Dear Ginger Rogers
You waved at us from your limousine
You were in Seattle in 1991 to promote your autobiography, and we got tickets to watch your live interview for a talk show on local TV. We were excited to see you in person — my mom, Aunt Carol, and me. We all loved (and still love) your movies.
Does anyone not love your movies? They feel like mini-vacations. They’re carefully choreographed works of art that we can watch from the couch, maybe even imagining ourselves falling in love and dancing and singing about our happy lives like you’d do.
Maybe people don’t watch your movies so much these days, but they’ve seen you dance on YouTube with other classic movie stars. I’m not sure what you might think about things like YouTube. Can you imagine that young people today make videos of themselves dancing and share them with anyone who wants to see them online, not waiting for a movie producer to discover them?
Back in the 1990s, a lot of us still knew about the days of the Hollywood studio system and the stars — like you — who graced the soundstages where directors produced fancy musical numbers.
I’d grown up with your movies like a gentle soundtrack in the background; they played regularly on American Movie Classics in the days when AMC showed the old RKO studio films in heavy rotation. They flowed like an Art Deco dream that didn’t need analyzing: it was simply beautiful.
You were in your eighties when you published Ginger: My Story. I have to admit to you right now that I didn’t read it. I was in high school in the early 1990s— too young to understand your stories of marriages and divorces.
When you appeared on the local talk show, the host asked you about your co-stars like Fred Astaire and Lucille Ball. You smiled through your big eyeglasses, your face surrounded by flowing scarves and your blonde hair, worn loose and wavy.
It felt surreal and magical to sit in the same room as you. This must be how kids feel when they visit Disneyland. Suddenly I could look directly at the person I’d seen so many times on my parents’ TV screen.
You could have told us so many stories, but the show was only an hour long. We’d have to buy your book if we wanted to know more about your life. My aunt did buy it, in fact. I might have to go and see if I can buy a copy after I finish this letter.
Sometimes I miss that afternoon talk show; it was neighborly without being newsy, creating a small-town feel we secretly aspired to reclaim for ever-growing Seattle as we waited to cross the busy street after the show.
As we waited, we saw a black limousine pull around from the back of the TV studio. It was small like a town car, not ostentatious like a stretch limo. We thought it must be you, but of course, the back windows were dark.
As the car drove closer to us, we saw you sitting in the front seat, next to the driver. My mom, my aunt, and I all waved at you excitedly. You waved back at us. I still smile when I remember it.
Thank you for your movies and your movie star presence in life. Thank you most of all for waving and smiling back at us like you were just as happy to see us and could recognize us, too.