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
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