Rogers left his father's home when he was twenty. He found work in a Cleveland, Ohio machine shop, working for twenty five cents an hour. He wanted to become an engineer and aspired to complete his education in Oxford, England. Rogers eventually went to Hollywood to study camera technique. There he partnered with Harold McCracken to produce pictures. His first film was a comedy concerning nudism. He was estranged from his wife, the former Miss Virginia Lincoln, a physician's daughter from Cleveland. The couple were married in 1929.