Ginger Rogers

The Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater in Medford, Oregon is named in her honor. Dinah Shore died in Beverly Hills, California of ovarian cancer. Ginger Rogers died in 1995 and was interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California. Rumors that she had African-American ancestry haunted her career, and caused her to lose some popularity in the U.S. South. In 1961, she married her fifth husband, director and producer William Marshall, but separated from him within weeks of their marriage, eventually divorcing him in 1969. At one point, Shore had an affair with Burt Reynolds, who was 19 years younger than she. In 1953, she married her fourth husband, lawyer Jacques Bergerac (16 years her junior, he became an actor and then a cosmetics company executive); they divorced in 1957 and he soon remarried actress Dorothy Malone. After her divorce from Montgomery, she briefly married Maurice Smith.

In 1943, she married her third husband, Jack Briggs, a Marine; they divorced in 1949. She later adopted a son, Jody Montgomery. In 1934, she married her second husband, actor Lew Ayres (1908–1996); they separated quickly and were divorced in 1941. Shore was married to actor George Montgomery from 1943 to 1963; this produced her only natural child, Melissa Ann (known today as Melissa Montgomery-Hime, executor of the Dinah Shore Trust, and who owns the rights to most of Shore's television series). She first married her dancing partner Jack Pepper (real name Edward Jackson Culpepper) on March 29, 1929; they divorced in 1931, having separated soon after the wedding. Shore also founded one of the most prestigious golf tournaments on the LPGA tour, the Colgate/Dinah Shore Winner's Circle Golf Championship (today known as the Kraft/Nabisco Championship) in Palm Springs, California. This close mother-daughter relationship has been proffered to explain at least in part Rogers's history of marital disappointment. She also lent her musical voice to two Disney films, Make Mine Music (1946) and Fun and Fancy Free (1947).

She was a conservative Republican politically, and lived for much of her life with her mother, Lela Owens McMath Rogers (1891–1977), a Christian Scientist who was a newspaper reporter, scriptwriter, movie producer, one of the first women to enlist in the Marine Corps, and a founder of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. As an actress, Shore appeared in many musical films, such as Belle of the Yukon and Up in Arms (both in 1944), and Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), and in numerous TV movies and series. In 1940 Ginger Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her starring role in Kitty Foyle. The producers cut to impromptu commercial and Clifton was escorted out of the studio. In 1939, she played opposite David Niven in Bachelor Mother. It was the ultimate humiliation. Her first roles were in a trio of short films made in 1929 — Night in the Dormitory, A Day of a Man of Affairs, and Campus Sweethearts. This happened live on the air to a huge TV audience.

She is most remembered as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten all-singing all-dancing Hollywood musicals, but her acting career spanned over thirty years. He took deliberate offense at her questions and eventually tipped a pan of eggs over her head. Virginia Katherine McMath (July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995), better known as Ginger Rogers, was an American actress and dancer. On her show, Dinah! she once had the misfortune of interviewing Andy Kaufman in his Tony Clifton guise. Variants include "Astaire gave her class, and Rogers gave him sex" and "He gave her class, and she gave him sex.". She continued to appear in Chevrolet advertising through the 1950s. "Fred gave Ginger class, and Ginger gave Fred sex." Katharine Hepburn, actress. The Dinah Shore Show premiered on the NBC television network in 1951, and the sponsor's theme song ("See the USA in your Chevrolet") became the singer's signature piece.

"Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, and she did it backwards and in high heels." Faith Whittlesey, former US ambassador to Switzerland. Responsibility for this quote also has been traced to a 1982 Frank and Ernest cartoon. She made many popular appearances entertaining members of the United States Armed Forces during World War II. She remained one of the USA's most popular singers, making regular radio broadcasts and having over 80 hit records, most in the 1940s and early 1950s. She changed her name to Dinah after the title of a favorite song. After graduating she moved to New York City where she began singing and recorded with bandleader Xavier Cugat.

She was a 1938 graduate in sociology from Vanderbilt University. Despite this disability, she sometimes successfully danced before audiences. She was left with a shortened leg, which she always covered with long pants or a long dress. Born to a Jewish family in Winchester, Tennessee, Shore was stricken with polio at 18 months, but recovered.

She first became famous as a "girl singer" in the Big Band era, then went on to become a movie star, and television host of a series of variety programs. Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore, February 29, 1916 - February 24, 1994) was a United States singer, actress, and celebrity.