By David Raether
When we talk about the best dancers in Hollywood history, the conversation generally centers around Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, with Donald O’Connor sometimes thrown in there as well. What you don’t hear mentioned nearly enough are their partners—the women who danced with them.
That’s obviously a mistake. Nearly all the great Hollywood musical dance numbers of the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s include women. Granted, they were not dancing lead most of the time, but that doesn’t—by any means—make anything they did any easier or less remarkable.
In fact, 1930s cartoonist Bob Thaves best described the situation in a memorable quote:
“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels.”
Among the dozens of great women dancers in Hollywood history, the three that stand out are Ginger Rogers, Leslie Caron, and Cyd Charisse. Each of these women has several movies you really should put into your queue.
Let’s talk about why.
Although she had several dance partners, Rogers is rightfully best known for her work with Fred Astaire. The duo made nine movies together and shared a total of 33 dance numbers—one of the greatest partnerships of any kind in American movie history.
One interesting thing about Rogers is that she remained a big star on her own after her films with Astaire, playing both comedic and dramatic roles. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her straight dramatic performance in Kitty Foyle (1940). However, one of my personal favorite non-dancing performances of Rogers was in Billy Wilder’s The Major and the Minor (1942).
Originally named Virginia Katherine McMath, Ginger Rogers was born on July 16, 1911, in Independence, Missouri, to parents in the midst of a tumultuous marriage. They separated before she turned one year old, and her father even kidnapped her twice before the couple finally divorced. She never saw her father again after the divorce was finalized.
Rogers’ mother, Lela Emogene, was quite the operator. Already an established writer and reporter, she traveled to Hollywood after the divorce to pitch movies and get a screenwriting career going, while Ginger lived with her grandparents in Kansas City. The two eventually moved to Fort Worth, Texas, after her mother married John Logan Rogers. Although he never adopted Ginger, she took his surname and used it for the rest of her life.
When she was 14, Rogers won a dance competition in Fort Worth and joined a vaudeville touring company as a dancer soon after. Ginger’s mother elected to travel with her. At 17, she married another vaudeville performer named Jack Pepper—the first of her five marriages. The matrimony lasted only a year, and soon she was back on the road again with her mother. They ended up in New York City, where she was cast in a Gershwin Broadway musical, Girl Crazy. This is where she met Astaire, who was working as the assistant choreographer.
Roger’s Broadway success led to numerous movie deals at Paramount, then Warner Brothers, and finally RKO, where her partnership with Astaire blossomed. The nine films they did together included Flying Down to Rio (1933)—one of my favorites!—The Gay Divorcee (1934), Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Swing Time (1936), and Shall We Dance (1937).
I especially recommend Let’s Face the Music and Dance from Follow the Fleet. Rogers floats through the number like she is on air, which is pretty amazing when you consider that the sequined gown she is wearing weighed 25 pounds. Even more remarkable—the performance is one continuous take. They filmed the number 24 times in one day; Roger’s feet were bleeding, and she was nearly hospitalized from exhaustion. Astaire was supposedly not the easiest of dance partners to work with, after all.
The other essential Astaire/Rogers number to check out is Never Gonna Dance from Swing Time, which many consider the most incredible pas de deux in Hollywood history. It starts slowly with the two simply walking before moving effortlessly into a dance number of increasing intensity and power.
I used to assume that Cyd Charisse was French or European because of that vaguely French-sounding name and her lithe elegance. Nope. Cyd Charisse is about as American as they come.
Born Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, on March 8, 1921, Sid was a childhood nickname given by her brother, who was really trying to call her “sis” but had trouble saying the second ‘s’ in her name. The nickname was then Francophiled when she got to Hollywood. (I will note that she did marry a French dancer name Nico Charisse, so that part of her name wasn’t exactly pulled out of thin air.)
Charisse battled through polio as a child and took up dance at the age of six to build strength in her legs. Her family later moved to Los Angeles, where she studied ballet. Charisse eventually joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and toured Europe with them in the 1930s. However, the outbreak of World War II led to the dissolution of the dance company, so she returned home to Los Angeles and began a career in film.
Charisse frequently played ballerinas, dancing with Astaire in Zeigfeld Follies (1946) and later the notable American modern dancer and choreographer Gower Champion in the number Smoke Gets In Your Eyes from the film Til The Clouds Roll By (1947), which I highly recommend.
Her most notable performance is the ballet number at the end of Singin’ in The Rain (1952) with Gene Kelly. Debbie Reynolds was not a skilled enough dancer for the rigors of this number, so Kelly chose Charisse in her place. If you were looking for an excuse to watch this movie again, there you go. Watch it for the Kelly/Charisse number. It’s awfully sexy. I’ll just say that. I would also recommend the solo number she performs in Silk Stockings (1957).
One other outstanding dance number with Charisse is with Astaire in The Band Wagon (1953). The two perform to Dancin’ in the Dark, and it’s a deeply emotional and passionate masterpiece. If it sounds familiar, that’s because Damien Chazelle quotes the number’s atmosphere and charm in A Lovely Night from La La Land (2016).
Born in Paris on July 1, 1931, Leslie Caron studied ballet as a young girl and performed as a member of the Ballet des Champs Elysees through her teens. During the Nazi occupation of Paris, she was often malnourished and anemic. Caron is best known for the incredible extended ballet number she dances with Gene Kelly in An American in Paris (1951).
Kelly had initially intended the final number of Singin’ in the Rain to be danced with Cyd Charisse, but she was pregnant at the time. So he cast Caron, whom he had seen dance in Paris several years earlier. Her role in An American in Paris led to a seven-year contract with MGM. During this period, she had several notable performances, including Lili (1953), which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
Caron’s other notable musical from this period is Gigi (1958), directed by the fabulous Vincente Minnelli (yes, Liza’s father). The film is sort of standard 1950s musical fare, and it’s actually a lot of fun. Still, you can see from watching it why she eventually became disenchanted with the Hollywood musical.
Caron is the most refined of these three dancers, in my opinion, having been trained as a ballerina at a young age. Although she was a successful actress and dancer, the Hollywood musical was never all that appealing to her. Later in her career, Caron took up a serious study of acting and received another Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her stellar performance in The L-Shaped Room (1962).
David Raether is a veteran TV writer and essayist. He worked for 12 years as a television sitcom writer/producer, including a 111-episode run on the ground-breaking ABC comedy “Roseanne.” His essays have been published by Salon.com, The Times of London, and Longforms.org, and have been lauded by The Atlantic Magazine and the BBC World Service. His memoir, Homeless: A Picaresque Memoir from Our Times, is awaiting publication.