Ginger Rogers, then 14, won first place in the state Charleston contest at the Baker Hotel in Dallas on Nov. 9, 1925, according to the story. Born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri, she moved to Texas as a child. The story says she came to Fort Worth in 1922, at age 11, with her mother and stepfather, John Rogers. Her mother, a former movie scriptwriter, took a job as a theater critic for a local newspaper.
The story says Rogers left formal school after three years and took a six-month vaudeville contract. In New York she sang on the radio and won a part in the Broadway musical Top Speed, which opened on Christmas Day 1929. It says the Gershwins then chose her for the lead in Girl Crazy.
According to the story, Rogers and her mother moved to Hollywood, where she made 22 films for six studios in three years. In 1933 RKO paired her with Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio. The story says the pair made eight more films together between 1934 and 1939, and they reunited at MGM for The Barkleys of Broadway in 1949.