"The Autograph Seeker": Ginger Rogers and Future Blogger Collide!

 

I am not a person who asks film or sports celebrities for autographs. Part of the reason for this is the fear of rejection.  Another part is that I'm naturally shy, so the few times I have been at an art gallery or a park or a film festival in or around San Francisco and had a chance to ask for an autograph, I couldn't go through with it.  I  imagine these people were bugged enough already and I certainly didn't want to be seen as some kind of awkward intruder.      

But because I grew up at a time when a lot of older films played regularly on late-night television, I got in the habit as a teenager of either staying up late to watch the older films or getting up early depending on if I had a paper route.  I and a few friends liked the older films and one of us--I don't tjhink it was me actually, but I wish it was--once said that "the only people in movies I'd really want to meet are already dead."

  Later on I my twenties, I had a job that required me to work a "swing" shift (3 to Midnight) which had me home at right about the best time to see a lot of the old Warner Bros./RKO pictures that played on one or another of the Bay Area stations in California.  

In my teens I liked gangster melodramas, straight comedies and Westerns for late-night diversions.  It was in my twenties that I really discovered the Fred Astaire--Ginger Rogers films.  These movies like "Top Hat", "The Gay Divorcee" and "Swingtime" were fun little farces set against fabulous art deco sets and, for the popular cinema at least, witty and sophisticated dialogue.  The dances in these films were incomparable. The plots were nothing too avaunt-gar-de: Fred woos Ginger, Ginger plays hard to get, Fred dances with her, she thinks maybe he's not so bad after all, etc, etc.) But these great monochrome escapist films featured music by an absurd number of great composers Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin and Cole Porter.   Because of this and the seemingly-effortless style and grace of the pair in action, I became a fan of both Mr. Astaire and Miss Rogers, together and separately, and added their films to my "guilty pleasure" reading lists of books concerning The Golden Age of Hollywood.     

Which brings me to the one time I broke this rule, or overcame this crippling shyness, take your pick.  The year was 1994 and Ginger Rogers was doing a book signing of her autobiography "Ginger: My Story" at an art gallery in Medford, Oregon.   Miss Rogers had made Medford her home-away-from-Hollywood for about 50 years when she bought a 1,000 acre ranch north of the city.  I had moved there a couple years earlier and ran into people who told me about seeing the lady herself, sadly now in a wheelchair, about town being escorted by an assistant on shopping trips. She rarely gave interviews to the local press so the book-signing was rather a big deal.  The fact that she was obviously in ill health also made this appearance more poignant. 

To make a long story short, after some encouragement from my wife Shirley to stop pretending I wasn't a star-struck fan and actually meet an icon of film history, I stood in line one drizzly Saturday afternoon in 1994 to buy Miss Rogers book and a program she had for her night club act and  have her sign the memorabilia. On my future wife's strong recommendation, I bought some flowers to present to the one-time box office queen and Oscar Winner. (In 1940, as the leading lady in the exceptional melodrama "Kitty Foyle".)The turnout for this signing was big--Ginger Rogers had been a fixture around the area since she made war bond appearances during World War II and sent the milk from her cows at "Rogers Rouge River Ranch" to nearby Camp White during the war to help keep soldiers in lactose.   She had also appeared at charity events in the 1980's when her health was better.  So a couple hundred or so local fans were already in line on Main Street when I turned up at noon to what I thought would be a much shorter line. What I thought would take a couple hours wound up being more like five.    She was supposed to only be signing autographs until about 4 that afternoon but graciously someone came out of the gallery and said to us "latecomers" (who had actually come on time) that she would stay a couple extra hours to meet and chat briefly with everyone. This act of graciousness was my undoing.  I let my guard down.  Since Miss Rogers' assistant seemed to encourage people to talk to the lady, I made up my mind to actually ask her a question of some kind other than just exchange pleasantries. But what to ask her, I wondered.  Surely nothing about Fred Astaire.  I hadn't read a lot of material on Ginger Rogers personal life, but I did know she was rumored to be less than pleased if people saw her pairing with Astaire to be the be-all and end-all of her career.   It was here that the bad idea formed in my head:  she was at RKO Studios the same time as Katherine Hepburn.  They had made a movie together and had been said to be rivals.  But, heck, that had been nearly fifty years back!  Surely they had buried that hatchet. And, since Hepburn was still alive perhaps they even spoke to each other over the phone occasionally. 

     Then I finally got inside the little gallery and I saw Ginger Rogers herself.  She looked a bit plump and had the telltale looks of aging, but she was also looking rather bright and alert for someone who had been meeting folks all day.  People right in front of me were getting their books and programs signed.  Miss Rogers looked happy and responsive. Cole Porter music was playing in the background. A large blow-up full- length photo of her from the 1930's graced an easel next to where she was signing books.  It looked like this would be a pleasant meet-and-greet   experience, one to cherish even.

Finally, it was my turn. I presented the flowers to her.  They were now wilted but she thanked me none the less and made me feel at ease. As she was signing  the book I put in front of her, and smiling at me for a moment, I sprung the trap on myself:

"I wonder Miss Rogers," I said, "if you are ever in touch with Katherine Hepburn these days?" 

I remember the hand she was holding the Sharpie pen with shook slightly and then she looked up at me.  Her eyes narrowed and, most amazing, I would swear I saw her nostrils flare. 

"I have nothing to do with Hepburn," the great lady shot back at me with a frown. "She was an eccentric. I didn't like her." She closed the cover of her copy of the  book as if I was a reprobate nephew who had just been written out of the will.

The brief encounter was ended and I managed a brief and very staged smile and thank you. I beat a respectable retreat from the front of the table.

I said earlier that I didn't read much about Ginger Rogers' personal life as most of the other stars.  It turned out, when I actually read her book, that bringing up Hepburn was about as bright a move as suggesting to her that she had hosted Joseph Stalin up at the Rogers Ranch.  Ginger turned to be in her younger days a staunch anti-Communist whose mother had actually willingly named names of suspected and actual Communists during the Hollywood Blacklisting Period.   Ginger also was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a group which was about as revolutionary in her day as the Romanov Dynasty of old Russia. 

 

The fact that Katherine Hepburn was an FDR liberal who was decidedly sympathetic to those who were blacklisted--and condemned the actions of such groups that hounded actors and directors out of work just short of being blacklisted herself--had apparently cemented  permanent animosity  between two of the last surviving leading ladies of that pre-television era of Silver Screen enchantment. The one thing I learned from this experience was similar to what George Orwell said about Salvador Dali in one of his essays: that one could admire the work of an artist but deplore their personal conduct.  Also, sometimes it's better to just say something ordinary to a star rather than go for saying something risky.   So Ginger Rogers AKA Virginia McGrath, born in humble circimstances in Independence, Missouri, USA  wherever you are now, be glad to know you will be the first and last person I'll ever ask to sign an autograph.  But I still enjoy quite a few of your movies, may Eleanor Roosevelt have mercy on my soul.

 Hers's my favorite Fred and Ginger scene: the dance to "Night and Day" from "The Gay Divorcee" (1934) and the  rousing dance-studio number from  "Swingtime" (1936).  

I also have a brief scene of her and Fred from "Roberta" (1935) posted on my main page featuring more of the Astaire-Rogers magic chemistry.