Fred Astaire

Trivia

• His father was Austrian and his mother was of German ancestry.
• Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 36-38. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.
• Inducted into the International Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2002 (inaugural class).
• For Daddy Long Legs (1955), Leslie Caron told Fred that she wanted to create her own costumes for the film. Fred Astaire told her: "OK, but no feathers, please", recalling the troubles he had with one of Ginger Rogers' elaborate ostrich feathered gowns in a dance from Top Hat (1935). A feather broke loose from Ginger Rogers dress and stubbornly floated in mid air around Astaire's face. The episode was recreated to hilarious effect in a scene from Easter Parade (1948) in which Fred Astaire danced
• Tony Martin the husband of MGM star/dancer Cyd Charisse said he could tell who she had been dancing with that day on an MGM set. If she came home covered with bruises on her, it was the very physically-demanding Gene Kelly, if not it was the smooth and agile Fred Astaire.
• Owned Blue Valley Ranch, a Thoroughbred horse breeding farm in the San Fernando Valley. He maintained a racing stable of four or five horses which competed at racetracks in California. His most famous racehorse was Triplicate, winner of the 1946 Hollywood Gold Cup.
• While all music and songs were known to be dubbed (recorded before filming), his tap dancing was dubbed also. He "over-dubbed" his taps - recording them live as he danced to the previously recorded taps.
• Wore his trademark top hat and tails in his very first movie appearance, Dancing Lady (1933).
• Appears on the sleeve of The Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album.
• One of the first Kennedy Center Honorees in 1978.

Quotes

• "I don't want to be the oldest performer in captivity . . . I don't want to look like a little old man dancing out there."
• "Dancing is a sweat job."
• "I suppose I made it look easy, but gee whiz, did I work and worry."
• "Of course, [Ginger Rogers] was able to accomplish sex through dance. We told more through our movements instead of the big clinch. We did it all in the dance."
• "It's nice that all the composers have said that nobody interprets a lyric like Fred Astaire. But when it comes to selling records I was never worth anything particularly except as a collector's item."
• "The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any."
• "People think I was born in top hat and tails."
• "I had some ballet training but didn't like it. It was like a game to me."
• "They tend to overdo the vulgarity. I'm not embarrassed by the language itself, but it's embarrassing to be listening to it, sitting next to perfect strangers."
• "I have never had anything that I can remember in the business - and that includes all the movies and the stage shows and everything - that I didn't enjoy. I didn't like some of the small-time vaudeville, because we weren't going on and getting better. Aside from that, I didn't dislike anything."