Description: Viral video / Email hoax
Circulating since: Jan. 2011 (as "Ginger Rogers" video)
Status: False / Mislabeled
Text example:
Email contributed by J. Pringle, Feb. 27, 2011:
Subject: Fw: GINGER ROGERS AT 92
A 92-year Ginger Rogers -- wait 'til you see this!!
To all of you younger people.....
This lady was a headline dancer way, way, way back in the 1930's and 1940's
Wow! I may want to do this when I'm 92... oh, wait, I can't do this now!
Watch all the way through, the beginning
She is 92, her great grandson 29 - watch them dance
Dont give up after the first minute ... that is the teaser.
Remember, he is 29; she is 92! Just getting to the age of 92 would be most peoples dream
Enjoy the show!!!
She was Fred Astaire’s partner at one time and he got better billing than she did. However, as someone pointed out, she did everything he did and she did it backwards and in high heels. Well, she’s still doing it while poor Fred has been pushing up the daisies for almost a quarter-century now.
Analysis: False. Ginger Rogers died at the age of 83 in 1995, so the vivacious senior citizen kicking up her heels in the viral video above is someone other than Fred Astaire's best known movie musical dance partner.
Nor is that senior citizen 92 years old, it turns out, though her real age, 75, is hardly less impressive. The septuagenarian in question is Sarah "Paddy" Jones, described in the Times of London as a "demure British grandmother" who danced away with the first prize in the 2009 season of Tu Si Que Vales ("You Are Worth It"), Spain's equivalent of Britain's Got Talent.
Mrs. Jones and her salsa partner, Nico Espinoza (40 years her junior but not her grandson, sources say), toured the globe for a year afterward and competed in other televised dance contests, but recently parted ways due to "tensions" in their relationship, it has been reported. In a March 1, 2011 interview with the Wolverhampton Express & Star, Jones said the search for his replacement is already underway.
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Sources and further reading:
Ginger Rogers Bio
Official Ginger Rogers websitePaddy Jones, ¿La Nueva Susan Boyle?
Tu Si Que Vales, 14 December 2009Salsa Dancing British Granny Paddy Jones Wins Spain's Got Talent
The Times, 11 December 2009Salsa Siesta for 'Paddy' Jones as Partner Bows Out
Express & Star, 1 March 2011Video: Dancing Granny
This Morning (ITV), 14 January 2010Video: Sarah Paddy Jones - Oldest Salsa Dancer
Guinness World Records, 21 September 2010
Last updated 01/31/13
