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Fred Astaire

1899–1987 · 88 years

Second billing in his sister's act, then he rewrote filmed dance

Portrait of Fred Astaire — Studio publicity still — 1941 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The act was his mother's idea, and his sister was the reason it worked. Johanna Austerlitz wanted out of Omaha, where her husband sold beer for the Storz brewery, and she had a daughter who danced by instinct. Fred was the brother added to make it a brother-and-sister turn. The family moved to New York in January 1905, changed the name because Austerlitz sounded like a battle, and put the children on a tryout stage in Keyport, New Jersey, that November. Fred was six. For 27 years he was the other Astaire, working out the steps while Adele took the notices, on Broadway from 1917 and in London through the 1920s. Then in 1932 she married Lord Charles Cavendish and quit. Hollywood got him because she left.

Before him, a musical number was assembled in the cutting room: a face, then feet, then a reaction shot. Astaire refused that. He insisted the camera track the dancers in full figure, head to shoe, in as few cuts as possible, and he won contractual control over how his dances were shot. He held that control from The Gay Divorcee in 1934 until Francis Ford Coppola overruled him on Finian's Rainbow in 1968. Some 30 musicals in 25 years came out of the rule, 10 of them with Ginger Rogers, and it is why those numbers still read as dancing.

The dances were made in a locked rehearsal hall, weeks per number, and then rehearsed two weeks more once the music was recorded. Shooting went fast only because nothing was left to decide. Ginger Rogers described the method from inside it: calls at any hour of the night about a fresh idea, no loafing on an Astaire picture, no cutting corners. It bought him no peace. Vincente Minnelli said Astaire lacked confidence to the most enormous degree of anyone in the world and would not go and look at his own rushes. Hollywood prefers the screen-test verdict — can't act, balding, can dance a little — but the test is lost, the report with it, and the RKO producer Pandro Berman said he never heard the line in the 1930s. Astaire's own version was can't act, slightly bald, also dances.

He objected to being a team at all, writing his agent that he had just managed to live down one partnership. He danced with Eleanor Powell, Rita Hayworth, Cyd Charisse, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn. It made no difference. The line usually quoted about the pairing — he gave her class, she gave him sex — is attributed to Katharine Hepburn on no firm source, and it undersells Rogers, an actress first, who played the dances as scenes. Astaire said in 1976 that she was the most effective partner he ever had. He died of pneumonia on June 22, 1987, at 88, and was buried at Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth. Rogers was buried in the same cemetery eight years later.

Lifespan

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Fred Astaire's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

The Gay Divorcee film
The first picture shot under his rule that the camera follow the dance whole 1934
Top Hat film
Irving Berlin's score, and Cheek to Cheek 1935
Swing Time film
Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields — the Rogers partnership at full stretch 1936
The Band Wagon film
Rave reviews and big crowds, and no profit on first release 1953
On the Beach film
A non-dancing dramatic role in a nuclear war picture 1959
The Towering Inferno film
His only competitive Academy Award nomination 1974

Life in brief

with age at each point

November 1905 aged 6 The Astaires debut in Keyport, New Jersey The family had left Omaha for New York that January to put the children on stage. Fred was six.
1924 aged ~25 Lady, Be Good makes the Astaires stars on two continents They had reached Broadway in 1917 with Over the Top. The Gershwins wrote for them.
1932 aged ~33 Adele marries Lord Charles Cavendish and leaves the act The partnership that had carried both of them since 1905 was over.
1933 aged ~34 Takes fifth billing in Flying Down to Rio, behind Ginger Rogers Variety credited the film's success to him.
1934 aged ~35 Wins control over how his dances are filmed Full figure, tracking camera, as few cuts as possible. He held the rule until 1968.
1950 aged ~51 Receives an Honorary Academy Award for his work in musical pictures Voted for the 1949 film year.
1958 aged ~59 An Evening with Fred Astaire wins nine Emmy Awards The first of four television specials with Barrie Chase, and the first major broadcast prerecorded on color videotape.
June 24, 1980 aged 81 Marries the jockey Robyn Smith at 81 She was 45 years his junior. His first wife, Phyllis, had died of lung cancer in 1954.
June 22, 1987 aged 88 Dies of pneumonia at 88