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Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22,
1987), born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American
film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. He is
particularly associated with Ginger Rogers, with whom he made ten films.
His unparalleled skill as a dancer leads many critics to cite him as the
best dancer ever to come out of Hollywood.
"Astaire" was a name taken by him and his
sister Adele for their vaudeville act when they were about 5 years old.
It is said to have come from an uncle surnamed "L'Astaire". Many sources
state that the Astaires appeared in a 1915 film entitled Fanchon, the
Cricket starring Mary Pickford, but this is a myth (although it is
believed that they were present to watch the filming).
During the 1920s, Fred and Adele appeared
on Broadway and on the London stage in shows such as Lady Be Good, Funny
Face, The Band Wagon, and The Gay Divorce, winning popular acclaim with
the theater crowd on both sides of the Atlantic. They split in 1932 when
she married her first husband, Lord Charles Cavendish, a son of the duke
of Devonshire.
Famously, a Paramount Pictures screen test
report on Astaire read simply: "Can't sing. Can't act. Slightly balding.
Also dances." He eventually ended up at RKO Studios, where he made the
top musicals of that era, with Rogers as his costar.
He was a virtuoso dancer, able to convey
lighthearted adventuresomeness or deep emotion when called for. His
technical control and sense of rhythm were astonishing; according to one
anecdote, he was able, when called back to the studio to redo a dance
number he had filmed several weeks earlier for a special effects number,
to reproduce the routine with pinpoint accuracy, down to the last
gesture. He drew from a variety of influences, including tap and other
African-American styles, classical dance and the elevated style of
Vernon and Irene Castle. He choreographed all his own routines, often
with the assistance of other choreographers, primarily Hermes Pan.
His perfectionism was legendary as was his
modesty and consideration towards his fellow artists, however his
relentless insistence on rehearsals and retakes was a burden to some.
Although he viewed himself as an entertainer first and foremost, his
consummate artistry won him the adulation of such 20th century dance
legends as George Balanchine, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Margot Fonteyn,
Rudolph Nureyev, and Bill Robinson.
Always modest about his singing abilities,
he introduced more standards from the Great American Songbook than any
other singer, and composers such as Cole Porter wrote a number of songs
especially for him, and quite a few are among evergreen ballroom
foxtrots: "Night and Day", "Cheek to Cheek", "The Way You Look Tonight",
"A Fine Romance", "They Can't Take that Away from Me", and "Change
Partners". Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and the Gershwins contributed
classic songs for his musicals, in large part because of his sincere,
unmannered delivery of their songs.
His second film, Flying Down to Rio, paired
him with Ginger Rogers for the first time. That partnership, and the
choreography of Astaire and Hermes Pan, helped make dancing an important
element of the Hollywood film musical. His films with Rogers included
The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935) and Carefree (1938). Their
partnership elevated them both to stardom: as Katharine Hepburn
reportedly said, "He gives her class and she gives him sex."
Astaire is credited with two important
innovations in early film musicals. First, his insistence that the
(almost stationary) camera film a dance routine in a single shot, if
possible, while holding the dancers in full view at all times. He
famously quipped: "Either the camera dances or I do". Second, he was
adamant that all song and dance routines be seamlessly integrated into
the plotlines of the film. Typically, an Astaire picture would include a
solo performance by Astaire - which he termed his "sock solo", a
partnered comedy dance routine and a partnered romantic dance routine.
He also teamed up with other stars, notably
with Bing Crosby in Holiday Inn (1942) and Blue Skies (1946). He was
also nearly outdanced in Broadway Melody of 1940 by one of his first
post-Rogers dance partners, Eleanor Powell. Other partners during this
period included Rita Hayworth and Joan Leslie.
After announcing his retirement in 1946, he
soon returned to the screen to replace the injured Gene Kelly in Easter
Parade (1948) opposite Judy Garland and for The Band Wagon (1953) with
Cyd Charisse. Astaire went on to make several more musicals in the
1950s, including Funny Face (1957) with Audrey Hepburn and Silk
Stockings (1958) with Charisse. He made two musicals with Vera-Ellen :
Three Little Words (1950) and The Belle of New York (1952). His legacy
at this point was thirty musicals in a twenty-five year period.
Afterwards, Astaire announced that he was retiring from dancing in film
to concentrate on dramatic acting, scoring rave reviews for the nuclear
war drama On the Beach (1959).
Astaire did not give up dancing completely,
and made a series of highly-rated specials for television into the early
1960s, each featuring Barrie Chase with whom Astaire enjoyed an Indian
summer of dance creativity. One of these programs, 1958's An Evening
with Fred Astaire, won nine Emmy Awards, including "Best Single
Performance by an Actor" and "Most Outstanding Single Program of the
Year." It was also noteworthy for being the first major broadcast to be
prerecorded on color videotape.
Astaire's final musical film was Finian's
Rainbow (1968), in which he shed his white tie and tails to play an
Irish rogue who believes if he buries a crock of gold in the shadows of
Fort Knox it will multiply. His last on-screen dance partner was Petula
Clark, who portrayed his skeptical daughter. He admitted to being as
nervous about singing with her as she confessed to being apprehensive
about dancing with him.
Astaire continued to act into the 1980s,
appearing in films such as The Towering Inferno (1974) for which he
received his only Academy Award nomination in the category of Best
Supporting Actor. He appeared in the first two That's Entertainment!
documentaries in the mid-1970s, in the second performing a
song-and-dance routine with Gene Kelly. In 1976, he recorded a
disco-styled rendition of Carly Simon's "Attitude Dancing". In 1978,
Fred Astaire co-starred with Helen Hayes in a well-received television
film, A Family Upside Down, in which they play an elderly couple coping
with failing health. Astaire won an Emmy Award for his performance. He
made a well-publicized guest appearance on the science fiction TV series
Battlestar Galactica in 1979. His final film was the 1981 adaptation of
Peter Straub's Ghost Story.
He received an honorary Academy Award in
1950 "for his unique artistry and his contributions to the technique of
musical pictures." He also won Emmys in 1961 and 1978.
He received Kennedy Center Honors in 1978,
the first year they were awarded. The American Film Institute awarded
him their "Lifetime Achievement Award" for 1981.
Always immaculately turned out, he remained
something of a male fashion icon even in his later years, eschewing his
trademark top hat, white tie and tails (which he always despised) in
favour of a breezy casual style of tailored sports jackets, coloured
shirts, cravates and slacks - the latter usually held up by the
idiosyncratic use of an old tie in place of a belt.
Astaire married, as his first wife, in
1933, Phyllis Potter (née Phyllis Livingston Baker, 1908-1954), a
Boston-born New York socialite and former wife of Eliphalet Nott Potter
3rd (1906-1981). In addition to Phyllis's son Eliphalet 4th, known as
Peter, the Astaires had two children, Fred, Jr. (born 1936, he appeared
with his father in the movie Midas Run but became a charter pilot and
rancher instead of an actor), and Ava (born 1942).
Astaire married, as his second wife, in
1980, Robyn Smith, an actress turned jockey. She was nearly 50 years his
junior. It is uncertain whether the second Mrs. Astaire was born Robin
Miller in 1944 or Melody Palm in 1942.
Fred Astaire died in 1987 from pneumonia
and was interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth,
California.
Filmography
Dancing Lady (1933)
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)
A Damsel in Distress (1937)
Carefree (1938)
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)
Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
Second Chorus (1940)
You'll Never Get Rich (1941)
Holiday Inn (1942)
You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
The Sky's the Limit (1943)
Yolanda and the Thief (1945)
Ziegfeld Follies (1946)
Blue Skies (1946)
Easter Parade (1948)
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Three Little Words (1950)
Let's Dance (1950)
Royal Wedding (1951)
The Belle of New York (1952)
The Band Wagon (1953)
Daddy Long Legs (1955)
Funny Face (1957)
Silk Stockings (1957)
On the Beach (1959)
The Pleasure of His Company (1961)
The Notorious Landlady (1962)
Paris - When it Sizzles (1964)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Midas Run (1969)
Imagine (1973) (documentary)
Just One More Time (1974) (short subject)
That's Entertainment! (1974)
The Towering Inferno (1974)
The Lion Roars Again (1975) (short subject)
That's Entertainment, Part II (1976)
The Amazing Dobermans (1976)
The Purple Taxi (1977)
Ghost Story (1981)
George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey
(1985) (documentary)
Forty-seven films in total
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Date Article Copied:
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