Sunday, January 20, 2013

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

2 comments:

  1. cool stuff, 'e'! I have this SOMEWHERE... yeah, I've GOT to 'organize'... seems like the Academy Awards would have a honkin' database for all of this, although most of it would be from other sources...

    Keep up the good work, 'e'! I'm getting closer to being back in the saddle, as it were! Y'know, weekends end up more time-consuming than weekdays...oof.

    KIG!

    Hu
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    Replies
    1. I was happy to find it (although I'm sure I've seen the entire show as one piece on archive.org as well). The "Oscars" (trademark sign) posted the video of this item on YouTube. Seems to be the official source so maybe that is all the academy is offering up at this moment in time. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnlTUF5dH1E&list=PL583B0F6F26309EA4&index=6) I must admit that it is wonderful when you can SEE Ginger on stage giving the speech and all. The radio show leaves a lot more to the imagination, however!

      We all want you to be able to put your FULL VKMfan attention to your reviews for Gingerology so don't worry about the delay. Good things are worth waiting for :)

      KIG

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