Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) and Ginger Rogers (July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) were iconic dance partners who made motion pictures together from 1933 to 1949. They made a total of 10 films, nine of them with RKO Radio Pictures from 1933 to 1939, and one, "The Barkleys of Broadway", with M-G-M in 1949, their only color (Technicolor) film. Many years later, they became known by the portmanteau nickname of "Fringer", popularised by Australian entertainer Dave Gorr. Astaire started dancing in the early 1900s as a child on stage
Ginger Rogers CBS radio. In 1941, Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in 1940's "Kitty Foyle". She enjoyed considerable success during the early 1940s, and was RKO's hottest property during this period. In "Roxie Hart" (1942), based on the same play which served as the template for the later musical "Chicago", Rogers played a wisecracking wife on trial for a murder her husband committed. In the neorealist "Primrose Path" (1940), directed by Gregory La Cava, she played a prostitute's daughter trying to avoid the fate of her mother. Further highlights of this period included "Tom, Dick, and