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 the 1940s. Her performance in "Kitty Foyle" (1940) won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Rogers remained successful throughout the 1940s and at one point was Hollywood's highest-paid actress, but her popularity had peaked by the end of the decade. She reunited with Astaire in 1949 in the commercially successful "The Barkleys of Broadway". After an unsuccessful period through the 1950s, Rogers made a successful return to Broadway in 1965, playing the lead role in "Hello, Dolly!". More lead roles on Broadway followed, along with her stage directorial debut in 1985 on an off-Broadway production of "Babes in Arms".