Douglaston's Own: Ginger Rogers

Ginger Rogers is known for her fancy footwork opposite Fred Astaire and Academy Award winning turn as a secretary during the depression.

But in the 1920s, she was also a denizen of Douglaston.

Born in Missouri, the actress got her start in the entertainment business when a traveling vaudeville act came to Fort Worth, where Rogers had been living at the time. She entered a dance competition and won, enabling her to tour with the troupe.

In 1929, Rogers made her Broadway debut with “Top Speed” and Ira and George Gershwin’s “Girl Crazy.” Actor Fred Astaire helped the show’s dancers with their choreography, discovering Rogers and helping her to become an overnight star.

The actress signed with Paramount Pictures and filmed several pictures at Astoria’s movie studios.

Rogers’ big breakthrough came in 1933 when she starred in two musicals – “42nd Street” and “Gold Diggers of 1933” – that have gone on to become classics in the genre.

Between 1933 and 1939, she made nearly 10 films with Astaire, including “The Gay Divorcee,” “Top Hat,” “Swing Time” and “Shall We Dance?”

The duo’s work together made for one of cinema’s most famed onscreen partnerships.

In the 1940s, Rogers took on more dramatic fare, including “Stage Door” and Billy Wilder’s “The Major and the Minor.”

She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for 1940’s “Kitty Foyle,” in which she played a Philadelphia secretary who attempts to help a socialite create a magazine during the depression, but later falls in love with a doctor.

Rogers would continue to nab film roles throughout the 1950s and 1960s and, in the 1970s, made appearances on “The Love Boat.”

She had five marriages to lesser known Hollywood actors and producers. In the 1950s, she was a founding member of a Hollywood anti-Communist group that also included Gary Cooper and Clark Gable.

She died of congestive heart failure at age 83 in 1995.

Douglaston's Own will profile a famous current or former citizen of the neighborhood each Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. Check out last week's piece on chess champion .