Born May 10, 1899, Frederick Austerlitz became Fred Astaire when he and his older (by 18 months) sister, Adele, became vaudeville tap stars when he was just five years old. As their skills improved, they became bigger stars and broke into Broadway in 1917 with a show called Over the Top. Smash hits including Lady Be Good; Funny Face and The Band Wagon followed. When Adele quit show business to marry a British Lord in 1932, Fred appeared for the first time without her in Broadway’s Gay Divorce opposite Claire Luce, in which he introduced one of his signature songs, “Night and Day”.
He then went west with many of the Broadway stars of the day and signed a movie contract with RKO. He played himself in his first film on loan-out to MGM, 1933’s Dancing Lady in support of Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. Looking to capitalize on the resurgent popularity of the movie musical in the wake of Warner Bros.’ 42nd Street, RKO gave him a fifth billed featured role in 1933’s Flying Down to Rio, pairing him with fourth billed Ginger Rogers. By the end of filming it was apparent that Astaire and Rogers were effortlessly stealing the film from leads Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond and featured them, not the ostensible stars, in the film’s last scene.
RKO then bought Astaire’s Broadway hit, Gay Divorce, for him and Rogers but had to change the title to The Gay Divorcee please the censors – apparently it was OK for a divorcee to be gay and happy, but not the divorce itself, which was considered serious stuff. They also replaced most of Cole Porter’s score, except for “Night and Day”, but the replacements proved fortunate with “The Continental” wining the first Oscar given for Best Song.
Hermes Pan, who had been the assistant choreographer on Flying Down to Rio was elevated to full choreographer for The Gay Divorcee, but it was understood that Astaire would do his own choreography with Pan doing everyone else’s. Pan would substitute for Rogers while he and Astaire worked out their routines and then teach them to Rogers who was considered a fast learner. This arrangement continued through all of the Astaire-Rogers films.
The mistaken identity plot of 1934’s The Gay Divorcee was secondary to the singing, dancing and comic high-jinks supplied by the excellent supporting cast headed by Alice Brady, Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes an Eric Blore. The routine would be repeated in most of the subsequent Astaire-Rogers films with Helen Broderick and Victor Moore also becoming part of the rotating Astaire-Rogers stock company.
RKO had also bought Jerome Kern’s much loved Roberta for which Astaire and Rogers were temporarily shuttered back to second leads in the 1935 film while Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott were the principals. This time all four stars excelled, Dunne with “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and Astarie and Rogers with “I Won’t Dance”.
Their next film, 1935’s Top Hat was a virtual remake of The Gay Divorcee albeit with a score by Irving Berlin, which included the dance team’s most famous song, “Cheek to Cheek”.
Two 1936 films, Follow the Fleet with a score by Irving Berlin and Swing Time with a score by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, as well as 1937’s Shall We Dance with a score by George and Ira Gershwin were hits, but by late 1937 the team’s insistence on doing things on their own led to Rogers’ acclaimed performance in Stage Door while Astaire starred opposite non-singer-dancer Joan Fontaine in A Damsel in Distress. Reunited for 1938’s Carefree and 1939’s The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, both films flopped and the team split up for good.
Rogers went on to win an Oscar for 1940’s Kitty Foyle and a have a successful screen career that lasted well into the 1950s, diminishing quickly in the 1960s.
Astaire, who really wanted to retire at this point, was persuaded by his wife to continue and had great success with such films as Broadway Melody of 1940 opposite Eleanor Powell; You’ll Never Get Rich and You Were Never Lovelier opposite Rita Hayworth; Holiday Inn opposite Bing Crosby and Ziegfeld Follies opposite Gene Kelly. After 1946’s Blue Skies opposite Bing Crosby he officially retired to the great regret of his legions of fans.
He came out of retirement just two years later when Gene Kelly broke his ankle during rehearsals for Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade which was supposed to reunite Kelly and Judy Garland after the success of Cole Porter’s The Pirate. The result was one of the biggest box office hits of the year and of both Garland and Astaire’s careers. They were rushed into 1949’s The Barkleys of Broadway, but Garland fell ill and had to back out. Ginger Rogers was brought in to replace her and the two became famous as a team all over again. Though it would be their last film together, Howard Hughes, who now owned RKO, capitalized on the success of the film by re-issuing their previous nine films which subsequently became even bigger hits when they were among the first classic films sold to TV. Those films have never been out of circulation since.
Astaire had one of his best roles and biggest successes with 1953’s The Band Wagon, a revamped version of his old Broadway hit. His wife’s terminal illness forced him out of a reunion with Bing Crosby in 1954’s White Christmas, but he bounced back with Leslie Caron in 1955’s Daddy Long Legs; Audrey Hepburn in 1957’s Funny Face and Cyd Charisse in the same year’s Silk Stockings.
Thinking himself too old for the romantic leads he was still being offered in musicals, Astaire turned to dramatic roles with 1959’s On the Beach in which his poignant performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination.
Straight dramatic roles on screens, both large and small, followed and in 1968 he returned to musicals as the star of Finian’s Rainbow. Though he had top billing, he did not have the principal roles, which went to Petula Clark, Tommy Steele and Don Franks, who did most of the singing and dancing.
He and Gene Kelly were among twelve stars who introduced scenes from old MGM movies in the smash hit 1974 compilation film, That’s Entertainment! that proved so successful they were the only hosts invited back for the 1976 sequel.
Released at the end of 1974, the all-star cast disaster flick The Towering Inferno gave him a role as a ne’er-do-well that won him a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and an Oscar nomination. His last film was 1981’s Ghost Story. Fred Astaire died in 1987 at 88.
ESSENTIAL FILMS
THE GAY DIVORCEE (1934), directed by Mark Sandrich
The first star pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and the second of the ten films they made together, was taken from Cole Porter’s 1932 Broadway musical, Gay Divorce, which contained ten songs including the hits “Night and Day” and “After You, Who”. The film dropped all the songs except “Night and Day” and added three, including the Oscar winning “The Continental”. The singing, dancing and hilarious comedy performed by a marvelous supporting cast including Alice Brady, Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes and Eric Blore set the tone for most of the subsequent Astaire-Rogers films.
TOP HAT (1935), directed by Mark Sandrich
A virtual remake of The Gay Divorcee, with slight variation on its mistaken identity plot, this one proved an even bigger hit. The highlight is Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek” in which Astaire was forced to dance with Rogers in a feather gown of her own design which kept coming apart, getting all over perfectionist Astaire’s tuxedo, in his teeth and up his nose. Rogers’ refusal to wear a substitute gown created a permanent rift between her and producer Pandro S. Berman, but Astaire finally came to terms with it, giving her a feather pin and calling her “Feathers” for years afterward.
EASTER PARADE (1948), directed by Charles Walters
Gene Kelly’s broken ankle proved fortuitous for Astaire who took over the role two years after his retirement and becoming an even bigger star in one of the year’s top box office hits. He and Judy Garland make a superb one-time only pair. The supporting cast headed by Ann Miller and Peter Lawford is pretty good, too. Highlights include Astaire and Miller’s “It Only Happens When I Dance with You”, Garland’s “I Love a Piano”, Miller’s “Shakin’ the Blues Away”, Lawford’s “A fella with an Umbrella”, and Astaire and Garland’s “A Couple of Swells” and, of course, the evergreen title tune.
FUNNY FACE (1957), directed by Stanley Donen
Fifty-eight-year-old Astaire felt he was old enough to play twenty-seven-year-old Audrey Hepburn’s father and looked it in this film, yet another revamping of one of his long-ago Broadway hits. The public disagreed and made it one of the year’s major hits. Hepburn, who was a classically trained dancer, showed she could sing, too, on such Gershwin classics as “How Long Has This Been Going On?” and “S Wonderful”, the latter in a song and dance duet with Astaire. Kay Thompson co-stars in a scene stealing role as a magazine editor whose theme and theme song is “Think Pink”.
FINIAN’S RAINBOW (1968), directed by Francis Ford Coppola
The actor playing the title character in productions of Burton Lane and E.Y. Harburg’s 1947 Broadway musical and its numerous revivals is seldom given star billing. That’s because the songs revolve around the characters of his daughter Sharon, her love interest Woody, and Og the leprechaun who follows Finian and Sharon to the U.S. With Astaire in his last singing and dancing role, the character is enhanced, giving Astaire one last chance to beguile us with all that we expect from him. His delightful co-stars are Petula Clark as Sharon, Don Francks as Woody, and Tommy Steele as Og. Keenan Wynn and Al Freeman, Jr. head the supporting cast.
FRED ASTAIRE AND OSCAR
- Career Achievement Award (1949) – Oscar for his unique artistry and his contributions to the technique of musical pictures.
- The Towering Inferno (1974) – Nominated Best Supporting Actor
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