Trivia

She was a member of The Radio City Rockettes but was fired after two weeks because she showed too much individuality on stage.

She was known to have the smallest waist in Hollywood from the mid-1940s through the 1960s.

Fred Astaire said about her, "She was a real accomplished dancer, that girl. Ballet, tap dancing, anything you wanted to do.

Went to the same Cincinnati ballroom dance studio as a child as Doris Day. Their parents used to carpool together to the dance studio.

On March 3, 1963, she gave birth to a daughter named Victoria Ellen Rothschild, who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome on June 20th of that same year. All of this took place in Los Angeles County.

Suffered from anorexia for years, which led to premature aging.

One of the few actresses to have danced with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in the movies, other actresses that have also done this include Judy Garland, Cyd Charisse, Rita Hayworth, Debbie Reynolds, Leslie Caron, and Ann Miller.

Her first Broadway appearance was in "Very Warm for May", co-directed by future MGM filmmaker Vincente Minnelli and featuring future MGM co-worker June Allyson in the chorus.

Was once a drum majorette in high school.

Her singing in Three Little Words (1950) was dubbed by Anita Ellis.

She was a lifelong Republican and a solid supporter of Ronald Reagan especially.

She was originally slated to star in Excuse My Dust (1951) with Red Skelton. However, she had to be replaced, as she was in London filming Happy Go Lovely (1951) and would not finish that film in time.

In 1977, a gossip columnist reported that the baby Vera-Ellen lost in the 1960s had died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS}.

It has been reported that she appeared in "Major Bowes' Amateur Theatre of the Air" in 1935, but that remains unconfirmed.