The Ginger House and heavily involved in the theater, Ginger went on to become a Broadway star at the age of 19, and shortly after, a Hollywood film actress. She is perhaps best known for the nine films she made with Fred Astaire, but she was a huge star before they began working together and making dance films. Ginger visited her hometown several times during her lifetime. In 1942, she visited the home during an interview with LIFE magazine. In 1964, President Harry Truman declared July 16 to be "Ginger Roger's Day," Ginger again visited the home in 1972 when she was in
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