Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of seventy-six years, during which he made thirty-one musical films. He is particularly associated with Ginger Rogers, with whom he made ten films.
According to another major innovator in filmed dance, Gene Kelly, "The history of dance on film begins with Astaire." Beyond film and television, many classical dancers and choreographers, Nureyev and Robbins among them, also acknowledged his importance and influence. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.
Frederick Austerlitz was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He actually entered the world of show biz at the tender age of 4 1/2, although he didn't know it at the time; he was only accompanying his parents and his sister Adele to New York. Adele was to have dancing lessons, and she soon had an initially reluctant partner in her younger brother. The team gave their first professional performance in November 1905 in Keyport, New Jersey. Fred was 6 1/2 years old, Adele 9.
Fred and Adele grew up dancing together in vaudeville, and were bonafide stars while still in their teens and twenties, with smash hits on the New York and London stages. When Adele left the theatre to marry in 1932, Fred went out on his own. He scored a major success in "The Gay Divorce" in New York and in London the following year. Soon, however, Astaire agreed to test for films. One studio executive's report on this screen test has been quoted many times over the years, but it is still just too good to pass up here: "Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances." Despite this priceless commentary, Astaire did receive a contract and he and his brand new wife Phyllis headed for Hollywood in 1933.
Although his contract was with RKO Studios, Fred's first appearance on film was in MGM’s Dancing Lady, which starred Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, and Franchot Tone. Fred played himself, introduced by Gable as "the dancer from New York." Upon completion of this cameo appearance, Fred began his first film under his RKO contract, Flying Down to Rio. Rio starred Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond, and for the second leads, Fred was paired with a young RKO contract player by the name of...Ginger Rogers. The two literally stole the show when they put their foreheads together and danced the steamy (for 1933) "Carioca." ("It's really nothing like the Polka"!)
RKO knew a lucrative team when they saw one, and Fred and Ginger were immediately given their own starring vehicle, The Gay Divorcee, released in 1934. The movie was a huge success, and like it or not, Astaire and Rogers were America's dancing sweethearts, forever linked in the public's mind. Each had a chemistry with the other that was not there with anyone else. As Katharine Hepburn put it: "He gives her class, she gives him sex appeal." The two would make a total of 10 films together, 9 in the 1930's, plus a reunion in 1949.
Fred and his wife Phyllis had a home built in Beverly Hills. Phyllis had a son from a previous marriage, Peter, and she and Fred had two children of their own, Fred, Jr., born in 1936, and daughter Ava, born in 1942. In 1946, upon completing the film Blue Skies, Fred announced to everyone's horror that he was retiring. For almost 2 years he devoted his time to his family, to his racehorses, to the Fred Astaire Dance Studios, to golf and hunting and fishing. However, in 1948, when Gene Kelly injured himself while rehearsing, Fred stepped in to star opposite Judy Garland in Easter Parade, and that was the end of the retirement.
In 1958 Fred took on a new medium, television. Again, he was immensely successful, especially with the three shows where his partner was his new discovery -- the electrifying Barrie Chase. He continued to appear in movies as well as television shows throughout the 60's and 70's. For his performance in 1974's The Towering Inferno he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. He was also reunited with Gene Kelly in That's Entertainment, Part 2 where he did his last on-screen dancing, at the age of 77. (Although he was quoted as saying, "That wasn't dancing, that was just moving around.").
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| Robyn & Fred |
In 1978 Fred was a recipient of the Kennedy Centre Honours, and in 1981 he received the American Film Institute's prestigious Life Achievement Award. Fred met and fell in love with Robyn Smith, a young woman who shared his devotion to race horses (she was a jockey). Despite the 45-year age difference the two decided to marry in 1980. It was a very happy union, lasting the rest of his life. He died on June 22, 1987, from complications arising from pneumonia.
(Edited mainly from themave.com)