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 she directed the musical "Babes in Arms" off-Broadway in Tarrytown, New York, at 74 years old. It was produced by Michael Lipton and Robert Kennedy of Kennedy Lipton Productions. The production starred Broadway talents Donna Theodore, Carleton Carpenter, James Brennan, Randy Skinner, Karen Ziemba, Dwight Edwards, and Kim Morgan. It is also noted in her autobiography "Ginger, My Story". The Kennedy Center honored Ginger Rogers in December 1992. This event, which was shown on television, was somewhat marred when Astaire's widow, Robyn Smith, who permitted clips of Astaire dancing with Rogers to be shown for free at the function itself,