"Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels." Faith Whittlesey
 Ginger Rogers: July 16, 2011 - April 25, 1995

The year was 1980.

The day before Bob Jani, the producer, and I were scheduled to fly to California to meet with Ginger at her home in Rancho Mirage to discuss the show A ROCKETTE SPECTACULAR with GINGER ROGERS, Bob told me something urgent had come up and he had to cancel. I wasn’t at all happy to hear that because it meant I would have to meet with Ginger alone. I had worked with her in the 60s, when she was often a guest on Red Skelton’s TV Show, and I knew – first hand – how difficult she could be.
Tom Hanson, the show’s choreographer, usually worked out the production numbers for the guest stars with his assistant Leona Irwin, who learned the star’s part as well as the dancers’ parts. The star would arrive a day or two later and Leona would work with them privately. Then the dancers were brought in and all the elements of the numbers were put together.

Ordinarily, Leona danced all day with never a hair out of place. When Ginger was the guest, however, Leona looked like she had been pulled through a wringer by the end of the day. Taping days were the worst. Dancing the star’s role off to the side of the cameras, Leona became the star’s "cue card." Ginger, on the other hand, was always so busy smiling and selling to the red light on the camera, more often than not, she forgot to watch Leona. And every time Ginger made a mistake, which was quite often, she stopped dead in her tracks and wanted to take the entire number from the beginning. Time and time again, Howie Quinn, the assistant director explained to Ginger that she should try to recover from the mistake and continue the number as best as she could because he could always do pick-up shots and correct the mistakes. His pleas fell on deaf ears.

Taping days usually ended by 10:00 or 11:00 p.m., but with Ginger, the delays were so frequent, the dancers and the crew always had a pool to see what time we would finish. One particularly hateful night, Seymour Berns, the producer, was tearing his hair out because we didn’t wrap until after 2:00 a.m. That sent his budget through the roof because of all the overtime involved for the cast, as well as the crew. At that point in time, Ginger was only in her 50s and she literally did not know her right foot from her left foot. None of us could ever figure out how she performed all of those intricate dance numbers with Astaire, often in a single camera shot. Now in her 70s, I could not imagine the headaches I faced choreographing an entire show, which she had to perform live every night for 3 weeks at the legendary Radio City Music Hall.
After arriving at LAX, I rented a car and drove to Rancho Mirage, where I checked into a motel. I had to be at Ginger’s at 10:00 sharp the next morning even though I had my doubts that our meeting would start on time.

Ginger lived in a gated community and after I checked in with the guard and was given directions, I nervously pulled up to her home. I revved myself up as I walked to the front door and pushed the doorbell. The elderly woman who opened the door said in a hushed voice, "You must be Mr. Pahker." I couldn’t tell wether she spoke with a southern accent or if it was just an affectation.

"That’s me!" I said as cheerfully as I could.

"I’m Ginger’s Auntie Jean, won’t you come in?"

"Beautiful day, isn’t it?

"It almost always is heah in the desert. That is, except during the summah when it’s hot as Hades. Ginger and I spent one summah heah and that was enough fa’ us. I’m sorry Mr. Pahker but Ginger’s not quite ready yet." Gesturing to what looked to me like an "L" shaped sofa, she said, "Please have a seat on the divan. May I get you some coffee? Some tea? Some watah?"

I felt as if I had stepped on stage in a Tennessee Williams’ drama with Auntie Jean as my co-star. "I would like some water," I said, over pronouncing the "r." I had to fight to keep from reverting back to my own southern drawl, which I had as a kid growing up in Tampa. It reminded me of when I went home a few years after I learned how to hear myself speak at the Pasadena Playhouse and was finally successful in losing my accent. Dad introduced me to a new friend of his and after I had spoken a few sentences, his friend said incredulously, "You’re right Pahker, he does talk like a Yankee!" It was particularly surprising because Dad had never mentioned to me that he noticed a difference in the way I spoke.

As I walked towards the divan or sofa or whatever it was, I saw that the back of it had been pushed up against a fireplace and in the center of the mantel was an Oscar, the only one I have ever actually seen "in-person." I remembered that Ginger had won if for her role in Kitty Foyle. As for the rest of the decor, the first word that comes to mind is gauche. Her home, at least in my opinion, was clearly not a candidate for a spread in Architectural Digest. I couldn’t decide whether Ginger had an addiction to consignment stores, of which there are many in Rancho Mirage and Palm Springs, its next door neighbor, or if she had hired a straight male decorator.

Auntie Jean returned a few minutes later with a bouquet of flowers, obviously having forgotten my water, which she sat in the middle of the large, square, black coffee table, and, again, she disappeared. I looked down at the tacky vase and saw that it still had the drugstore label on it. Then I noticed that the vase was leaking. The coffee table was covered with books and magazines and as I did my best to clear them away so they wouldn’t get wet, I called out, "Auntie Jean, Auntie Jean?" I felt foolish calling her that but I didn’t know what else to call her. She ambled back into the room and I said, "Uh, there seems to be problem with the vase. It’s leaking!"

"My goodness gracious, it certainly is," she said as she picked up the vase with one hand cupping her other hand underneath the drip, and disappeared. She returned with some paper towels and I helped her wipe away the spilled water. She then deposited the paper towels in something on the other side of the room that looked more like an umbrella stand than it did a waste basket.

"Mr. Pahker, if you’ll come with me, I’ll be happy to give you a tour of Ginger’s garden." I followed her through the French doors into the interior garden, around which Ginger’s house was built. The garden was quite large, with several paths, and filled with roses in full bloom. It was actually quite lovely.

In Ginger, My Story, she writes about buying that house, "What really sold me were the thirty-six rose bushes and two gardenia hedges. I bought the house immediately, only to discover that in all four bathrooms, there were only showers – no tubs! I had been blinded by the roses. Many years later, I sold that house to Gerald ford, who used it for his Secret Service operations."

As we walked down one of the paths, Auntie Jean said, ever so slowly, and ever so hushed, "Have you ever been to South America Mr. Pahker?" Without giving me a chance to answer that I had not, she continued, "Ohhh, they just love Ginger in Brazil. And Ginger loves Brazil. Ginger’s been all over the world but I can’t think of any place Ginger loves as much as Brazil. The last time we went to Brazil, Ginger took along a new dress to wear in her show. It was covered in sapphire colored rhinestones and was the most scrumptious dress I had evah seen. The only problem was, Mr. Pahker, it was so heavy I could not even pick it up."
"‘Ginger,’ I said, ‘I know how much the Brazilian people love you and they are going to love that dress but how on earth can you wear something that heavy?.’ Ginger said, ‘Don’t you worry about that Auntie Jean, I’ll manage because I am going to wear it.’ One thing is for certain, Mr. Pahker, once Ginger makes up her mind, nobody can change it. But that’s Ginger." It always amused me when people referred to themselves or others in the third person without ever using a pronoun. To Auntie Jean, Ginger was always Ginger, never "she," and more often than not, I found out later, Ginger usually referred to herself as Ginger.

Auntie Jean stopped at one of the rose bushes, looked at me and smiled, "This is the rose they named after Ginger in Brazil. Isn’t it the most beautiful rose you have ever seen? Smell it, Mr. Pahker," she said, and I did.

"It certainly is beautiful," I responded.

Auntie Jean led me back into the living room and as I sat back down underneath Ginger’s Oscar, I heard, "Oh, no, Mr. Pahker!" as if I had sat or a tarantula. I quickly pushed myself back up to my feet and she added, "I forgot your watah," as she scurried out of the room. I thought, Please dear God let this day be over.
Auntie Jean returned with a glass the water as Ginger entered from another part of the house, wearing a very nondescript beige pants suit that looked like something she might have bought at a clearance sale at Wal-Mart. A very butch, unsmiling woman accompanied her and although I found out the woman’s name was Roberta Olden when Ginger introduced me to her, Ginger made no mention as to who she was or why she was present at the meeting. Ginger says, in her book, that Roberta was her secretary and a friend of her hairdresser. Hmmm.

I reminded Ginger that we had worked together several times on the Skelton Show and she told me how much she loved Red and how much she adored working with Tony Charmoli, confusing him with our choreographer Tom Hanson, and I didn’t bother to correct her. Then we all sat down, me on the end with Ginger next to me, Roberta next to her, and Auntie Jean holding her own on the short end of the "L."
"Mr. Jani," I started somewhat hesitantly, "wanted me to offer you his apologies and tell you how sorry he is that he couldn’t be here for this meeting but something very important came up." Oh crap, why did I say that? Her eyes popped open like dollar pancakes and she said, "Like he didn’t think Ginger was important?" she said. "I’m so sorry Ginger, that came out all wrong. What I meant to say was, something came up that was unavoidable, something having to do with the sets for your show." Without skipping a beat, I plowed ahead telling her about the show we were planning for her.

"We’re going to have 12 male singer/dancers working with you in some of the numbers. The opening number is a special material song that isn’t quite finished yet. The lyric that the guys sing is all about how much they can’t wait to dance with you. But here’s the switch, when you finally make your entrance, after the applause dies down, you sing, "I Won’t Dance, don’t ask me... " She thought about that for a minute and said, "I don’t get it. Why am I going to come out and sing, ‘I Won’t Dance,’ when people expect Ginger to dance?"

"That’s the idea. Everybody expects you to dance the minute they see you and the first thing out of your mouth is ‘I won’t dance.’ And, of course, the boys will eventually coax you into dancing." I quickly added, "Once we put the number together, I think you’ll see what we had in mind. If you don’t like it, we can always change it. And you will dance, you’ll dance a lot later in the show," I continued, telling her about the other numbers we had planned which seemed to appease her.

"You’re probably anxious to know what you’ll be wearing," I said. "All of the costumes are, of course, being designed and created especially for you by Frank Spencer, and I’ve brought along some of his sketches to show you." I handed the first sketch to her and after looking at it for a very long time, without making any comment at all, she tossed it on the coffee table as if it was last week’s newspaper. After the second sketch met with the same reaction, I handed her the third sketch. She looked at this one even longer finally leaning into it to examine something on the upper torso of the figure in the sketch. Pointing to it, with a disgruntled look on her face, she said, "What’s that supposed to be?" still zeroing in on the sketch.
　
I leaned in to examine it more closely and said, "Hmmm, I’m not really sure, Ginger, it looks like it might be fur."

With that, she snapped her head around to face me putting her finger about three inches from my nose. "You tell ‘em Ginger does not wear fake fur!" she growled, while repeatedly punching the air just in front of my nose with her finger for emphasis, "Ginger only wears real fur! If it’s not real fur, you tell ‘em they might as well not make it because Ginger wouldn’t be caught dead in fake fur!" Obviously Ginger was not a PETA supporter. I promised her I would give "them" the message.

Up to this point Auntie Jean and Roberta hadn’t said a word. Then, all at once, I heard a gigantic snore. I looked over at Auntie Jean and saw her chin resting on her chest. Neither Ginger, nor Roberta acknowledged Auntie Jean’s snore but it was all I could do to keep from howling like a banshee. The meeting finally ended and the next day I was on my way back to LAX.

A couple of weeks later, Ginger walked into the enormous rehearsal room at Radio City Music Hall in a pale green pants-suit similar in style to the one she had worn at the meeting in California. In fact, those identical pants-suits, all in different colors, were the only outfits she ever wore to rehearsal. That must have been quite a sale.

I introduced Ginger to Marsha, my tiny assistant, and the 12 guys who would be dancing with her. Not taking any chances, I had choreographed 3 versions of the big dance number. Version number 1 was a bit complicated but knowing Ginger’s limitations as I did, I thought she could handle it, number 2 was a quite a bit simpler, and number 3 was very, very simple. I showed Ginger all 3 versions, with Marsha dancing her part, and told Ginger she could choose the version she liked best. I was happy when she chose version 1 because it showed her off to her best advantage.

It was about 4:00 and rehearsals ended at 6:00. Ginger surprised me by saying she wanted to start learning the number right then. Although Ginger didn’t say anything more, I could tell by her body language that she was not going to learn anything as long as the guys were in the room so I dismissed them. Then Ginger looked at me as if to say, I’m not moving till the only two people in this room are her and me. I told Marsha that I’ll be in my office if she needed me.

At 5:50 I walked back into the rehearsal room. Ginger and Marsha, whose face was devoid of expression, were facing the mirror and Ginger was holding Marsha’s hand very tightly.
"It’s almost 6:00, time to quit," I said cheerfully.

Ginger looked at me incredulously and said, "It’s 6:00 already?" Then she added, in a very childlike voice that was barely audible, "I haven’t even learned the first step yet."

I thought, Oh no, it’s going to be even worse than I thought. What I said was, "Don’t worry about it Ginger, there’s no rush, we have two weeks," and I actually felt very sorry for her.

After Ginger walked out of the room, Marsha, almost weeping, said "I can’t believe it, Ginger Rogers can’t dance! I always loved Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. I’ve seen all their movies over and over and over again. And she can’t dance! Ginger Rogers can’t dance! That is sooo saaad."
"I warned you. Now you know I wasn’t exaggerating."

Ginger walked in the next morning and said, "You know, I love the first version of the number but I don’t think we have enough time for me to learn it. Perhaps we should do the third version." It was music to my ears.

In another number, all the boys were in a long diagonal line and Ginger was going to do a very simple combination working with one boy at a time. She was to step right, left, reach the first boy as he put his arm around her, sway front and sway back. Then she was to repeat stepping right and left, reach the next boy and this time when the boy put his arm around her he would circle her around himself in double-time, right, left, right, left. Then she would repeat that same combination until all twelve guys had partnered her. It was so simple I could have taught Lassie to do it in fifteen minutes. Make that ten.

We rehearsed it over and over. Everytime she did it she smiled out front selling it as if she was already on the stage in front of a fucking audience. On a break, I took the boys aside and said, "When Ginger gets to you, do whatever she wants to do. If she wants to sway, sway and if she wants to circle, circle."

Bob Jani, as I said earlier, stifled a person’s creativity but I somehow managed to choreograph one number for the show that I was actually extremely proud of. The guys wore black shoes and black v-necked jump suits topped by white shirts with black bow ties. Each boy danced with two derbies, one white and one black. I had velcro put on the front of the hats under the brim, on the front of the jump suit just under the "v," and on both hips. That way each boy could attach one of the derbies to his chest or one or both of them to his hips.

Choreographing with one hat was always fun but with each guy having two hats, there were endless possibilities. I could have 12 black derbies up in the air, 12 white derbies up in the air, or 24 black and white derbies up in the air or any combination thereof. They could also slap one of the derbies on their chest and dance with one of the hats or put both derbies on their hips and dance with none in their hands.
While it is possible someone had choreographed such a number before, it wasn’t something I had ever seen or copied. Like most ideas, it just came to me out of the blue. Even if I do say so myself, I think I just might have out Fosse-ed Bob Fosse, who adored choreographing with hats. My only regret is that he never saw it. And more than 30 years later, I have never seen any choreographer have the dancers work with double derbies.  I’ve wondered if Randy Skinner, one of the twelve guys who danced in Ginger’s show and later became a Broadway choreographer, ever "borrowed" my idea. I hope so.

At the dress rehearsal, when Ginger was finally out of those drab pants suits and into her make-up and costumes, I had to admit she looked fabulous. There was one spectacular sky-blue dress with a long, full, chiffon skirt, the bottom of which was edged with matching sky-blue marabou. During dress rehearsal, I went up on stage and told her how sensational she looked. She said, "I’m going to have them take the marabou off the bottom of the dress and move it up near the top of the dress." I said, "Well, you can, of course, do whatever you want to do but I think it looks terrific the way it is. Ginger replied, "Ginger knows what Ginger looks good in," this time without sticking her finger in my face. Actually, the dress looked good either way but I’m sure she felt more comfortable with the softness of the marabou closer to her face.
Ginger was a tough lady but anyone who lasts in show business as long as she did has to be tough. In my opinion, that goes for yesterday as well as today and tomorrow. Staying at the top in the entertainment business, particularly for a female, isn’t easy!!!

On opening night, Ginger sent me a bouquet of lilacs, her favorite flower, with a note that read, "Thank you dear one for being so lovely to me... Ginger" I also have an autographed photo. Unfortunately, it must have been made fairly cheaply because as time goes on, one can see where other pictures were lying helter-skelter on top of it in the developing solution when it was produced en masse. The same thing has happened to my autographed photo of Lana Turner.

When I read Jennifer Dunning’s review in The New York Times the next day, I had to laugh: "There’s an irresistible number in which she (Ginger) whisks through a line of ‘Rockers,’ as she calls her 12 nicely worshipful male chorus dancers, thumping one on the back reassuringly when she wobbles for an instant in his arms."

Even so, the show was so successful, Bob Jani tried to extend her run. She may not have been able to dance much anymore but Ginger was unavailable due to a prior commitment. That "girl" was still in demand and she was for a some time to come!