Fred Astaire

Over nine decades spanning the 20th century, Fred Astaire sustained an enduring presence as a dancer, actor, and singer across stage, screen, radio, television, and recordings. Widely regarded as cinema’s foremost dancer, he featured in 31 movie musicals from 1933 to 1968 and received a special Academy Award honoring those contributions. He also performed on Broadway and in the West End, earned two Emmy Awards for his television dancing, and shared his precise tap work with radio listeners through his own series and numerous discs. Eight additional non-musical films and many television appearances brought him an Academy Award nomination plus a third Emmy as a performer. His light tenor and relaxed, conversational delivery suited the leading songwriters of his time, leading him to premiere dozens of enduring standards—many composed specifically for him—by Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Burton Lane, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Arthur Schwartz, Harry Warren, and Vincent Youmans. Though his dancing fame often eclipsed his vocal work, he amassed hundreds of recordings across more than fifty years, several of which became major successes.

His lengthy professional path divides into four distinct eras. Between 1905 and 1917 he and his sister Adele Astaire (born September 10, 1897; died January 25, 1981) performed as the vaudeville duo Fred and Adele Astaire. From 1917 to 1933 the pair appeared together in ten of eleven Broadway musicals. The years 1933 to 1957 saw him in thirty Hollywood musicals, ten of them opposite Ginger Rogers. After 1957 he concentrated chiefly on character roles in films and on television. While Fred and Adele received strong notices and achieved stardom in New York and London, only reviews and a few discs remain to document that period. In contrast, his filmed partnership with Rogers continued to captivate later generations just as it had audiences in the 1930s. During those years, Astaire gliding across gleaming floors in his signature “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails” (as Berlin described it in a number written for him), Rogers at his side in an elegant gown, offered Depression-era viewers a vision of grace and refinement that countered economic hardship. This era marked his greatest popular success: he and Rogers ranked among the nation’s top box-office attractions, his records dominated the charts, and millions tuned in weekly to his radio program. Yet a string of later achievements sustained his reputation as one of the century’s most cherished entertainers.

Born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 10, 1899, he was the son of Frederic (without the “k”) Austerlitz, an Austrian-born salesman for the Storz Brewing Company who also played piano and nurtured an interest in the performing arts, and Johanna (Gelius) Austerlitz, who shared that passion. When his older sister Adele Marie Austerlitz demonstrated an early gift for dance, she began lessons at Chambers’ Dancing Academy. The family encountered financial strain in 1904 after a temperance campaign shuttered the brewery; in response, mother, daughter, and son relocated to New York so Adele could train at Claude Alvienne’s school with professional aspirations in mind. Arriving in January 1905, the trio soon adopted the stage surname Astaire. Shortly after Adele began her studies, young Fred joined her, forming the act Fred and Adele Astaire. Their professional debut occurred in November 1905 in a Keyport, New Jersey, vaudeville sketch devised by Alvienne; Fred was then six, Adele eight.

The siblings remained on the vaudeville circuit until 1909, when they outgrew their material and differing heights complicated partnered dancing. They withdrew temporarily, settling in Highwood Park, New Jersey, where Fred attended school. After two years they enrolled at Ned Wayburn’s New York studio in summer 1911 and returned to vaudeville that December with a new Wayburn routine. Their bookings grew steadily more prominent until June 1917, when the Shubert Organization signed them for the legitimate stage. Their Broadway bow came in the revue Over the Top, which opened November 28, 1917, ran seventy-eight performances, and toured into spring 1918; the Astaires received seventh billing and danced in three numbers while singing in two. The Shuberts next cast them in The Passing Show of 1918 (opened July 25, 192 performances, plus tour through June 1919), where they held eighth billing, appeared together in three numbers, and each performed a solo; Fred’s was “Squab Farm” (music by Sigmund Romberg, lyrics by Jean Schwartz). After the tour they entered rehearsals for the operetta Apple Blossoms, which opened October 7, 1919, played 256 performances until April 24, 1920, and toured through April 1921; fourth-billed, they danced in three numbers without speaking parts.

They next appeared in the short-lived operetta The Love Letter (opened October 29, 1921; thirty-one performances), receiving fifth and sixth billing with two dances and no dialogue. That season’s second show, For Goodness Sake (opened February 20, 1922; 103 performances), gave them their first speaking roles and introduced music by Fred’s friend George Gershwin. Critical favor led to top billing in their sixth stage vehicle, The Bunch and Judy (music by Jerome Kern and Anne Caldwell), which ran only sixty-three performances from November 28, 1922, to January 20, 1923. The commercial disappointment yielded an invitation to London for a revised version of For Goodness Sake retitled Stop Flirting; it opened May 30, 1923, and ran 418 performances through August 1924. Its popularity prompted their first recordings: on October 18, 1923, HMV captured “The Whichness of the Whatness” and “Oh Gee! Oh Gosh!” (both by William Daly and Paul Lannin), issued in Britain only as HMV B-1719—Fred’s initial release.

Returning to New York, the Astaires starred in the Gershwin musical Lady, Be Good!, which opened December 1, 1924, enjoyed 330 performances through September 12, 1925, and toured for two months. A London production opened April 14, 1926, and ran 326 performances until January 22, 1927. Shortly after the West End premiere they recorded several numbers for English Columbia, accompanied by George Gershwin at the piano: “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Hang on to Me,” “I’d Rather Charleston” (lyrics by Desmond Carter), and Fred’s solo “The Half of It, Dearie, Blues” (April 19, 1926); a later session added “Swiss Miss” with orchestra and “So Am I” sung by Adele and George Vollaire.

After a British tour the siblings returned in June 1927 to prepare another Gershwin show, Funny Face, which opened November 22, 1927, for 250 performances through June 23, 1928. Shortly before its premiere, The Jazz Singer had demonstrated the viability of sound film, prompting a Paramount screen test for a proposed Funny Face adaptation that never materialized. Instead they took the musical to London, where it opened November 8, 1928, ran 263 performances, and toured until April 1930. English Columbia again recorded selections: Fred and Adele performed “The Babbitt and the Bromide” and the title song, while Fred soloed on “High Hat” and “My One and Only.” Additional 1929–1930 sides included “Not My Girl”/“Louisiana” (with Al Starita and His Boyfriends) and “Puttin’ on the Ritz” (Berlin)/“Crazy Feet.”

Their next vehicle, Florenz Ziegfeld’s Smiles, opened November 18, 1930, and closed after sixty-three performances. They rebounded with The Band Wagon (songs by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz), which opened June 3, 1931, ran 260 performances through January 16, 1932, and toured until May. Leo Reisman recorded the score for Victor and featured the Astaires; together they cut “Hoops” and a two-part “Gems from the Band Wagon” medley, while Fred soloed on “I Love Louisa,” “New Sun in the Sky,” and “White Heat.” Victor also issued an experimental 33⅓ rpm pressing of the medley. Chart researchers Joel Whitburn and Edward Foote Gardner later listed “I Love Louisa” as a Top Ten hit and noted placements for “New Sun in the Sky.”

Adele Astaire gave her final performance in The Band Wagon in Chicago on March 15, 1932. On May 9 she married Charles Cavendish, son of the Duke of Devonshire, and retired to Ireland. Fred proceeded alone with the Cole Porter musical Gay Divorce. On November 22, 1932—the day after its New Haven tryout and a week before the Broadway opening—he and Reisman recorded “Night and Day” and “I’ve Got You on My Mind” for Victor. Although early reviews were mixed and business initially modest, “Night and Day” became a number-one hit (again per Whitburn and Gardner), ultimately carrying the show to 248 Broadway performances through July 1, 1933. Growing solo success drew Hollywood interest; in January 1933 David O. Selznick arranged an RKO screen test. Selznick deemed the test “wretched” yet noted that Astaire’s “charm is so tremendous” it still registered. Legend attributes to one executive the remark “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Balding. Can dance a little,” later identified by Debbie Reynolds as studio official Burt Grady. Astaire himself, speaking to biographer Bob Thomas, clarified the comment: “It has been repeated many times, usually incorrectly. What the man said was: ‘Can’t act. Slightly bald. Also dances.’” RKO nonetheless signed him on May 27, 1933, for one picture with options. Additional Reisman sessions yielded a recording of “The Gold Diggers’ Song (We’re in the Money)” (Warren and Dubin), introduced on screen by Ginger Rogers.

On July 12, 1933, Astaire married socialite Phyllis Livingston Baker Potter; they had two children and remained together until her death from cancer on September 13, 1954. Days after the wedding he flew to Los Angeles. Loaned to MGM, he made his screen debut in a supporting role in Dancing Lady (opened November 1933) opposite Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. His first RKO feature, Flying Down to Rio, billed him fifth behind Rogers, with whom he danced on screen for the first time. After filming he returned to London for a limited Gay Divorce engagement (November 2, 1933–April 7, 1934). While there he recorded the title song and “Music Makes Me” from Flying Down to Rio; both later charted (Whitburn/Gardner). The film opened in December 1933 and succeeded largely because of audience enthusiasm for the pair’s “Carioca” routine—the first song to win an Academy Award. RKO quickly acquired screen rights to both Gay Divorce and the concurrent hit Roberta. Retitled The Gay Divorcee, the Porter score retained only “Night and Day,” yet the October 1934 release proved another hit. Roberta, released February 1935, preserved more of Kern’s original material and added new numbers by the composer, becoming the team’s third successful film.

For their fourth pairing, Top Hat, RKO commissioned an original Irving Berlin score. Astaire recorded all five songs—“Cheek to Cheek,” “No Strings,” “Isn’t This a Lovely Day?,” “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails,” and “The Piccolino”—for Brunswick; the discs appeared with the August 1935 premiere. Multiple appearances on Your Hit Parade drove “Cheek to Cheek” to five weeks at number one, with the other Berlin numbers also reaching the Top Ten. The film became the duo’s biggest commercial triumph. Re-teamed with Berlin for Follow the Fleet (February 1936), Astaire recorded five of the seven new songs plus his own “I’m Building Up to an Awful Let-Down” (lyrics by Mercer); “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” “Let Yourself Go,” “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket,” and the Mercer collaboration all reached the Top Five. RKO next reunited Astaire with Kern and Dorothy Fields for Swing Time (August 1936). Five Brunswick sides included “The Way You Look Tonight,” which held number one for six weeks, and “A Fine Romance,” which peaked at number three. Declining profits prompted a temporary split after the seventh picture, Shall We Dance (April 1937). Astaire meanwhile hosted The Fred Astaire Show (aka The Packard Hour) on NBC beginning September 15, 1936, but relinquished it after one season to focus on film choreography. Gershwin songs for Shall We Dance yielded another Top Ten hit, “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” Production costs reduced profitability. A Damsel in Distress (November 1937), Astaire’s first non-Rogers vehicle since Dancing Lady, lost money; four Gershwin recordings produced another Top Ten entry, “Nice Work if You Can Get It.” Carefree (September 1938), again scored by Berlin, gave him a final number-one hit with “Change Partners” even as the picture lost money. The studio proceeded with the biographical The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (spring 1939), which also underperformed.

Astaire left RKO after that film. Over the ensuing years he accepted freelance offers: Broadway Melody of 1940 (February 1940); Second Chorus (January 1941) and Holiday Inn (June 1942, with Bing Crosby) for Paramount; You’ll Never Get Rich (September 1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (October 1942, with Rita Hayworth) for Columbia; and The Sky’s the Limit (July 1943) back at RKO before signing a long-term MGM contract in 1944. He recorded for Columbia in 1940 and for Decca from 1941 to 1946; Decca issued his first three-78 album tied to You Were Never Lovelier (Kern-Mercer score) in 1942.

At MGM he completed the long-delayed ensemble Ziegfeld Follies (general release 1946) and the unsuccessful Yolanda and the Thief (October 1945), then returned to Paramount for Blue Skies (again with Crosby and Berlin songs). A Decca album of Blue Skies material, featuring a duet on “A Couple of Song and Dance Men” and a solo remake of “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” reached number two on the Billboard album chart in fall 1946. The picture succeeded, prompting the 47-year-old Astaire to announce retirement so he could devote time to racehorse breeding and a planned chain of dance schools. He remained sporadically active, appearing in the May 4, 1947, radio play The Animal Kingdom on ABC’s Theatre Guild on the Air, but stayed away from films until Gene Kelly’s broken ankle in fall 1947 led to his replacement in Easter Parade (June 1948, with Judy Garland and Berlin songs). Its success ended talk of retirement. MGM’s new record label began issuing soundtrack albums, which became Astaire’s primary commercial outlet: Easter Parade; The Barkleys of Broadway (March 1949, reuniting him with Rogers); Three Little Words (1950, eleven weeks at number one); Royal Wedding (February 1951, number three, with the gold-selling novelty duet “How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I’ve Been a Liar All My Life?” with Jane Powell); The Belle of New York (February 1952); and The Band Wagon (July 1953). The loan-out Let’s Dance (August 1950) initially lacked a soundtrack album.

At the 1949 Academy Awards, Astaire received a special Oscar “for his unique artistry and his contributions to the technique of musical pictures.” In 1952 Norman Granz assembled an all-star jazz group—Oscar Peterson, Alvin Stoller, Flip Phillips, Charlie Shavers, Barney Kessel, and Ray Brown—for marathon December sessions that produced the 38-track, four-LP set The Astaire Story, issued by Clef via Mercury in 1953.

After completing his MGM contract in 1953, Astaire accepted occasional film roles: Daddy Long Legs (May 1955, RCA single “Something’s Gotta Give”) and Funny Face (March 1957, Verve soundtrack), both for Paramount, followed by Silk Stockings (May 1957, MGM soundtrack). He then shifted focus to television, beginning with a comic half-hour, Imp on a Cobweb Leash, on General Electric Theatre (December 1, 1957). The ambitious hour-long An Evening with Fred Astaire (October 17, 1958), dancing with new partner Barrie Chase, won nine Emmys, including Outstanding Single Program and Astaire’s award for Best Single Performance by an Actor. Two sequels—Another Evening with Fred Astaire (November 4, 1959) and Astaire Time (September 28, 1960)—earned him a second Emmy for Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Music Program or Series. Non-musical film roles included On the Beach (December 1959), The Pleasure of His Company (May 1961), and The Notorious Landlady (June 1962). He recorded the album Now (1959) for Kapp, a combined television soundtrack Three Evenings with Fred Astaire (1960) on his Ava label, and scattered singles. From 1961 he hosted the anthology Alcoa Premiere and acted in several episodes. Think Pretty (October 2, 1964) paired him again with Chase for Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater. He appeared in multiple Dr. Kildare episodes (November 1965) and on The Hollywood Palace in 1966. His fourth television special, The Fred Astaire Show, aired February 7, 1968. A continuing role on It Takes a Thief followed in 1970. His final screen musical, Finian’s Rainbow (August 1968), was accompanied by a Warner Bros. soundtrack that charted for six months. Less than a year later he starred in the crime drama Midas Run (May 1969).

By 1970 the seventy-year-old performer had become semi-retired yet continued selective work. He co-starred in the ABC television Western The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again (November 17, 1970) and supplied a voice for the animated Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (December 13, 1970, MGM soundtrack). Two 1972 NBC specials followed: the Gershwin tribute ’S Wonderful, ’S Marvelous, ’S Gershwin (January 17, Daybreak soundtrack) and the patriotic Make Mine Red, White and Blue (September 9, host). He co-hosted the MGM anthology That’s Entertainment! (May 1974), whose double-LP soundtrack charted; two years later he and Gene Kelly hosted That’s Entertainment, Part II with modest singing and dancing and another soundtrack album. In between he appeared in the disaster film The Towering Inferno (December 1974), the year’s biggest box-office success, earning his sole Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.