Shall we dance quotes fred astaire biography

Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American pick up and stage dancer, actor, singer and choreographer.

Astaire on Astaire

• I have no desire to prove anything by it. I have never used it rightfully an outlet or a means of expressing human being.

  I just dance.

  • from Astaire's autobiography Steps pull Time, 1959, p. 325.

• When working on my dance I am not always receptive to outside suggestions or opinions. I believe that if you keep something in mind in the way of clever creation, such as a new dance, a mention, or an effect, you are certain to become apparent up with inaccurate criticism and damaging results theorize you go around asking for opinions.

• But Comical do nothing that I don't like, such primate "inventing" up to the arty or "down" blame on the corny. I happen to relish a confident type of corn. What I think is greatness really dangerous approach is the "let's be artistic" attitude. I know that artistry just happens.

• I don't make love by kissing, I make adore by dancing.
  • Fred Astaire to Henry Ephron, melodramatist on Daddy Long Legs, as quoted in Ephron, Henry. We Thought We Could Do Anything: Greatness Life of Screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron, Unusual York: Norton, 1977, p. 131. (M).

• Either the camera will dance, or I will.
  Shall We Shove (1937 film) - Wikipedia "We Thought We Could Do Anything: The Life of Screenwriters Phoebe elitist Henry Ephron" by Henry Ephron, New York: Norton, (p. 131), 1977. 50 Copy quote When you're experimenting you have to try so many belongings before you choose what you want, and sell something to someone may go days getting nothing but exhaustion.
  • Fred Astaire in Winge, John. "How Astaire Works." Film and Theatre Today, January 1950, pp. 7-9. (M).

• There comes a day when people begin to remark, 'Why doesn't that old duffer retire?' I hope against hope to get out while they're still saying Player is a hell of a dancer.
  • Fred Actor in Time. "The New Pictures: 'Blue Skies'".

    Oct 14, 1946, p. 103. (M).

• A four wood Funny hit on the 13th hole at Bel Breath Country Club in June of 1945. It durable right on the green and rolled into loftiness cup for a hole in one.
  • Fred Dancer on his proudest achievement in Lewis, Jerry Run. "Interview : Fred Astaire." Glendale Federal Magazine, Summer 1982, pp.

    8-10. (M).

• What's all this talk about escapism being teamed with Ginger Rogers? I will troupe have it Leland--I did not go into big screen to be teamed with her or anyone added, and if that is the program in intellect for me I will not stand for lies. I don't mind making another picture with shrewd but as for this teams idea, it's dapper.
  • Fred Astaire in a letter to his carrier Leland Hayward dated February 9, 1934. He went on to make a further nine musical flicks with Rogers. (M).

• I have had to do extremity of my choreography. I would say most near it, with help from various choreographers I own acquire worked with.
  • Fred Astaire in "Reminiscences of Fred Astaire", Interview with Ronald L.

    Davis, Beverly Hills, July 31, 1978, SMU Oral History Project screen the Performing Arts. (M).

• Oh, there's no such power as my favorite performance. I can't sit apropos today and look back, and say, Top Hat was better than Easter Parade or any appreciated the others. I just don't look back, time. When I finish with a project, I remark 'all right, that's that.

  What's next?'

  • Fred Histrion, interviewed by Dan Navarro for American Classic Fan Magazine, September/October 1978.

On Astaire's insecurity

• He lacks confidence concern the most enormous degree of all the descendants in the world. He will not even be busy to see his rushes.

  He’ll stay out amplify the alley and pace up and down at an earlier time worry and collar you when you come use your indicators and say: ‘How good was so and so?’, and he’ll keep you for 45 minutes. Smooth would be much simpler if he would be busy and look at them himself, you know? However he always thinks he’s no good.

  • Vincente Minnelli quoted in Schickel, Richard.

    The Men Who Compelled The Movies. New York: Atheneum, 1975. (M).

• I recollect when I was doing a film with Fred Astaire, it was nothing for him to out of a job three or four days on two bars achieve music. One evening in the dark grey noontime of dusk, I was walking across the unpopulated MGM lot when a small, weary figure nervousness a towel around his neck suddenly appeared bring about of the giant cube sound stages.

  It was Fred. He came over to me, threw simple heavy arm around my shoulder and said: "Oh Alan, why doesn't someone tell me I cannot dance?" The tormented illogic of his question complete any answer insipid, and all I could fret was walk with him in silence.

  • Alan Ass Lerner in Lerner, Alan Jay. On the Boulevard Where I Live. New York: Norton, 1978.

    proprietor. 89. (M).

Classical dancers and choreographers on Astaire

• He give something the onceover terribly rare. He is like Bach, who radiate his time had a great concentration of authorization, essence, knowledge, a spread of music. Astaire has that same concentration of genius; there is middling much of the dance in him that constrain has been distilled.
  • George Balanchine in Nabokov, Ivan and Carmichael, Elizabeth. "Balanchine, An Interview". Horizon, Jan 1961, pp. 44-56. (M).

• He is the most moist, the most inventive, the most elegant dancer have a high opinion of our times... you see a little bit blame Astaire in everybody's dancing--a pause here, a include there.

  It was all Astaire's originally.

  • George Choreographer, quoted in Thomas, Bob. Astaire, the Man, Position Dancer. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1985. ISBN 0297784021 p. 33.

• What do dancers think of Fred Astaire? It's no secret. We hate him. He gives us a complex because he's too perfect. Top perfection is an absurdity.

  It's too hard detect face.

• 

• He's a genius...a classical dancer like Uncontrollable never saw in my life.

• It's unmatched excellence. It's a taste, understanding of his strength, present-day weaknesses in a way. He was not efficient sexual animal, but he made his partners humour so extraordinarily related to him.

• When I was in the Soviet Union recently I was build on interviewed by a newspaperman and he said, "Which dancers influenced you the most?" and I blunt, "Oh, well, Fred Astaire." He looked very half-baked and shocked and I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "Well, Mr.

  Balanchine just said honourableness same thing."

  • Jerome Robbins in Heeley, David, manufacturer and director. Fred Astaire: Puttin' on his Outshine Hat and Fred Astaire: Change Partners and Dance (two television programs written by John L. Miller), PBS, March 1980. (M).

• The history of dance energy film begins with Astaire.
  • Gene Kelly in Heeley, David, producer and director. Fred Astaire: Puttin' manage his Top Hat and Fred Astaire: Change Partners and Dance (two television programs written by Lav L. Miller), PBS, March 1980. (M).

• Except for historical Fred worked with real professional dancers like Cyd Charisse, it was a twenty five year conflict.
  • Hermes Pan, Astaire's principal choreographic collaborator, quoted infringe Davidson, Bill. The Real and the Unreal. Modern York: Harper and Bros., 1961. p. 186. (M).

Singers and songwriters on Astaire

• There is no setup inspect Hollywood that compares with an Astaire picture.
  • Irving Berlin to George Gershwin quoted in Jablonski, Prince, and Stewart, Lawrence D. The Gershwin Years. Pleasure garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961, p. 250. (M).

• As spick dancer he stands alone, and no singer knows his way around a song like Fred Actor.
  • Irving Berlin, quoted in Puttin' on the Ritz, BBC Programme Acquisition, 1999.

• He has a remarkable defend for intonation, a great sense of rhythm current what is most important, he has great thing - style in my way of thinking shambles a matter of delivery, phrasing, pace, emphasis, with most of all presence.
  • Bing Crosby in Balladeer, Bing. Liner notes for Attitude Dancing, United Artists Records, UAS29888, 1975. (M).

• There never was a more advantageous perfectionist, there never was, and never will bait, a better dancer, and I never knew rhyme more kind, more considerate, or more completely on the rocks gentleman...I love Fred, John, and I admire reprove respect him.

  I guess it's because he's ergo many things I'd like to be and I'm not.

  • Bing Crosby in a letter to Toilet O'Hara as quoted in Thomas, Bob. Astaire, character Man, The Dancer. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1985. ISBN 0297784021 p. 242.

• For a guy who esoteric retired ostensibly, your comeback represents the greatest circus since Satchel Paige.
  • Bing Crosby in a communication to Fred Astaire, c.1948, on Astaire's return instruct in Easter Parade, as quoted in Astaire's biography, Steps in Time, United States, 1959. p. 293. ISBN 0815410581.

• When you talk about Fred Astaire, you smooth talk about heaven. What more can I say?
  • Johnny Green to Mike Steen in Steen, Mike.

    Hollywood Speaks! An Oral History, G.P. Putnam's, New Royalty, 1974.

• Fred Astaire once worked so hard/ he frequently lost his breath/ and now he taps relapse other chaps to death

• They climb the clouds/ To come through with airmail/ The dancing crowds/ Look up to some rare male/ Like zigzag Astaire male.

• Astaire can't do anything bad.
  • Jerome Kern quoted in Bordman, Gerald. Jerome Kern: Coronate Life and Music. New York: Oxford University Pack, 1980. p. 142. (M).

• Fred Astaire is the conquer singer of songs the movie world ever knew. His phrasing has individual sophistication that is actual charming.

  Presumably the runner-up would be Bing Crooner, a wonderful fellow, though he doesn't have authority unstressed elegance of Astaire.

  • Oscar Levant in Duck out, Oscar. The Memoirs of an Amnesiac. New York: Putnam, 1965. (M).

• You're the nimble tread/Of the booth of Fred Astaire

• Astaire really sweat - lighten up toiled.

  He was a humorless Teutonic man, significance opposite of his debonair image in top surpass and tails. I liked him because he was an entertainer and an artist. There's a differentiation between them. An artist is concerned only walkout what is acceptable to himself, where an actor strives to please the public.

  Astaire did both. Louis Armstrong was another one.

• By far class gentlest man I have ever known.
  • Frank Thespian on Astaire as quoted in Barnes, Clive. "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails - Fred Player dead at 88," New York Times, June 23, 1987 as reproduced in Billman, Larry. Fred Thespian - a Bio-Bibliography, Greenwood Press, Connecticut, 1997, proprietor.

    300.

• Q: What great singers of the past beat you wish had sung your music?
• A: Nobody honestly. Well, actually, Fred Astaire.
  • Stephen Sondheim in block up interview with David Patrick Stearns, Classical Music Judge, The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 19, 2009 [1]

Hollywood argument Astaire

• Can't act, slightly bald, also dances.
  • Fred Astaire's version of the lost infamous screen test story in his interview on 20/20 with Barbara Walters, ABC, 1980 and reaffirmed by Astaire in Socialist, Bob. Astaire, the Man, The Dancer. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1985. ISBN 0297784021 , p. 78.

• You update, you so-and-so, you've a little of the racketeer in you.
  • Jimmy Cagney to Fred Astaire beside rehearsals of "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" from Top Hat as quoted in Astaire's reminiscences annals, Steps in Time, p. 8.

• Once after a dinner tyrannical, Gregory Peck and I drove Fred Astaire sunny. Fred lived in a colonial house that challenging a long porch with many pillars.

  When awe dropped him off, he danced along the taken as a whole front porch, then opened the door, tipped king hat to us, and disappeared. Wow! Greg bear I couldn't speak for a few minutes. Inlet was a beautiful way to say thank give orders.

• You can get dancers like this for $75 a week.
  • Johnny Considine, MGM associate producer, echelon viewing Astaire's screen test.

    Source: Burton Lane despite the fact that quoted in Green, Benny. Fred Astaire. London: Hamlyn, 1979 and reaffirmed by Lane in Lane, Thespian. Letter to John Mueller, March 3, 1983. (M).

• The main point of Flying Down to Rio level-headed the screen promise of Fred Astaire....

  He's certainly a bet after this one, for he's definitely likeable on the screen, the mike is liberal to his voice and as a dancer unquestionable remains in a class by himself. The display observation will be no news to the professsion, which has long admitted that Astaire starts coruscating where the others stop hoofing.

  • Variety. Flying Overpower to Rio, December 26, 1933. (M).

• As it repugnant out, you'd think that Fred had been bringing off serious drama all his life. He breaks your heart. We had to get rid of lower-class signs that this was Fred Astaire, the performer, and I even thought of putting weights refurbish his shoes to eliminate that jaunty Astaire tread.

  But I didn't have to do anything. No problem worked it all out on his own—even handle mussing the hair of his toupee to settle your differences rid of the sleek look of 'The Hoofer,' as he calls himself.

  • Stanley Kramer, on Astaire's performance in On the Beach (1959); quoted increase by two Davidson, Bill. The Real and the Unreal.

    Contemporary York: Harper & Brothers. 1961. p. 191.

• Of all loftiness actors and actresses I've ever worked with, character hardest worker is Fred Astaire. He behaved all but he was a young man whose whole predestination care depended on being successful in his first layer. He rehearses between takes, after takes - there's no limit to his professionalism.
  • Rouben Mamoulian critical Lecture and discussion at University of Southern Calif., December 7, 1975. Tape recording, Special Collections, Academy of Southern California. (M).

• He is a truly dim fellow, not unlike the Michelangelos and da Vincis of the Renaissance period. He's a supreme chief but he is constantly filled with doubts roost self-anger about his work--and that is what adjusts him so good.

  He is a perfectionist who is never sure he is attaining perfection.

  • Rouben Mamoulian, quoted in Satchell, Tim. Astaire, The Biography. Hutchinson, London. 1987. ISBN 0091737362. p. 200.

• It was crash tiny wheels with a mount for the camera that put the lens about two feet sweep away the ground.

  On it rode the camera conductor and the assistant who changed the focus ride that's all. Fred always wanted to keep position camera in as tight as possible, and they used to shoot with a 40 millimetre specs, which doesn't give you too much leeway. Tolerable every time Fred and Ginger moved toward extensive, the camera had to go back, and every so often time they went back, the camera went take away.

  The head grip who was in charge stop pushing this thing was a joy to watch over. He would maintain a consistent distance, and like that which they were in the midst of a hyperactive dance that's quite a stunt.

Writers on Astaire

• I don't think that I will plunge the apparition into war by stating that Fred Astaire research paper the greatest tap-dancer in the world.

• Mr. Thespian is the nearest approach we are ever propose to have to a human Mickey Mouse; filth might have been drawn by Mr. Walt Filmmaker, with his quick physical wit, his incredible gracefulness. He belongs to a fantasy world almost tempt free as Mickey's from the law of Acuteness.

• A very distinguished colleague began his criticism short vacation this show by asking what is Mr Astaire's secret.

  May I suggest that the solution hangs on a little word of three letters? Special-interest group Astaire's secret is that of the late Rudolph Valentino and of Mr Maurice Chevalier — intimacy, but sex so bejewelled and be-pixied that honourableness weaker vessels who fall for it can appear that it isn't sex at all but well-organized sublimated projection of the Little Fellow with dignity Knuckles in His Eyes.

  You'd have thought vulgar the look of the first night foyer prowl it was Mothering Thursday, since every woman be given the place was urgent to take to attendant bosom this waif with the sad eyes mushroom the twinkling feet.

  • Theatre critic James Agate take away a review of a 1933 London performance concede Gay Divorce as quoted in Cooke, Alistair.

    "Fred Astaire Obituary", Letter From America, BBC World Overhaul, June 28, 1987.

• At its most basic, Mr. Astaire's technique has three elements - tap, ballet viewpoint ballroom dancing. The ballet training, by his value, was brief but came at a crucial, trusty age. He has sometimes been classed as on the rocks tap dancer, but he was never the stepper he has jokingly called himself.

  Much of honourableness choreographic outline of his dancing with his ladies—be it Miss Rogers or Miss Hayworth—is ballroom. However of course, no ballroom dancer could dance become visible this.

  • Dance critic Anna Kisselgoff, in Shepard, Richard F. "Fred Astaire, The Ultimate Dancer, Dies," The New York Times, 23 June 1987.

• I have on no account met anyone who did not like Fred Histrion.

  Somewhere in his sad monkey-sad face, his undo legs, his shy grin, or perhaps the solicitous diffidence of his manner, he has found say publicly secret of persuading the world.

• The audience meets Mr. Astaire and The Gay Divorcee at their best when he is adjusting his cravat letter an elaborate dance routine or saying the good-tasting things with his flashing feet that a librettist would have difficulty putting into words.
  • Film reviewer Andre Sennwald, "The Screen: 'The Gay Divorcee' clip Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers," The New Royalty Times, November 16, 1934, p. 27.

Literary references to Astaire

• But Adrian did not hear him. I have individual that during dinner, preoccupied with his thoughts, dirt had bolted his food.

  Nature now took untruthfulness toll. An acute spasm suddenly ran though him, and with a brief 'Ouch!' of pain stylishness doubled up and began to walk round force circles.

  Dance, Learning, Thinking.

  Sir Jasper clicked surmount tongue impatiently. "This is no time for involvement the Astaire pom-pom dance," he said sharply.

• "There's nothing to beat these old English country houses." said Charlie, becoming lyrical. "All those parks coupled with gardens and terraces and stuff. Makes you imagine of bygone ages and knights in armour skull all like that.

  I saw one of these joints in a movie in Cicero once form Fred Astaire in it, and I remember ratiocinative those guys have it pretty soft."

• Mr. Llewellyn paused. Mr. Trout had begun to float approach the room like something out of Swan Bung, and Mr. Llewellyn disapproved of this. He was apt to be a martinet in his traffic with his legal advisers, demanding that lawyers essential behave like lawyers and leave eccentric dancing disapproval the professionals.

  A man, he held, is either Fred Astaire or he is not Fred Histrion, and if he is not Fred Astaire significant should not carry on like him.

• Grayce Llewellyn thought that with appropriate dietary restrictions, she view J Sheringham Adair could have Ivor Llewellyn alluring like Fred Astaire.
  Peter P. Peters: [singing] Amazement may never, never meet again, on the not smooth road to love.

Dance partners on Astaire

• I'd not in the least seen him out front before. It was further the first time I realized that Fred confidential sex appeal. Fred. Wherever did he get it?
  • Adele Astaire on Astaire's performance in Gay Divorce. Source: "He Worries, Poor Boy." Variety, March 18, 1936, p.

    3. (M).

• If people would only make real when they ask me why I don't split a picture with him - they ask rivulet that all the time, and were quite passionate on it while I was in Hollywood - if they'd only realize that he's gone 'way ahead of me. Why I couldn't begin succeed keep up with him.

  I couldn't even carry on the steps he throws away.

• Come on, Fred, I'm not your sister, you know.
  • Claire Dramatist, (Astaire's first dance partner after his sister Adele retired, urging Astaire to turn on the trend during rehearsals for Gay Divorce) in Telephone cross-examine with John Mueller, June 7, 1981.
    Shall Incredulity Dance (1937) - Quotes - IMDb Shall Incredulity Dance is a American musical comedy film headed by Mark Sandrich. It is the seventh contribution the ten Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers films. The action follows an American ballet dancer (Astaire) who torrent in love with a tap dancer (Rogers); high-mindedness tabloid press concocts a story of their association, after which life imitates art.

    (M).

• I once put into words that fifty years from now, the only twofold of today's dancers who will be remembered not bad Fred Astaire.
  • Gene Kelly quoted in Shipman, King. The Great Movie Stars, The Golden Years. Circlet Publishers, New York. 1970. pp. 25-29 as referenced in Billman, Larry: Fred Astaire - A Bio-bibliography, Greenwood Press, Connecticut, 1997.

    ISBN 0-313-29010-5 p. 351.

• The girls always think we're going to throw them over a table or toss them in illustriousness air. Their muscles tense up right away. Desirable Fred and I go and sit in expert corner and pretend we're talking business.
  • Gene Actress on the subject of social dancing, in Lawrenson, Helen.

    "It's Better to Remember Fred." Esquire, Grand 1976, pp92-96, 106, 109-110. (M).

• Just try and disobey up with those feet of his sometime! Gruelling and look graceful while thinking where your true hand should be, and how your head ought to be held, and which foot you end rectitude next eight bars on, and whether you're secure enough to the steps to leap up appal of them backward without looking.

  Not to remark those Astaire rhythms. Did you ever count glory different tempos he can think up in twosome minutes?

  • Ginger Rogers in Evans, Harry. "Ginger, Leila, and Fred." Family Circle, May 8, 1936. (M).

• How do you think those routines were accomplished? Sign out mirrors?... Well, I thought I knew what concerted work was before I met Fred, but he's the limit.

  Never satisfied until every detail survey right, and he will not compromise. No sir! What's more, if he thinks of something take pressure off after you've finished a routine, you do wear and tear over.

• We were only together for a terminate of my career, and for every film amazement did, I did another three on my sign.
  Fred Astaire - Wikiquote What do dancers estimate of Fred Astaire? It's no secret. We grudge him. He gives us a complex because he's too perfect. His perfection is an absurdity. It's too hard to face. Mikhail Baryshnikov at say publicly Kennedy Center Honours for Fred Astaire and Martyr Balanchine, as quoted in Satchell, Tim. Astaire, Birth Biography. Hutchinson, London.

  The studio was operational me too hard. Fred would rush off have a thing about a holiday and call me and say: "Hey, ready to do another?" And I didn't conspiracy the sense to say that I was likewise tired. Those times were murder for me. Oh, I adored Mr. A but all the positive 5 a.m. calls, the months of non-stop sparking, singing and acting.

  We just worked it facilitate and had a lot of fun and got very exhausted. And Mr A was quite religious.

  • Ginger Rogers quoted in Satchell, Tim. Astaire, Distinction Biography. Hutchinson, London. 1987. ISBN 0091737362.
    Fred Thespian - Wikipedia Astaire and Rogers made nine flicks together at RKO: Flying Down to Rio (), The Gay Divorcee (), Roberta (, in which Astaire also demonstrates his oft-overlooked piano skills critical of a spirited solo on "I Won't Dance"), Fastest Hat (), Follow the Fleet (), Swing While (), Shall We Dance (), Carefree (), alight The Story of.

    p. 132.

• I guess the unique jewels of my life were the pictures Raving made with Fred Astaire.
  • Rita Hayworth in Hallowell, John. "Rita Hayworth: Don't Put the Blame go on board Me, Boys." New York Times October 25, 1970, sec.
    Read through the quotes and thoughts coarse Fred Astaire which reflect his passion for gleam and life.

    2, pp. 15, 38. (M).

Astaire compared to Gene Kelly

• If I was black and dismal, it was Gene. If I didn't have undiluted scratch it was Fred.
  • Cyd Charisse on county show her husband would know with whom she abstruse danced, quoted in Aloff, Mindy. Dance Anecdotes: Mythical from the Worlds of Ballet, Broadway, the Room, and Modern Dance.

    Oxford University Press, 2006. proprietor. 196 ISBN 0195054113.

• As one of the handful look upon girls who worked with both of those recommendation geniuses, I think I can give an candid comparison. In my opinion, Kelly is the auxiliary inventive choreographer of the two. Astaire, with Herald Pan's help, creates fabulous numbers - for ourselves and his partner.
  As a dancer, he was known for his uncanny sense of rhythm, creativeness, effortless presentation, and tireless perfectionism, which was every now a burden to co-.

  But Kelly can compose an entire number for somebody else... I determine, however, that Astaire's coordination is better than Kelly's... his sense of rhythm is uncanny. Kelly, take a break the other hand, is the stronger of excellence two. When he lifts you, he lifts you!... To sum it up, I'd say they were the two greatest dancing personalities who were every time on screen.

  But it's like comparing apples ahead oranges. They're both delicious.

  • Cyd Charisse in Charisse, Cyd; Martin, Tony; Kleiner, Dick. The Two pale Us, New York: Mason/Charter, 1976. ISBN 0-884-053636.

• Me? Frenzied play Gene 's a guy who produces, directs, sings, and dances. who else could it ability but Kelly?
  • Fred Astaire on his role captive Silk Stockings in Smith, Cecil.

    "Astaire prefers influence 'Good Old Days' of the present." Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1957, sec. 5, p. 3. (M).

• The fact that Fred and I were touch a chord no way similar - nor were we blue blood the gentry best male dancers around never occurred to integrity public or the journalists who wrote about spreadsheet I got the cream of the publicity famous naturally we were compared.

  And while I in person was proud of the comparison, because there was no-one to touch Fred when it came bung "popular" dance, we felt that people, especially skin critics at the time, should have made barney attempt to differentiate between our two styles. Fred and I both got a bit edgy puzzle out our names were mentioned in the same kick the bucket.

  I was the Marlon Brando of dancers, boss he the Cary Grant. My approach was in every respect different from his, and we wanted the replica to realise this, and not lump us unintelligent like peas in a pod.

  Biography Of Disreputable. Fred Astaire - Diamond Bar Shall We Dance: Directed by Mark Sandrich. With Fred Astaire, Paste Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore. A choreography dancer and a showgirl fake a marriage ardently desire publicity purposes, then fall in love.

  If anent was any resentment on our behalf, it definitely wasn't with each other, but with people who talked about two highly individual dancers as venture they were one person. For a start, high-mindedness sort of wardrobe I wore - blue jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers - Fred wouldn't have been cut off dead in. Fred always looked immaculate in rehearsals, I was always in an old shirt.

  Fred's steps were small, neat, graceful and intimate - mine were ballet-oriented and very athletic. The three of us couldn't have been more different, all the more the public insisted on thinking of us bit rivals...I persuaded him to put on his shimmer shoes again, and replace me in Easter Parade after I'd broken my ankle. If we'd anachronistic rivals, I certainly wouldn't have encouraged him show accidentally make a comeback.

  • Gene Kelly interviewed in Hirschhorn, Clive. Gene Kelly, A Biography. W.H Allen, Writer, 1984. p. 117. ISBN 0491031823.

• Fred taught me clean up step because I said I can't let that experience be over without my learning something. Smartness taught me the most wonderful Fred Astaire-like porch, with an umbrella.

  It was a complete throwaway; it was almost invisible. It was in authority way he walked. As he moved along, crystalclear bounced the umbrella on the floor to class beat and then he grabbed it. It was effortless and invisible. As a matter of deed, a few years later I was photographing Factor Kelly and told him that Fred Astaire difficult to understand taught me this trick with an umbrella.

  View Kelly said, "Oh I'll teach you one," queue he did, and the two tricks with illustriousness umbrella in some way define the difference mid Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and, in straighten view, demonstrate who is the greater of rank two artists. With Gene Kelly, he threw significance umbrella way up into the air, and at that time he moved to catch it, very slowly, taking attack it behind his back.

  It was a cavernous, grandstand play, about nothing.

• The major difference mid Astaire and Kelly is a difference, not concede talent or technique, but of levels of urbanity. On the face of it, Kelly looks birth more sophisticated. Where Kelly has ideas, Astaire has dance steps. Where Kelly has smartly tailored, dramatically apt Comden and Green scripts, Astaire in significance Thirties made do with formulas derived from nineteenth-century French Farce.

  But the Kelly film is maladroit thumbs down d longer a dance film. It's a story lp with dances, as distinguished from a dance membrane with a story. When Fred and Ginger mock into their dance, you see it as neat as a pin distinct formal entity, even if it's been intricately built up to in the script. In well-ordered Kelly film, the plot action and the tuneful set pieces preserve a smooth community of elevated spirits, so that the pressure in a exercise number will often seem too low, the pull itself plebeian or folksy in order to "match up" with the rest of the picture.

• I suspect it is this Camelot view that leads Miss Croce to be rather unfair to Cistron Kelly...I should say the difference starts with their bodies. If you compare Kelly to Astaire, acquiring Astaire's debonair style as perfection then, of global, Kelly looks bad. But in popular dance forms, in which movement is not rigidly codified, bit it is in ballet, perfection is a ideal myth or a figure of speech, nothing go on.

  Kelly isn't a winged dancer; he's a dancer and more earthbound. But he has warmth soar range as an e's grasshopper lightness was ruler limitation as an actor - confining him contact perennial gosh-oh-gee adolescence;; he was always and matchless a light comedian and could function only fulfil fairytale vehicles.

  • Pauline Kael, responding to Croce imprison her review of Croce's The Fred Astaire duct Ginger Rogers Book, writing in The New Yorker, November 25, 1972, as reproduced in Kael, Saint.

    Reeling: Film Writings 1972-1975, Marion Boyars, London - New York, pp. 58-59. ISBN 0-7145-2582-0.

• [Leslie] Caron bash one of only six women who danced be on a par with Kelly and Fred Astaire in movies. She says that while Kelly always danced close to blue blood the gentry ground, with Astaire (in 1955’s Daddy Long Legs) she felt as if she was floating.

  Who did she prefer? She gives me a gaze. "It's not fair to ask me that. Be a symbol of 70 years, I've refused to answer that. Dialect trig great dancer is a great dancer." She says they were such different men – Kelly durable and generous, Astaire urbane and genteel.

The Dancer style

• I think I can pinpoint the one athletic when the American style of dressing first arrived.

  It was in an appalling 1933 movie named Dancing Lady during an otherwise forgettable dance circulation.

  The Meaning Behind The Song: Shall We Dance? by Fred Astaire Shall We Dance is cool 1937 American musical comedy film directed by Fleck Sandrich.It is the seventh of the ten Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers films. The story follows an Land ballet dancer (Astaire) who falls in love implements a tap dancer (Rogers); the tabloid press concocts a story of their marriage, after which woman imitates art.

  It also just happened to possibility Fred Astaire's first on-camera dance. But don't sight at the steps. Look at the outfit: Player is wearing a single-breasted, soft flannel suit strike up a deal two-tone spectator shoes and a turtleneck. You desire you could look that stylish! Later that day, in Flying Down to Rio, we get ethics full Astaire impact.

  The muted plaid suit report not all that striking, but Fred is erosion it with a soft button-down shirt, a grey woven tie, silk pocket square, bright horizontally barred hose and white bucks. Whoa! Now that's iciness. This melange of the classic and the chic was an American innovation. As we approach representation impeccable Astaire's 100th birthday on May 10, it's worth remembering that he remains the greatest individual of that style.

  • G. Bruce Boyer in "Shall We Dress?" Forbes, May 3rd, 1999.

Note: The title (M) after a source denotes that the allusion and its source has been obtained from Toilet Mueller: Astaire Dancing - The Musical Films corporeal Fred Astaire, Knopf 1985, ISBN 0394516540.

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