The IMDb Trivia page says that Ginger Rogers wore no makeup for this role. Is that true? It sure looks like she has makeup on. Regardless, she looked beautiful and gave one of her best performances in this film (in my opinion, that is). She had such terrific range as an actress. Plus, she looked equally stunning as a brunette and blonde/redhead.
shareChapter 26 of Miss Rogers autobiography "Ginger, My Story" page 215 hardbound she details that she chose not to wear makeup for realism plus she made the decision to dye her hair brunette for the same reason. During production of this movie - she wanted to keep her hair color change a secret. Midway thru the making of RKO's "Primrose Path" she attend the premiere of MGM's "Gone With the Wind" she wore a special designer turban to hide the fact she was brunette.
shareWhen stars of that era said they wore no makeup, they really mean not MUCH makeup or not as much as usual. Joan Crawford would scrub her face clean for certain moments in some films, but there was care taken to hide flaws as usual, while still keeping her "natural." Ginger always favored quite a bit of makeup--and she wore it with style--but perhaps for this role she eschewed the false eyelashes or the lip liner, but there was some make up there.
shareI totally agree - Ginger had to have been wearing some kind of lipstick. Nobody has lips that dark naturally. Maybe they forego everything but the lipstick.....
kaylynn36
Sometimes known as wearing "natural makeup".
shareThere are unretouched studio pics of her floating around the Internet and they show that her complexion was splotchy and she had freckles/ On top of that studio lights were *bright*, a white person would look like a ghost without makeup.
She's definitely wearing make up, just not the glammy type that she wore in her movies with Astaire.
Darling, I am trouble of the most spectacular kind!
Hi jobimfan3000,
Agreed, Ginger wore make-up, lipstick, false eyelashes and eye-shadow just not the heavy foundation she usually wore in films.
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