Dancing Backwards in High Heels

Replies: 7 - Last Post: Jan 29, 2013 2:47 PM Last Post By: misterbee

← Back to topic list

Jan 29, 2013 5:22 AM
Posts: 164

Dancing Backwards in High Heels

Apologies if this has been addressed in the past. I've just been to a splendid performance of "Top Hat" and in our post-theatre supper discussion we were wondering who originally coined the phrase "dancing backwards in high heels", which seems commonly attributed to Ginger Rogers but did someone use it BEFORE her????

(I tried googling and the wikipedia entry is to do with the title of some 2011 album by some band I've never heard of, being of mature years)

VinnyD

Jan 29, 2013 6:58 AM
Posts: 32,303

I think it was former Texas governor Anne Richards who said that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels. If you look at the movies, you can see that it's not true.

Nicolapicola

Jan 29, 2013 7:23 AM
Posts: 164

Yes, Vinny, but I see she said that in a speech in 1988 and I rather think Ginger Rogers and/or her biographer used it well before that. Just wondering if POSSIBLY someone else thought of it before them.

VinnyD

Jan 29, 2013 8:05 AM
Posts: 32,303

Could be. I don't remember hearing it before then. I doubt Ginger Rogers ever said it, because she would have known it wasn't true and it would have sounded nasty.

nutraxfornerves

Jan 29, 2013 8:32 AM
Posts: 6,608

The earliest I have found so far is Readers Digest, 1982. A quip submitted by Bob Thaves, Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

Woman, after viewing a Fred Astaire film festival: "Sure, he was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did — backward and in high heels."

Bob Thaves was the creator of the Frank and Ernest comic strip. Wikipedia says this:

The line originated in a 1982 Frank and Ernest cartoon as "Sure he was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, backwards... and in high heels." On the internet and in many publications the line is incorrectly attributed to Faith Whittlesey (see "List of Websites That Have Attributed Thaves' Line to Whittlesey". Google. Retrieved on 2009-07-25.) or Rogers herself. Ann Richards popularized the line by using it in a speech but she credits Linda Ellerbee with giving her the line, and Ellerbee credits an anonymous passenger on an airplane with giving her the line (see Keyes, Ralph (2006). "The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When". St. Martin's Griffin. p. 77. ISBN 0312340044.). The official Ginger Rogers website attributes the line to Thaves.

A picture of the strip

Nicolapicola

Jan 29, 2013 8:38 AM
Posts: 164

Thanks, Nutrax - I am surprised it was as late as 1982. It's a good one, anyway.

nutraxfornerves

Jan 29, 2013 8:39 AM
Posts: 6,608

And, from a Ginger Rogers exhibit at Boston University. The original strip plus a note from Thaves, thanking her for giving permission to use her name in the strip.

misterbee