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 and Ginger Rogers co-starred comedian Edward Everett Horton. In "Roberta", Astaire and Rogers had a supporting role with Irene Dunne starring. In this film, the song and dance, "I'll Be Hard to Handle", was an early example of the electricity and vivacity of the pairing. It was RKO's biggest hit of the 1934-1935 season with worldwide rentals of $2.3 million. "Top Hat" marked the first time the duo had a film written solely for them, and it proved to be one of the most successful films of the year with worldwide rentals of $3.2 million. It was the most profitable film RKO made