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 in this film, Missouri Waltz, they attracted a large crowd of co-workers and crew members from RKO and numerous other studios, all of whom attended to bid an emotional farewell to the great dance team. The film earned worldwide rentals of $1.8 million but again did not make a profit. Rogers had long been keen to pursue more dramatic roles, which she successfully managed after her split from Astaire. At the 1941 Academy Awards ceremony, Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in "Kitty Foyle" and by the mid-1940s she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood,