christmas furlough from prison to visit her closest relatives, her uncl...
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I'll Be Seeing You
1933
A Shriek in the Night
5/14
Rival newspaper reporters Pat Morgan and Ted Rand find themselves unraveling the mystery behind the death of a millionaire philanthropist who fell fro...
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A Shriek in the Night
1952
We're Not Married!
5.925/20
A Justice of the Peace performed weddings a few days before his license was valid. A few years later five couples learn they have never been legally m...
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We're Not Married!
1952
Monkey Business
6.699/244
Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixe...
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Monkey Business
1933
Gold Diggers of 1933
7.2/137
During the Great Depression, all Broadway shows are closed down. A group of desperate unemployed showgirls find hope when a wealthy songwriter invests...
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Gold Diggers of 1933
1937
Shall We Dance
7.255/98
Ballet star Petrov arranges to cross the Atlantic aboard the same ship as the dancer and musical star he's fallen for but barely knows. By the time th...
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Shall We Dance
1935
Roberta
7/39
Football player John Kent tags along as Huck Haines and the Wabash Indianians travel to an engagement in Paris, only to lose it immediately. John and...
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Roberta
1965
Cinderella
6.43/43
After the success of the live 1957 Cinderella on CBS (with Julie Andrews), the network decided to produce another television version. The new script...
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Cinderella
1938
Vivacious Lady
6.8/52
College town life gets turned upside down after a button-down botany professor secretly weds a sizzling night-club singer.
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Vivacious Lady
1942
Tales of Manhattan
6.2/30
Ten screenwriters collaborated on this series of tales concerning the effect a tailcoat cursed by its tailor has on those who wear it. The video relea...
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Tales of Manhattan
1934
The Gay Divorcee
6.9/115
Seeking a divorce from her absentee husband, Mimi Glossop travels to an English seaside resort. There she falls in love with dancer Guy Holden, whom s...
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The Gay Divorcee
1936
Follow the Fleet
6.9/63
When the US Navy fleet docks at San Francisco, sailor Bake Baker tries to rekindle the flame with his old dancing partner, Sherry Martin, while Bake's...
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Follow the Fleet
1933
Flying Down to Rio
6.1/58
A dance band leader finds love and success in Brazil.
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Flying Down to Rio
1951
Storm Warning
6.5/35
A fashion model (Rogers) witnesses the brutal assassination of an investigative journalist by the Ku Klux Klan while traveling to a small town to visi...
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Storm Warning
1939
Bachelor Mother
7.073/55
Polly Parrish, a clerk at Merlin's Department Store, is mistakenly presumed to be the mother of a foundling. Outraged at Polly's unmotherly conduct, D...
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Bachelor Mother
1938
Carefree
6.7/56
Dr. Tony Flagg's friend Steven has problems in the relationship with his fiancée Amanda, so he persuades her to visit Tony. After some minor misunders...
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Carefree
1946
Heartbeat
4.8/10
A female escapee from a reform school joins a pickpocket academy in Paris.
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Heartbeat
1949
The Barkleys of Broadway
6.9/45
Josh and Dinah Barkley are a successful musical-comedy team, known for their stormy but passionate relationship. Dinah feels overshadowed by Josh and...
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The Barkleys of Broadway
1942
Once Upon a Honeymoon
6.144/45
A radio correspondent tries to rescue a burlesque queen from her marriage to a Nazi official.
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Once Upon a Honeymoon
1937
Stage Door
6.935/100
The ups and downs in the lives and careers of a group of ambitious young actresses and show girls from disparate backgrounds brought together in a the...
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Stage Door
1954
Black Widow
6.3/45
A young stage hopeful is murdered and suspicion falls on her mentor, a Broadway producer.
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Black Widow
1939
5th Ave Girl
7/22
A wealthy man hires a poor girl to play his mistress in order to get more attention from his neglectful family.
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5th Ave Girl
1938
Having Wonderful Time
4.9/13
Teddy Shaw, a bored New York office girl, goes to a camp in the Catskill Mountains for rest and finds Chick Kirkland.
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Having Wonderful Time
1942
The Major and the Minor
6.96/124
Susan Applegate, tired of New York after one year and twenty-five jobs, decides to return to her home town in Iowa. Discovering she hasn't enough mone...
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The Major and the Minor
1939
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
7/35
In 1911, minor stage comic, Vernon Castle meets the stage-struck Irene Foote. A few misadventures later, they marry and then abandon comedy to attempt...
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The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
1940
Primrose Path
6.5/23
Ellie Mae lives on Primrose Hill with her good-hearted and fancy free mother, her drunken father, her younger sister and a mean-spirited grandmother....
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Primrose Path
1935
Star of Midnight
6/21
When a dancer disappears from a theater, Clay Dalzell is asked to investigate, leading him on a trail of murder and deception.
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Star of Midnight
1950
Perfect Strangers
6.2/6
Romance at a murder trial with a pair of sequestered jurors who are the only ones who think that the woman in the dock is innocent. Separated from the...
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Perfect Strangers
1947
It Had to Be You
6/1
A chronic runaway bride is haunted by her conscience, who becomes reality.
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It Had to Be You
1955
Tight Spot
6.3/29
A former model, serving time in prison, becomes a key witness in a trial against a notorious gangster. She is put under protective watch by the Distri...
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Tight Spot
1942
Roxie Hart
6.9/21
A café in Chicago, 1942. On a rainy night, veteran reporter Homer Howard tells an increasing audience the story of Roxie Hart and the crime she was ju...
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Roxie Hart
1956
Teenage Rebel
6.5/4
Nancy Fallon gets her teenage daughter back from her ex-husband when she remarries and must win her love.
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Teenage Rebel
1932
The Thirteenth Guest
5.1/16
Thirteen years after a dinner party in which the thirteenth guest failed to arrive, the remaining guests are being murdered one by one, and their bodi...
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The Thirteenth Guest
1952
Dreamboat
5.9/14
Thornton Sayre, a respected college professor - secretly formerly a silent films romantic action hero - is disturbed, feeling his privacy has been vio...
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Dreamboat
1945
Week-End at the Waldorf
6/9
Anything can happen during a weekend at New York's Waldorf-Astoria: a glamorous movie star meets a world-weary war correspondent and mistakes him for...
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Week-End at the Waldorf
1940
Kitty Foyle
6.525/40
Kitty Foyle, a hard-working white-collar girl from a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania low, middle-class family, meets and falls in love with young socialite...
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Kitty Foyle
1941
Tom, Dick and Harry
5.2/15
Janie is a telephone operator who is caught up in the lines of love of three men: car salesman Tom, Chicago millionaire Dick and auto mechanic Harry....
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Tom, Dick and Harry
1954
Beautiful Stranger
5/16
An ex-chorus girl lives on the Riviera, supported by a married man she doesn't know is a crook.
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Beautiful Stranger
1944
Tender Comrade
6/11
Jo Jones, a young defense plant worker whose husband is in the military during World War II, shares a house with three other women in the same situati...
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Tender Comrade
1957
Oh, Men! Oh, Women!
5.5/1
Arthur Turner's bored housewife Mildred seeks psychiatric help from Dr. Alan Coles who also has his own emotional problems to solve.
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Oh, Men! Oh, Women!
1944
Lady in the Dark
4.7/9
A neurotic editor sees a psychoanalyst about the advertising man, movie star and other man in her life.
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Lady in the Dark
1951
The Groom Wore Spurs
4.9/8
Pretty female attorney Abigail "AJ" Furnival is hired to keep high-flying cowboy movie star Ben Castle out of trouble in Las Vegas. Despite his many f...
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The Groom Wore Spurs
1934
Twenty Million Sweethearts
6/6
Unscrupulous agent Rush Blake makes singing waiter Buddy Clayton a big radio star while Peggy Cornell, who has lost her own radio show, helps Buddy.
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Twenty Million Sweethearts
1933
Rafter Romance
6.5/11
A working girl shares her apartment with an artist, taking the place in shifts.
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Rafter Romance
1933
Chance at Heaven
5.6/7
A young woman's ambitious boyfriend falls for a ditzy socialite.
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Chance at Heaven
1931
The Tip-Off
5/4
A young radio repairman becomes involved with gangsters and one of their girlfriends when he repairs their radio.
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The Tip-Off
1932
The Tenderfoot
6/1
Calvin Jones is a cowboy who wants to invest in a Broadway play. Joe Lehman's secretary Ruth learns that her boss is attempting to swindle Jones and p...
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The Tenderfoot
1940
Lucky Partners
6.1/8
Two strangers split a sweepstake prize to go on a fake honeymoon with predictable results.
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Lucky Partners
1931
Honor Among Lovers
5.9/11
Jerry Stafford falls for his secretary, Julia Traynor, but instead she marries a shady character who causes trouble for both of them.
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Honor Among Lovers
1933
Don't Bet on Love
0/0
A plumber wins big at the racetrack but then his luck runs out and almost ruins his business. His manicurist girlfriend stands by him and helps him re...
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Don't Bet on Love
1933
Sitting Pretty
9/3
Jack Oakie and Jack Haley are songwriters are enroute from New York to Hollywood to make their fame and fortune; Ginger Rogers, a lunchwagon propriete...
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Sitting Pretty
1935
In Person
6.3/3
Carol Corliss, a beautiful movie star so insecure about her celebrity that she goes around in disguise, meets a rugged outdoorsman who is unaffected b...
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In Person
1930
Office Blues
5/2
An amorous secretary ignores her importunate co-worker and daydreams about her boss when she should be working on letters.
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Office Blues
1935
Romance in Manhattan
8.1/9
Karel Novak is an incredibly naive Czech immigrant who is taken under the wing of streetwise New York chorus girl Sylvia. With the help of lovable cop...
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Romance in Manhattan
1934
Finishing School
5.9/15
Virginia, who studies at a boarding school for upper-class girls, falls in love with a medical intern who works as a waiter for a living. Both the dir...
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Finishing School
1930
Queen High
6/1
The two partners of a ladies' garter business are constantly feuding with each other. When they ask their lawyer to dissolve their partnership, he pro...
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Queen High
1934
Upperworld
6.3/7
A railroad tycoon, disillusioned with his marriage, starts seeing a showgirl. Things go agreeably until the woman's manager decides to blackmail the m...
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Upperworld
1930
Young Man of Manhattan
5.2/2
Two flappers try to get their newspaper reporter boyfriends to pay attention to them.
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Young Man of Manhattan
1932
Carnival Boat
6/2
Buck is a hard working lumberjack, but likes to have fun. Buck's father is the foreman and wants Buck to take over when he retires. Buck is in love wi...
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Carnival Boat
1931
Suicide Fleet
3.6/5
Three US sailors aboard a decoy ship fight German U-boats in World War I and try to win Sally who works on the Coney Island midway.
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Suicide Fleet
1933
Professional Sweetheart
5/4
Radio singer Glory Eden is publicized as the ideal of American womanhood in order to sell the sponsor's product Ippsie-Wippsie Washcloths. In reality,...
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Professional Sweetheart
1946
Magnificent Doll
5.8/10
While packing her belongings in preparation of evacuating the White House because of the impending British invasion of Washington D.C., Dolly Payne Ma...
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Magnificent Doll
1934
Change of Heart
6.3/3
Catherine and Mack and their close friends Chris and Madge graduate from a West Coast college and fly to New York City to find work.
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Change of Heart
1933
Broadway Bad
5/4
Showgirl Tony Landers, supported by her friend Flip Daly, fights for the custody of her son during a divorce hearing.
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Broadway Bad
1974
That's Entertainment!
7.3/56
Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.
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That's Entertainment!
1930
Follow the Leader
5.2/3
Ed Wynn, a waiter, tries to get hit employers daughter a start on the stage; Ginger Rogers replaces Ethel Merman when Merman is kidnapped.
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Follow the Leader
1932
You Said a Mouthful
5/4
Two men bear the name Joe Holt. One is a shipping clerk, the other a champion Canadian swimmer. When a socialite gets them confused, thinking the cler...
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You Said a Mouthful
1930
The Sap from Syracuse
4.8/4
Ellen Saunders is an heiress on a cruise to Europe being pursued by a day laborer mistaken for a prominent mining engineer. During the cruise, he foil...
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The Sap from Syracuse
1932
Hat Check Girl
6/1
Gerry Marsh is a hat-check girl in a nightclub surrounded by bootleggers, blackmailers and others before she falls in love with millionaire playboy Bu...
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Hat Check Girl
1953
Forever Female
6.929/14
An aging actress has a hard time admitting she is too old to play the ingenue role anymore.
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Forever Female
1964
The Confession
1/1
Madame Rinaldi, owner of a bordello, helps thief Mario Forni locate an ancient buried treasure.
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The Confession
1932
Hollywood on Parade
3/1
A short featuring many stars
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Hollywood on Parade
1934
Hollywood Newsreel
4/1
A potpourri of features involving Hollywood celebrities. The Columbia University football team, winner of the 1934 Rose Bowl game, visits the Warner B...
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Hollywood Newsreel
1956
The First Traveling Saleslady
5.4/10
At the turn of the century Rose and ex-showbiz friend Molly get involved in selling steel. When they come unstuck with corsets they embark on the even...
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The First Traveling Saleslady
1994
That's Entertainment! III
6.9/33
Some of MGM'S musical stars review the studios history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to G...
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That's Entertainment! III
1975
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
5.7/7
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
1930
A Night in a Dormitory
4.9/4
The adventures of a schoolgirl in a nightclub as related by her to her dormitory sisters.
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A Night in a Dormitory
1965
Harlow
4.5/4
Loosely based biography of 1930s star Jean Harlow as she begins her climb to stardom. One of two "Harlow" film biographies that appeared in 1965, this...
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Harlow
1943
Show-Business at War
7/3
A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.
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Show-Business at War
2003
Complicated Women
6.7/11
Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, until 1934 when the Hays Code virtually neutered fi...
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Complicated Women
1976
That's Entertainment, Part II
6.8/33
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical num...
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That's Entertainment, Part II
2006
Astaire and Rogers: Partners in Rhythm
6.5/2
Featuring clips from all 10 films which Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers made together from 1933 to 1949. Includes candid photos and behind-the-scenes tid...
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Astaire and Rogers: Partners in Rhythm
1965
The Love Goddesses
6.3/22
This insightful documentary features some of the major and most beautiful actresses to grace the silver screen. It shows how the movie industry change...
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The Love Goddesses
1945
George White's Scandals
5.333/3
Two couples work through their issues in this backstage Broadway musical.
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George White's Scandals
1988
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
6/1
Documentary about James Stewart's long career as an actor and positive personal life.
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James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
1985
George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey
5.6/11
Biography of the legendary filmmaker directed by his son.
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George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey
2009
1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year
7.5/12
This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.
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1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year
2014
And the Oscar Goes To...
7/48
The story of the gold-plated statuette that became the film industry's most coveted prize, AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... traces the history of the Academy...
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And the Oscar Goes To...
1985
That's Dancing!
7/18
A documentary film about dancing on the screen, from it's orgins after the invention of the movie camera, over the movie musical from the late 20s, 30...
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That's Dancing!
1937
Screen Snapshots: Series 16, No. 12
5/1
A tour of Hollywood, featuring such star frequented spots as the Vendome, the Lakeside Golf Club, the West Side Tennis Club, the Santa Anita Racetrack...
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Screen Snapshots: Series 16, No. 12
2017
Fred Astaire donne le 'la'
0/0
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Fred Astaire donne le 'la'
1929
A Day of a Man of Affairs
0/0
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A Day of a Man of Affairs
1930
Campus Sweethearts
0/0
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Campus Sweethearts
2005
Reunited at MGM: Astaire and Rogers Together Again
0/0
A cherished remembrance of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers reunited for the film, "The Barkleys of Broadway."
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Reunited at MGM: Astaire and Rogers Together Again
2010
Astaire and Rogers Sing the Great American Songbook
0/0
Compilation of memorable songs from the Great American Songbook sung by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in their films. Includes songs written by Georg...
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Astaire and Rogers Sing the Great American Songbook
2014
Sem Título #1: Dance of Leitfossil
10/1
Experimental Short, Brazil
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Sem Título #1: Dance of Leitfossil
1982
Night of 100 Stars
6/1
The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City...
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Night of 100 Stars
1988
Happy Birthday, Bob: 50 Stars Salute Your 50 Years with NBC
6/1
Stars celebrate Bob Hope's 50 years with NBC.
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Happy Birthday, Bob: 50 Stars Salute Your 50 Years with NBC
1995
The Casting Couch
10/1
An unprecedented anthology of never-before-told true stories by and about some of Hollywood's most interesting stars, legends, and wannabes, and takes...
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The Casting Couch
1984
Going Hollywood: The '30s
10/1
Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were battling the Depression as well as eventually get...
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Going Hollywood: The '30s
1985
Night of 100 Stars II
8/2
This special is the second "Night of 100 Stars" to benefit The Actors Fund of America. Edited from a seven-hour live entertainment marathon that was t...
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Night of 100 Stars II
1932
Hollywood on Parade No. A-1
4/4
In the first entry of this series, the show open with a troupe of dancing chorus girls getting a salute from crossed-eyed Ben Turpin. Then the master...
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Hollywood on Parade No. A-1
1972
Hollywood: The Dream Factory
6/2
A documentary about the glorious history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its decline leading to the sale of its back lot and props. By extension th...
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Hollywood: The Dream Factory
2019
In Full Swing
0/0
A documentary on the making of the 1936 film Swing Time, featuring interviews with jazz and film critic Gary Giddens, dance critic Brian Seibert, and...
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In Full Swing
2006
"All -Singing All-Dancing" Before And After
0/0
The development of sound and song dance production techniques, and how they come together in 'Holiday Inn'
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"All -Singing All-Dancing" Before And After
1985
The Purple Rose of Cairo
7.39/996
Cecilia is a waitress in New Jersey, living a dreary life during the Great Depression. Her only escape from her mundane reality is the movie theatre....
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The Purple Rose of Cairo
2006
Gold Diggers: FDR'S New Deal... Broadway Bound
5.583/6
Short documentary about the Great Depression's impact on film, specifically Berkeley musicals.
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