“The history of dance on film begins with Astaire.”

— Fred Astaire

Gene Kelly in Heeley, David, producer and director. Fred Astaire: Puttin' on his Top Hat and Fred Astaire: Change Partners and Dance (two television programs written by John L. Miller), PBS, March 1980. (M).

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Fred Astaire73

American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and televisio… 1899–1987

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“The major difference between Astaire and Kelly is a difference, not of talent or technique, but of levels of sophistication. On the face of it, Kelly looks the more sophisticated. Where Kelly has ideas, Astaire has dance steps. Where Kelly has smartly tailored, dramatically apt Comden and Green scripts, Astaire in the Thirties made do with formulas derived from nineteenth-century French Farce. But the Kelly film is no longer a dance film. It's a story film with dances, as distinguished from a dance film with a story. When Fred and Ginger go into their dance, you see it as a distinct formal entity, even if it's been elaborately built up to in the script. In a Kelly film, the plot action and the musical set pieces preserve a smooth community of high spirits, so that the pressure in a dance number will often seem too low, the dance itself plebeian or folksy in order to "match up" with the rest of the picture.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Arlene Croce, in Croce, Arlene. The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book, W.H. Allen, London, 1974. p. 7. ISBN 0491001592.

“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 (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

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

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

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

from Lorenz Hart's title number to On Your Toes.

“Our homeward step was just as light/As the tap-dancing feet of Astaire/And, like an echo far away,/A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

from Eric Maschwitz's lyrics to A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square with music by Manning Sherwin

“Dancing in Tijuana when I was 13 — that was my "summer camp." How else do you think I could keep up with Fred Astaire when I was 19?”

Rita Hayworth (1918–1987) American actress, dancer and director

As quoted in New York Times (25 October 1970)

“Mr. Llewellyn paused. Mr. Trout had begun to float about the room like something out of Swan Lake, and Mr. Llewellyn disapproved of this. He was apt to be a martinet in his dealings with his legal advisers, demanding that lawyers should behave like lawyers and leave eccentric dancing to the professionals. A man, he held, is either Fred Astaire or he is not Fred Astaire, and if he is not Fred Astaire he should not carry on like him.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

From P.G. Wodehouse's Bachelors Anonymous (1973).

“I think I can pinpoint the one moment when the American style of dressing first appeared. It was in an appalling 1933 movie called Dancing Lady during an otherwise forgettable dance number. It also just happened to be Fred Astaire's first on-camera dance. But don't look at the steps. Look at the outfit: Astaire is wearing a single-breasted, soft flannel suit with two-tone spectator shoes and a turtleneck. You wish you could look that stylish! Later that year, in Flying Down to Rio, we get the full Astaire impact. The muted plaid suit is not all that striking, but Fred is wearing it with a soft button-down shirt, a pale woven tie, silk pocket square, bright horizontally striped hose and white bucks. Whoa! Now that's different. This melange of the classic and the sporty was an American innovation. As we approach the impeccable Astaire's 100th birthday on May 10, it's worth remembering that he remains the greatest exemplar of that style.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

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

“The main point of Flying Down to Rio is the screen promise of Fred Astaire…. He's assuredly a bet after this one, for he's distinctly likeable on the screen, the mike is kind to his voice and as a dancer he remains in a class by himself. The latter observation will be no news to the professsion, which has long admitted that Astaire starts dancing where the others stop hoofing.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

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

“Film begins with DW Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

Cited in: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/apr/16/art

“There comes a day when people begin to say, 'Why doesn't that old duffer retire?' I want to get out while they're still saying Astaire is a hell of a dancer.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Fred Astaire in Time. "The New Pictures: 'Blue Skies'". October 14, 1946, p. 103. (M).

“The history of dance on film begins with Astaire.”

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