Ginger Rogers Ginger Rogers Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer, and singer. She is known for her starring role in "Kitty Foyle" (1940), but is best remembered for performing in RKO's musical films (partnered with Fred Astaire) on stage, radio and television, throughout much of the 20th century. Born in Independence, Missouri, and raised in Kansas City, Rogers and her family moved to Fort Worth, Texas, when she was nine years old. After winning a 1925 Charleston dance contest that launched a successful vaudeville career, she gained recognition as a
Ginger Rogers at the Craterian Theater, in Medford, where she had performed in 1926 as a vaudevillian. The theater was comprehensively restored in 1997 and posthumously renamed in her honor as the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater. Rogers spent winters in Rancho Mirage and summers in Medford. She continued making public appearances (chiefly at award shows) until suffering a stroke that left her partially paralyzed and dependent on a wheelchair. Despite her stroke, she was a practitioner of Christian Science and never saw a doctor or went to a hospital. Her last husband, William Marshall, would trick Rogers to take insulin since she