Ginger Rogers George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin. Fred Astaire was hired to help the dancers with their choreography. Her appearance in "Girl Crazy" made her an overnight star at the age of 19. Rogers' first movie roles were in a trio of short films made in 1929—"Night in the Dormitory", "A Day of a Man of Affairs", and "Campus Sweethearts". In 1930, she was signed by Paramount Pictures to a seven-year contract. Rogers soon got herself out of the Paramount contract—under which she had made five feature films at Astoria Studios in Astoria, Queens—and moved with her mother to Hollywood. When she
Ginger Rogers Harry", a 1941 comedy in which she dreams of marrying three different men; "I'll Be Seeing You" (1944), with Joseph Cotten; and Billy Wilder's first Hollywood feature film: "The Major and the Minor" (1942), in which she played a woman who masquerades as a 12-year-old to get a cheap train ticket and finds herself obliged to continue the ruse for an extended period. This film featured a performance by Rogers' own real mother, Lela, playing her film mother. After becoming a free agent, Rogers made hugely successful films with other studios in the mid-'40s, including "Tender Comrade" (1943), "Lady in