Ginger Rogers Castle", but the serious plot and tragic ending resulted in the worst box-office receipts of any of their films. This was driven not by diminished popularity, but by the hard 1930s economic reality. The production costs of musicals, always significantly more costly than regular features, continued to increase at a much faster rate than admissions. Both before and immediately after her dancing and acting partnership with Fred Astaire ended, Rogers starred in a number of successful nonmusical films. "Stage Door" (1937) demonstrated her dramatic capacity, as the loquacious yet vulnerable girl next door, a tough-minded, theatrical hopeful, opposite Katharine Hepburn.
Ginger Rogers nickname soon became "Ginga". When Rogers was nine years old, her mother remarried, to John Logan Rogers. Ginger took the surname Rogers, although she was never legally adopted. They lived in Fort Worth. Her mother became a theater critic for a local newspaper, the "Fort Worth Record". She attended, but did not graduate from, Fort Worth's Central High School (later renamed R.L. Paschal High School). As a teenager, Rogers thought of becoming a school teacher, but with her mother's interest in Hollywood and the theater, her early exposure to the theater increased. Waiting for her mother in the wings of