Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) and Ginger Rogers (July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) were iconic dance partners who made motion pictures together from 1933 to 1949. They made a total of 10 films, nine of them with RKO Radio Pictures from 1933 to 1939, and one, "The Barkleys of Broadway", with M-G-M in 1949, their only color (Technicolor) film. Many years later, they became known by the portmanteau nickname of "Fringer", popularised by Australian entertainer Dave Gorr. Astaire started dancing in the early 1900s as a child on stage
The Yama Yama Man banjo. In 1909, the Cuban dance orchestra Orquesta De Enrique Pena recorded a version in a traditional Cuban style. In 1909, the young dancer Irene Foote began imitating Bessie McCoy's "Yama Yama Man" in amateur theatricals. Irene's mother would take her around to Broadway producers auditioning her talent using the Yama routine, but with little success. Irene later had a successful career in modern dance with her husband Vernon Castle and in 1939 Ginger Rogers played Irene in the biographical film "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle", in which Rogers re-enacts Irene imitating Bessie McCoy's "Yama Yama Man" routine