Kitty Foyle

Known for light comedies and her partnership with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers stepped off the dance floor and into 1940's Oscar spotlight with her Best Actress turn as Kitty, an indomitable working-class girl who endures the rejection of Philadelphia society, makes her own way as a single woman and ultimately chooses between an unmarried arrangement with Main Line scion Wynnewood Strafford VI (Dennis Morgan) or marriage to a struggling physician (James Craig). Rogers' deserved Academy Award confirmed she was more than a dance star - a fact humorously underscored when she returned to the studio and was greeted by staffers and actors in top hats and tails.