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Erik Rhodes (February 10, 1906 – February 17, 1990) He was an American film and Broadway singer and actor. He is most well known today for two Hollywood films he made with stars Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, The Gay Divorcee (1934) and in Top Hat (1935). Born Ernest Sharpe at El Reno, in the Indian Territory, in what was to become the state of Oklahoma, Rhodes started performing on the Broadway stage in A Most Immoral Lady (1928) using his birth name Ernest Sharpe. This was followed by two musicals The Little Show and Hey Nonny Nonny! He first used the name Erik Rhodes when he appeared on Broadway in Gay Divorce (1932) and then in London in 1933. The making of the 1934 film version, The Gay Divorcee, brought him to Hollywood.

His last film in the pre-war years was On Your Toes (1939). By the end of the war, he was very socially active in New York City often seen with Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, his onetime companion, and the Nordstrom Sisters at popular watering holes such as the Stork Club and 21 Club. Between 1947 and 1964, he was back on Broadway in The Great Campaign, Dance Me a Song, Collector`s Item, Can-Can, Shinbone Alley, Jamaica, How to Make a Man, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Married his wife Emala in 1972 and they lived in New York City until the early 1980s. He died of pneumonia in Oklahoma City at age 84 and is interred with his wife in the El Reno Cemetery in El Reno, Oklahoma.