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 long period apart, Astaire and Rogers made only one movie together in 1938, the 80-minute "Carefree". During their time apart, Rogers appeared in the successful movie "Stage Door", while Astaire's career did not reach the same heights he had experienced with Rogers. The duo reunited, but "Carefree" marked a departure for their on-screen partnership, featuring Astaire in a role unlike his usual typecast persona, as well as less emphasis on the musical element of the film. "Carefree" was originally going to contain sequences shot in Technicolor, but RKO considered the cost prohibitive so it was filmed in black and white.