Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers In 1934, Astaire and Rogers made the musical movie "The Gay Divorcee" which co-starred Edward Everett Horton; it was their first joint starring role in a movie and grossed even more with worldwide rentals of $1.8 million; the movie also featured the classic Cole Porter song "Night and Day". The song "The Continental" from the movie was a hit and was also the first song to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song in the 1934 Academy Awards. Astaire and Rogers made two movies in 1935, "Roberta", which featured the song "I Won't Dance" and "Top Hat", which also
Fred Astaire "Bojangles" Robinson and John "Bubbles" Sublett. From vaudeville dancer Aurelio Coccia, they learned the tango, waltz, and other ballroom dances popularized by Vernon and Irene Castle. Some sources state that the Astaire siblings appeared in a 1915 film titled "Fanchon, the Cricket", starring Mary Pickford, but the Astaires have consistently denied this. By age 14, Fred had taken on the musical responsibilities for their act. He first met George Gershwin, who was working as a song plugger for Jerome H. Remick's music publishing company, in 1916. Fred had already been hunting for new music and dance ideas. Their chance meeting