Roberta

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Roberta was a 1933 Broadway musical, with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Otto Harbach, which starred Tamara, Bob Hope, George Murphy, Lyda Roberti, Fred MacMurray, Fay Templeton, Raymond E. Middleton, and Sydney Greenstreet. Hope, Murphy, MacMurray and Greenstreet were not yet the Hollywood stars they would soon be.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" from Roberta (1935): RKO publicity still

The play was made into a film in 1935 by RKO starring Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Randolph Scott. The play notably features the famed songs Yesterdays, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, You're Devastating, and The Touch of Your Hand. The 1935 film version omitted The Touch of Your Hand and You're Devastating, but added the Kern songs I Won't Dance and Lovely to Look At, which became so popular that they are now always included in revivals and recordings of Roberta .

In 1952, MGM remade Roberta under the title Lovely to Look At. This remake also included the additional songs written for the 1935 film. It starred Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Red Skelton, and Ann Miller, and was made in Technicolor.

Roberta is the only Fred Astaire - Ginger Rogers film to ever be remade. In the 1952 version, their roles were theoretically taken by Marge Champion and Gower Champion; however the plot and characters of the 1952 film bore no resemblance at all to those in the original show or the 1935 movie.

External links

{| style="margin:0 auto" align=center id=toc width=600 !style="background:#CCCCCC" align="center"|Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers |- |- |align="center" | Flying Down to Rio (1933) • The Gay Divorcee (1934) • Roberta (1935) • Top Hat (1935) • Follow the Fleet (1936) • Swing Time (1936) • Shall We Dance (1937) • Carefree (1938) • The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) • The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)

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