Monday, September 28, 2009

Whose Your Character of Choice?



Ari is our host for Today. Here is Fun Monday's question: If you could click your heels three times, and change lives with any character from any film, who would it be and why?

At first, I thought, wow..this is going to be hard. But after I gave it a little thought..this is the first thing that came to mind. If I could change lives with any film character it would be Ginger Rogers. Even though she was in her prime a little before my time, I admire her talent. Ginger and Fred Astaire were a match made in heaven for dancing together. Tap dancing is so much fun to do and watch. Way back when...I took dance lessons and tap was my favorite. I was very good at it, but I quit after a few years and never went back. This has been one of my regrets in life. Who knows where it would have taken me...maybe I would have gone on to be a Rockette and dancing at The Radio City Music Hall.



The announcement of the Astaire-Rogers screen partnership - from the trailer to Flying Down to Rio
Rogers was most famous for her partnership with Fred Astaire. Together, from 1933 to 1939, they made nine musical films at RKO Flying Down to Rio (1933), The Gay Divorcee (1934), Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and Carefree (1938), The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) and a tenth The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) was made later at MGM, and in so doing, revolutionized the Hollywood musical, introducing dance routines of unprecedented elegance and virtuosity, set to songs specially composed for them by the greatest popular song composers of the day. To this day, "Fred and Ginger" remains an almost automatic reference for any successful dance partnership.










15 comments:

m (the misanthrope) said...

How wonderful! My mom loves musicals, and I grew up on Astaire and Rogers, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye, Donald O'Connor and others. I heard someone say once that "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in heels!" So true! What a classic dance pairing!

Re Audrey Hepburn - I will always adore her. She had more class and talent in her pinkie finger than most of today's over-inflated, over-exposed so-called "leading ladies" have in their entire bodies. Thanks for sharing, and happy FM to you!

wendishness said...

A Beautiful choice...I loved watching her and Fred Astaire dancing (and still do), they had such an amazing aura about them!

Gattina said...

That's a pity you didn't continue ! I love this tap dancing too !

Pamela said...

backwards and in heels.. yup. That was one of my favorite strong woman jokes.

He was such a funny lookin' little fellow but when he danced he took you away to wonder land.

Thena said...

Just keep learning more and more about you. Dancing has NEVER been my thing.

Faye said...

Thanks for that excuse to do a bit of toe tapping this morning, Janis. Do you and Jer still get a chance to channel Fred and Ginger every now and then? :-)

I'm so happy that Dancing with the Stars new season is back on. That's where I'll be tonight between 8-10 pm. Although I'm not crazy about this years' contestants. There's no Gilles, sadly. . . Will you be watching?

Sayre said...

Watching Fred and Ginger dance always leaves me breathless. Such amazing talent! I can see why you would want to be Ginger!

Living Life said...

Mom - you were and still are a great dancer! Never knew you liked tap that much.

Hula Girl at Heart said...

I would be Joanne Woodward so I could kiss, kiss, kiss Paul Newman. Sigh. I miss him. Sexiest man ever. EVAH!

Molly said...

To be able to dance like Fred and Ginger would be wonderful. Although I have not imagined myself to be Ginger, I do confess to thinking that I have great dancing prowess. Well, one can dream.

Molly said...

To be able to dance like Fred and Ginger would be wonderful. Although I have not imagined myself to be Ginger, I do confess to thinking that I have great dancing prowess. Well, one can dream.

Ari_1965 said...

Great choices. I love the Fred and Ginger movies. I also love the great art deco sets that most of those movies featured.

Hootin Anni said...

Hi Janis...
Just wanted your to know that I'm working on the Bloggers Over 50 blogroll today.

I just added your link.
Welcome...glad to have you as a member!


[Hootin Anni....doing admin]

LadyStyx said...

Great choice.

Thena said...

I just left you an award on my blog. When you get a chance come by and get it.