Ginger Rogers the reason so many women have fantasized about dancing with Fred Astaire is that Ginger Rogers conveyed the impression that dancing with him is the most thrilling experience imaginable". According to Astaire, when they were first teamed together in "Flying Down to Rio", "Ginger had never danced with a partner before. She faked it an awful lot. She couldn't tap and she couldn't do this and that ... but Ginger had style and talent and improved as she went along. She got so that after a while everyone else who danced with me looked wrong." Author Dick Richards, in his
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".