Ginger Rogers Presents Special Academy Award to Fred Astaire

Motion Picture magazine    February 1936

The 22nd Academy Awards for 1949 included Miss Ginger Rogers presenting Mr. Fred Astaire with an award for his contributions to film.  Fred was in New York City at the time but they put together a special "circuit" so he could be heard.  You can listen to it on archive.org:

http://archive.org/details/AcademyAwardsCeremonies

Ginger's speech is in Part 3, go to minute:  07:55
or here:
http://ia700304.us.archive.org/6/items/AcademyAwardsCeremonies/22nd_Academy_Awards_Ceremony_Part_3.mp3

It is a little distorted at times but there is some nice chit-chat between Ginger and Fred.  In a non-Ginger related aside, I would have liked to see whatever happened with Red Skelton and Betty Garrett in the "Baby, It's Cold Outside" number that is at the beginning of part 3.  It sounds like they went a little (okay, A LOT) off script but were having a grand time doing it!

There is another version of this award show on archive.org but I can't find it (my only complaint about archive.org is the difficulty with the search function).  I'm sure to find it when I'm looking for something else AND when I do, I'll replace these words with the info.


All this took place in Hollywood, California on March 23, 1950 and was broadcast to all 48 states!  Paul Douglas was the host of the awards with Ken Carpenter, Eve Arden and Ronald Reagan hosting the radio show. 

There is a tiny piece of the film of Ginger giving part of her speech presenting the award on archive.org.  Most of the newsreel is about Fred Astaire and the movie Three Little Words.
http://archive.org/details/TheatricalTrailer-ThreeLittleWords


The Motion Picture magazine image above can be found in the Media History Digital Library:
http://archive.org/stream/motionpicture51moti#page/n31/mode/2up

La Cinematographie Francaise 1937

A lovely magazine, or so I'm guessing as it is all in French and I can read NOT a word of it.  A few nice pictures related to Miss Ginger Rogers caught my eye...

La Cinematographic Francaise  April 30, 1937

Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire star together in Swing Time or "Sur Les Ailes de la Danse".

La Cinematographic Francaise  April 30, 1937

And Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire starring in Shall We Dance.  (I guess you can't say that in French.)

The posters were in the same issue of La Cinematographie Francaise from April 30, 1937; made available by the Media History Digital Library:
http://archive.org/stream/lacinmato65pari#page/n769/mode/2up - Swing Time
http://archive.org/stream/lacinmato65pari#page/n775/mode/2up - Shall We Dance

Maybe the movies were released at the same time in France?  The posters were part of a large advertising spread by RKO Radio Films that also included Mary of Scotland, Gunga Din and Mickey Mouse et les Silly Symphony.

Pardon all the missing accents but, as I said, my French is rather non-existent as well.