Fred Astaire: Trending quotes

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Fred Astaire: 146 quotes2 likes

“I remember when I was doing a film with Fred Astaire, it was nothing for him to work three or four days on two bars of music. One evening in the dark grey hours of dusk, I was walking across the deserted MGM lot when a small, weary figure with a towel around his neck suddenly appeared out of the giant cube sound stages. It was Fred. He came over to me, threw a heavy arm around my shoulder and said: "Oh Alan, why doesn't someone tell me I cannot dance?" The tormented illogic of his question made any answer insipid, and all I could do was walk with him in silence.”

Fred Astaire

Alan Jay Lerner in Lerner, Alan Jay. On the Street Where I Live. New York: Norton, 1978. p. 89. (M).

“He is the most interesting, the most inventive, the most elegant dancer of our times… you see a little bit of Astaire in everybody's dancing--a pause here, a move there. It was all Astaire's originally.”

Fred Astaire

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

“I don't make love by kissing, I make love by dancing.”

Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire to Henry Ephron, screenwriter on Daddy Long Legs, as quoted in Ephron, Henry. We Thought We Could Do Anything: The Life of Screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron, New York: Norton, 1977, p. 131. (M).

“You know, you so-and-so, you've a little of the hoodlum in you.”

Fred Astaire

Jimmy Cagney to Fred Astaire during rehearsals of "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" from Top Hat as quoted in Astaire's autobiography, Steps in Time, p8.

“The girls always think we're going to throw them over a table or toss them in the air. Their muscles tense up right away. So Fred and I go and sit in a corner and pretend we're talking business.”

Fred Astaire

Gene Kelly on the subject of social dancing, in Lawrenson, Helen. "It's Better to Remember Fred." Esquire, August 1976, pp92-96, 106, 109-110. (M).

“But I do nothing that I don't like, such as "inventing" up to the arty or "down" to the corny. I happen to relish a certain type of corn. What I think is the really dangerous approach is the "let's be artistic" attitude. I know that artistry just happens.”

Fred Astaire

op. cit., pp. 6-7.

“A: Nobody really. Well, actually, Fred Astaire.”

Fred Astaire

Stephen Sondheim in an interview with David Patrick Stearns, Classical Music Critic, The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 19, 2009 https://archive.is/20130630031503/www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/20090219_An_upbeat_Sondheim__offering_answers.html?viewAll=y

“Once after a dinner party, Gregory Peck and I drove Fred Astaire home. Fred lived in a colonial house that had a long porch with many pillars. When we dropped him off, he danced along the whole front porch, then opened the door, tipped his hat to us, and disappeared. Wow! Greg and I couldn't speak for a few minutes. It was a beautiful way to say thank you.”

Fred Astaire

Kirk Douglas in Douglas, Kirk. Let's Face It. Wiley, 2007. ISBN 9780470084694, p. 26.

“There is no setup in Hollywood that compares with an Astaire picture.”

Fred Astaire

Irving Berlin to George Gershwin quoted in Jablonski, Edward, and Stewart, Lawrence D. The Gershwin Years. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961, p. 250. (M).

“He is a truly complex fellow, not unlike the Michelangelos and da Vincis of the Renaissance period. He's a supreme artist but he is constantly filled with doubts and self-anger about his work--and that is what makes him so good. He is a perfectionist who is never sure he is attaining perfection.”

Fred Astaire

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

“He's a genius…a classical dancer like I never saw in my life.”

Fred Astaire

Mikhail Baryshnikov in "Interview with Mike Wallace", 60 Minutes, CBS Television. February 18, 1979. (M).

“I don't think that I will plunge the nation into war by stating that Fred Astaire is the greatest tap-dancer in the world.”

Fred Astaire

Robert Benchley in "Hail to the King!!" The New Yorker, November 29, 1930, pp. 33-36. (M).