Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 - June 22, 1987), born Frederick Austerlitz in
Omaha, Nebraska, was an American film and Broadway ballroom dancer and actor. He is particularly associated with Ginger
Rogers, with whom he made ten films.
"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 erroneously 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 in shows such as Lady Be Good, Funny Face, [[The Band Wagon], and [[The Gay Divorce], winning popular acclaim with the
theater crowd. 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. Can dance a little."
In the opinion of millions of fans of his popular films, Astaire could actually dance quite a bit.
His singing voice was weak, yet 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, Change Partners...
His second film, Flying Down to Rio, paired him with Ginger Rogers for the first time. That partnership, and the
choreography of 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). 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. 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 (1953) with Audrey Hepburn and Silk Stockings (1958)
with Charisse. 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 didn't give up dancing completely, and made a series of high-rated specials for television into the early 1960s. 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 legendary actress Helen Hayes in a well-received television film, A Family Upside Down. They
played 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.
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 3d (1906-1981). (Potter was a member of a prominent family that supplied two
Episcopal bishops of New York; he also was a cousin of Hollywood film director Henry Codman Potter.) In addition to Phyllis's
son, Eliphalet 4th, known as Peter (who became a sheriff in Santa Barbara County, California), 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. Sources indicate that 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
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