I didn't know Ginger Rogers during her glory days when she won her Oscar® for Kitty Foyle or when she danced so gloriously with Fred Astaire in their ten marvelous musicals together, but I did have the great fortune to meet her, know her and spend time with her during her later years. She was always the same sunny, upbeat All-American lady she'd been when the public first fell in love with her decades earlier.

The real Rogers was bright, warm, gracious, a true practitioner of that adage that Thumper tried to teach us in Bambi, to wit: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Ginger lived by that. She didn't dish, didn't complain, didn't cut up her rivals behind their backs, something many of her contemporaries were often inclined to do. Ginger saw the world as a positive and attractive place and she considered it part of her responsibility to do what she could to keep it that way. One thing that could ruffle her feathers, though, was when someone would infer that her only claim to fame was the body of work she'd done with Astaire. She loved Fred and those movies and she appreciated the impact they had on the public, but she'd worked too hard (73 movies), done too spectacularly well on her own (including the winning of an Academy Award®) and topped too many popularity polls as a solo item to only be known as part of a package known as "Astairenrogers." She'd say, "After all, it's not as if we were Abbott and Costello. We did have careers apart from each other". That's one reason we're saluting here in March: it's an opportunity for you to see how versatile and dazzling Ginger Rogers was and how magical, above and beyond those famous encounters with the Fabulous Fred. We'll be showing many of those "Astairenrogers" movies, of course - she'd want them to be included - but there are also numerous other delights which prove quite adamantly, the lady would have had a giant career if she'd never danced a step with anyone.

Interestingly, for all her success in the glamour world, I don't think Ginger was ever happier than when she was in dungarees, hanging out on the 1800-acre ranch in Oregon which she'd purchased in 1940. It was her paradise and a place close to her heart for the next 55 years. She named it the 4 R's (Rogers' Rogue River Ranch) and she'd go there between films to milk cows, fish and re-fuel, living the simple life and enjoying the pleasures of peace and quiet far from the maddening crowd. If she seemed like such a real person on screen it's because she was the genuine article off screen as well.

by Robert Osborne