Ginger Rogers filmography with RKO Radio Pictures, where she was paired with dancer Fred Astaire in commercially successful "Flying Down to Rio" (1933). The pair achieved greater success in subsequent musicals "The Gay Divorcee" (1934), "Top Hat" (1935), "Swing Time" (1936), and "Shall We Dance" (1937), totaling 8 films made between 1933 and 1939. Without Astaire, Rogers starred in critically and commercially successful non-musicals throughout the remainder of the 1930s such as "Stage Door" (1937) with Katharine Hepburn, "Vivacious Lady" (1938) with James Stewart, and "Bachelor Mother" (1939) with David Niven, culminating with an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in
Ginger Rogers commitments with the punishing rehearsal schedules of Astaire, who made at most two films in any one year. In 1986, shortly before his death, Astaire remarked, "All the girls I ever danced with thought they couldn't do it, but of course they could. So they always cried. All except Ginger. No no, Ginger never cried". John Mueller summed up Rogers' abilities as: "Rogers was outstanding among Astaire's partners, not because she was superior to others as a dancer, but, because, as a skilled, intuitive actress, she was cagey enough to realize that acting did not stop when dancing began ...