Astaire, Fred

orig. Frederick Austerlitz

born May 10, 1899, Omaha, Neb., U.S.

died June 22, 1987, Los Angeles, Calif.

U.S. dancer and singer of stage and movies.

At age seven he began his popular vaudeville dance act with his sister Adele, and they made their Broadway debut in 1917; they continued dancing in stage hits until Adele retired in 1932. Astaire's successful film appearances with Ginger Rogers began with Flying Down to Rio (1933) and continued until 1939. In the 1940s and 1950s he danced on-screen with Eleanor Powell, Cyd Charisse, and Judy Garland. His singing, though untrained, was admired by the finest songwriters of his time. He retired in 1971 but occasionally appeared in films and on television. His combination of sophisticated, seemingly effortless grace and technical virtuosity revolutionized popular-dance performance.

Astaire in Top Hat, 1935

Corbis-Bettmann

* * *

▪ American dancer and singer

original name  Frederick Austerlitz  

born May 10, 1899, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.

died June 22, 1987, Los Angeles, California

      American dancer of stage and motion pictures who is best known for a number of highly successful musical (musical film) comedy films in which he starred with Ginger Rogers. He is regarded by many as the greatest popular-music dancer of all time.

      Born into a wealthy family, Astaire studied dancing from the age of four. In 1906 he formed an act with his sister, Adele, that became a popular vaudeville attraction. The two appeared briefly in the Mary Pickford film Fanchon the Cricket (1915) and made their Broadway debut in Over the Top (1917). They achieved international fame with stage hits that included For Goodness Sake (1922), Funny Face (1927), and The Band Wagon (1931). When Adele retired after marrying Lord Charles Cavendish in 1932, Astaire made a screen test, receiving the verdict from executives, “Can't act, can't sing. Balding. Can dance a little.” He was nevertheless cast as a featured dancer in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.) production Dancing Lady (1933), which starred Joan Crawford (Crawford, Joan), Clark Gable (Gable, Clark), and the Three Stooges (Three Stooges, the).

      Also in 1933 Astaire was paired with Ginger Rogers (Rogers, Ginger) in the RKO Radio Pictures (RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.) production Flying Down to Rio. They were a sensation, stealing the picture from stars Delores del Rio and Gene Raymond, and public demand compelled RKO to feature the pair in a classic series of starring vehicles throughout the 1930s, with The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), and Swing Time (1936) often cited as the best of the lot. Although Astaire worked well with several leading ladies throughout his career, his partnership with Rogers had a special chemistry. Their respective elegance (Astaire) and earthiness (Rogers) rubbed off on one another, and it has often been said that he gave her class and she gave him sex appeal. Their dance routines, often in the midst of sumptuous Art Deco settings, were intricate tap or graceful ballroom numbers that served as sophisticated statements of romantic love. Only once—in Carefree (1938)—did Astaire and Rogers share an on-screen kiss, and then only in a dream sequence.

      Astaire's immensely popular dancing style appeared relaxed, light, effortless, and largely improvised. In reality, he was a hard-working perfectionist who tirelessly rehearsed routines for hours on end. Working in collaboration with legendary choreographer Hermes Pan (Pan, Hermes) for his films with Rogers, Astaire eschewed the then-popular Busby Berkeley (Berkeley, Busby) approach to filmed musicals and its emphasis on special effects, surreal settings, and chorus girls in ever-changing kaleidoscope patterns. Instead, Astaire revolutionized the movie musical by simplifying it: solo dancers or couples were shot in full-figure, and dances were filmed with a minimum of edits and camera angles. He is regarded as a pioneer in the serious presentation of dance on film.

      After the last RKO Astaire-Rogers film in 1939, Astaire appeared with various partners such as Eleanor Powell (Powell, Eleanor), Rita Hayworth (Hayworth, Rita) (whom Astaire cited as his favourite on-screen partner), and Lucille Bremer. He retired temporarily in 1946 but returned to the screen in 1948 and appeared in a series of Technicolor musicals for MGM that, next to his films with Rogers, constitute his most highly regarded body of work. Several of Astaire's most famous dance routines appear in these films, such as the slow-motion dance in Easter Parade (1948), the dance with empty shoes in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949, his only reunion with Ginger Rogers), the ceiling dance and the duet with a hat rack in Royal Wedding (1951), and the dance on air in The Belle of New York (1952). The best of Astaire's films during this period was The Band Wagon (1953), often cited as one of the greatest of film musicals, and which featured Astaire's memorable duet with Cyd Charisse to the song "Dancing in the Dark." Astaire's run of classic MGM musicals ended with Silk Stockings (1957), after which his screen appearances were mostly in nondancing character roles. He continued to dance with new partner Barrie Chase for several Emmy Award-winning television specials throughout the 1950s and '60s, and he danced again onscreen in Finian's Rainbow (1968) and for a few steps with Gene Kelly in That's Entertainment, Part II (1976).

      In addition to Astaire's immeasurable contributions to the art of dance, he was also noted for his quintessentially American vocal style. Although possessing a rather thin-toned tenor voice, Astaire received much praise from jazz critics for his innate sense of swing and his conversational way with a song. Several compilations have been issued of Astaire songs from film soundtracks, but his best vocal recordings were those he undertook in the early 1950s with jazz combos led by pianist Oscar Peterson (Peterson, Oscar). They have been released under several titles on various LP and CD collections over the years.

      Astaire's most notable dramatic roles were in On the Beach (1959); The Pleasure of His Company (1962); The Towering Inferno (1974), for which he received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor; and Ghost Story (1981), his final film. He was awarded an honorary Academy Award for his contributions to film in 1950, and he received a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 1981. Despite the many accolades for his unquestionable greatness, Astaire remained as modest and elegant as the characters he portrayed. As he said in his autobiography, Steps in Time (1959), “I have no desire to prove anything by it. I just dance.”

Additional Reading

Bob Thomas, Astaire: The Man, the Dancer (1984); John Mueller, Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films (1985, reissued 1991); Larry Billman, Fred Astaire (1997).

* * *