Modern Screen (Dec 1948 - Oct 1949)

Well, Ginger got her job, the one she's wanted for a long, long time, without pounding on producers' doors — and, as usual, when she had a crack at what she wanted she didn't hesitate a second. I know, because I had a little something to do with that, too. I'm talking about Ginger's return as the lovely-lady half of the greatest box-office team that ever existed, back again dancing with Fred Astaire — after ten long, too long, years — in The Barkleys of Broadway. what effort? . . . With The Barkleys just finished, Ginger told me, "It's the best story Fred and I ever had." The story's about a LuntFontanne type pair of dancers on the Big White Way, and not since The Castles has Ginger stepped so high, wide and handsome with her twinkling toes. I wanted to know if her calf muscles ached. She hadn't tripped a toe professionally since Lady in the Dark, six years ago, and that but briefly. "All that effort — rehearsals — " "Effort!" Ginger exclaimed. "Can you name me anything I'd rather do than dance?" Nope, I couldn't, not offhand. As much of a natural-born stay-at-home as she is, Ginger would still be out whirling around dizzily every night on a dance floor if that were Jack Briggs' dish. But it's not. Ginger's been siccing him on Arthur Murray and Veloz and Yolanda persistently since they've been married — but it just won't take. He hates dancing! Ginger Rogers has the reputation of being a lone wolf in Hollywood and it's true — she is and I know why. The gossipy, artificial, fame-and-money caste system of Hollywood is not for her; she's too honest. She acts like a movie star only on the screen. I've never heard her make a catty remark about anybody. If she likes you, she'll give you the hat off her head (as she did me once — took one off I admired and handed it right over!). She all>4 ways comes to my parties, but I rarely see her around elsewhere. She can count her close friends on her fingers. They've got to be real ones. She's a gal to call a spade a spade when she's making a picture and all was never peaches and cream between her and Fred when they shared starring honors, nor was it with any star Ginger batted up against. She went all out for her rights — as she still does. Not very long ago, during the filming of her latest movie, The Barkleys at MGM, Ginger had a difficult, quiet but emotional scene to handle and the director asked her beforehand, llIs it going to disturb you, Ginger, to have visitors on the set?" "Yes," she replied frankly, "it will." Well, it would happen that that very day was the one Judy Garland picked to visit the set and watch Ginger playing the part she'd had her own heart set on, but which illness had denied her. It was a ticklish situation when Judy, MGM's long-time darling, showed up at the stage door and the assistant told her, "Miss Rogers would rather not have anyone on the set. Can't you come back some other day?" Judy said no she couldn't and stamped away in a rage, and that was natural, too. She thought Ginger had snubbed her. Ginger never learned anything about the incident until later, when she was very upset — but, being Ginger, she couldn't do anything about it. Something in Ginger Rogers' proud nature just naturally won't allow her to be beholden to anyone. Ginger was getting ready the night I saw her, to shake Hollywood and its headaches for the pristine peace of her ranch at Eagle Point, Oregon. She bought it seven years ago and this last Christmas made the fourth she has spent there. To hear Ginger talk, it's her edge on the future. "Someday when my lovely beef is selling in the market and I'm making a living up there, then I'll tell the picture business goodbye," she told me. "I'll say, 'you've been awfully good to me and I love you dearly — but I'm through'." I think she's talking a long, long distance ahead, myself — but anyway that's the provident way she feels about the Four-R. "It's for my old age and it's strictly business," \ Ginger's told me time and again. Okay, I'm beginning to believe her. Ginger's the official owner but Jack Briggs is the working boss of the Four-R. "He's up before I'm even awake," Ginger told me proudly, "and usually I'm asleep l before he drags in." Last summer, in hay \ ing time, Ginger didn't see Jack except ' with the rest of the ranch hands when she rustled up dinner for the crew in searing ' weather that, as she said, "fries your in 1 sides and makes you keel over quick." 1 There's no swimming pool on Rogers R. R. Ranch, no tennis court either — not even a ping-pong table. The tenant farmer's house is bigger than Ginger and Jack's, which is a tiny cottage made into a living room and library sealed in sugar ! pine, with three bedrooms and a bath tacked on. Ginger chuckles every time anyone thinks she gallops around her place like "Hopalong Cassidy in a silver saddle." When a Hollywood gal recently gushed, "Oh, Ginger, how you must love to ride the trails on your lovely ranch," she let her down with, "We've got one work horse, and he's too busy pulling things around to have me on his back, too." The lone car's a pickup truck and Ginger herds it over the dirt road into Medford three I times a week to stock up on vittles. Rest of the time — "Just say I've got a chronic case of aching back and housemaid's knee," she told me. "I'm a busy woman." . handy woman . . . She does all the ranch laundry on a beat-up old washing machine. She cooks the meals and washes the dishes. "I wash," Ginger explained, "Lela wipes and Jack ' keeps us apart." She chases around in faded Levis, plaid shirts, tennis sneakers and pigtails, rambling all over the 640 acres. She perches on corral rails at stock auctions all over the county. She's yanked her share of scrappy steelhead out of the I Rogue and shot its dangerous rapids twice in a bobbing boat. But she's never shot anything else — not even the fat pheasants which swarm in her fields. Incidentally, Ginger thinks the Briggs family will belong officially to the Oregon Trail at last when Jack gets appointed a deputy sheriff. "That's important up there," she said, "and you've got to be an old timer to rate." But Ginger Rogers has rated right here in Hollywood for almost two decades now and I'm betting on her to add another ten-stretch at least before she goes home on the range for keeps. I was thinking with a chuckle as I i waved her good-luck and rolled down that scarey hil! homewards, of the time Ginger met Greta Garbo. She'd wanted to for years and years but — well — Garbo doesn't chum up easily with anybody. One day, in a Westwood Village shop, Ginger and her German maid, Irma, were picking up some things and tossing a few words of Deutsch back and forth in the process. Another customer looked up, intrigued by the foreign tongue. It was Garbo — and Ginger thought, "Now's my chance." But Garbo quickly averted her eyes. That burned Ginger because she knew Greta Garbo knew who she was. So she stepped up, stuck out her hand and said, "Hello, Miss Garbo. I'm Ginger Rogers." "How do you do?" Gee-Gee replied grudgingly, then turned and stalked away. But Ginger was satisfied. She'd met Garbo whether Garbo wanted to meet her or not. Ginger told me afterwards, "I made up my mind she'd say 'hello' or else. If she hadn't, by Golly, I'd have tripped her!" And, knowing Ginger Rogers, I'm sure she would have, too! The End It's Never Been Done Before! SHIMT TEMPLE BIRTHDAY ISSUE Shirley on the cover. Huge special section with exclusive stories and pictures. Shirley's own story. Her life in pictures. Scoop photos of Shirley and family at home. Many more features ! APRIL MODERN SCREEN W ON SALE MARCH 11