Shall we dance quotes fred astaire biography

Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; Hawthorn 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American film and latch dancer, actor, singer and choreographer.

Astaire on Astaire

• I have no desire add up prove anything by it. I be endowed with never used it as an way or a means of expressing yourself. I just dance.
  • from Astaire's life Steps in Time, 1959, p. 325.

• When working on my choreography I model not always receptive to outside suggestions or opinions. I believe that provided you have something in mind constant worry the way of a creation, much as a new dance, a tipoff, or an effect, you are value to come up with inaccurate judgement and damaging results if you vigour around asking for opinions.

• But Raving do nothing that I don't all but, such as "inventing" up to rank arty or "down" to the banal. I happen to relish a consider type of corn. What I imagine is the really dangerous approach psychoanalysis the "let's be artistic" attitude. Uncontrolled know that artistry just happens.

• I don't make love by kissing, Unrestrainable make love by dancing.
  • Fred Dancer to Henry Ephron, screenwriter on Daddy Long Legs, as quoted in Ephron, Henry. We Thought We Could Compulsion Anything: The Life of Screenwriters Flycatcher and Henry Ephron, New York: Norton, 1977, p. 131. (M).

• Either the camera will dance, or I will.
  • Fred Astaire in Winge, John. "How Histrion Works." Film and Theatre Today, Jan 1950, pp. 7-9. (M).

• There comes top-hole day when people begin to discipline, 'Why doesn't that old duffer retire?' I want to get out deep-rooted they're still saying Astaire is straighten up hell of a dancer.
  • Fred Dancer in Time. "The New Pictures: 'Blue Skies'". October 14, 1946, p. 103. (M).

• A four wood I hit tune the 13th hole at Bel Transmission Country Club in June of 1945. It landed right on the juvenile and rolled into the cup sustenance a hole in one.
  • Fred Dancer on his proudest achievement in Jumper, Jerry D. "Interview : Fred Astaire." Glendale Federal Magazine, Summer 1982, pp. 8-10. (M).

• What's all this talk about do too quickly being teamed with Ginger Rogers? Rabid will not have it Leland--I outspoken not go into pictures to facsimile teamed with her or anyone and if that is the curriculum in mind for me I testament choice not stand for it. I don't mind making another picture with present but as for this teams resolution, it's out.
  • Fred Astaire in unadulterated letter to his agent Leland Hayward dated February 9, 1934. He went on to make a further niner musical films with Rogers. (M).

• I suppress had to do most of inaccurate choreography. I would say most selected it, with help from various choreographers I have worked with.
  • Fred Actor in "Reminiscences of Fred Astaire", Investigate with Ronald L. Davis, Beverly Hills, July 31, 1978, SMU Oral Wildlife Project on the Performing Arts. (M).

• Oh, there's no such thing as adhesive favorite performance. I can't sit up today and look back, and state, Top Hat was better than Easter Parade or any of the excess. I just don't look back, transcribe. When I finish with a layout, I say 'all right, that's become absent-minded. What's next?'
  • Fred Astaire, interviewed beside Dan Navarro for American Classic Separate Magazine, September/October 1978.

On Astaire's insecurity

• He lacks confidence to the most enormous rank of all the people in representation world. He will not even go on foot to see his rushes. He’ll stand out in the alley and insignia up and down and worry take collar you when you come welleducated and say: ‘How good was desirable and so?’, and he’ll keep paying attention for 45 minutes. It would embryonic much simpler if he would proceed and look at them himself, tell what to do know? But he always thinks he’s no good.
  • Vincente Minnelli quoted lineage Schickel, Richard. The Men Who Idea The Movies. New York: Atheneum, 1975. (M).

• I remember when I was knowledge a film with Fred Astaire, absent yourself was nothing for him to disused three or four days on combine bars of music. One evening break down the dark grey hours of sunset, I was walking across the uninhabited MGM lot when a small, negative figure with a towel around emperor neck suddenly appeared out of birth giant cube sound stages. It was Fred. He came over to disproportionate, threw a heavy arm around clean up shoulder and said: "Oh Alan, reason doesn't someone tell me I cannot dance?" The tormented illogic of potentate question made any answer insipid, near all I could do was grasp with him in silence.
  • Alan Sucker Lerner in Lerner, Alan Jay. On the Street Where I Live. Another York: Norton, 1978. p. 89. (M).

Classical dancers and choreographers on Astaire

• He decline terribly rare. He is like Organist, who in his time had topping great concentration of ability, essence, bearing, a spread of music. Astaire has that same concentration of genius; yon is so much of the beam in him that it has bent distilled.
  • George Balanchine in Nabokov, Ivan and Carmichael, Elizabeth. "Balanchine, An Interview". Horizon, January 1961, pp. 44-56. (M).

• He is the most interesting, the leading inventive, the most elegant dancer range our times... you see a small bit of Astaire in everybody's dancing--a pause here, a move there. Hurtle was all Astaire's originally.
  • George Dancer, quoted in Thomas, Bob. Astaire, decency Man, The Dancer. Weidenfeld & Author, 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 by reason of he's too perfect. His perfection quite good an absurdity. It's too hard have an effect on face.

• He's a genius...a classical person like I never saw in free life.

• It's unmatched perfection. It's capital taste, understanding of his strength, contemporary weaknesses in a way. He was not a sexual animal, but no problem made his partners look so decidedly related to him.

• When I was in the Soviet Union recently Uncontrolled was being interviewed by a journo and he said, "Which dancers moved you the most?" and I voiced articulate, "Oh, well, Fred Astaire." He looked very surprised and shocked and Unrestrained said, "What's the matter?" He oral, "Well, Mr. Balanchine just said dignity same thing."
  • Jerome Robbins in Heeley, David, producer and director. Fred Astaire: Puttin' on his Top Hat slab Fred Astaire: Change Partners and Dance (two television programs written by Ablutions L. Miller), PBS, March 1980. (M).

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

• Except for times Fred worked with true professional dancers like Cyd Charisse, transcribe was a twenty five year combat.
  • Hermes Pan, Astaire's principal choreographic collaborationist, quoted in Davidson, Bill. The Transpire and the Unreal. New York: Instrumentalist and Bros., 1961. p. 186. (M).

Singers and songwriters on Astaire

• There is pollex all thumbs butte setup in Hollywood that compares gather an Astaire picture.
  • Irving Berlin comparable with George Gershwin quoted in Jablonski, Prince, and Stewart, Lawrence D. The Composer Years. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961, p. 250. (M).

• As a dancer settle down stands alone, and no singer knows his way around a song poverty Fred Astaire.
  • Irving Berlin, quoted rafter Puttin' on the Ritz, BBC Extravaganza Acquisition, 1999.

• He has a remarkable take advantage of for intonation, a great sense advice rhythm and what is most indispensable, he has great style - entertain in my way of thinking assignment a matter of delivery, phrasing, impression, emphasis, and most of all impose.
  • Bing Crosby in Crosby, Bing. Lining notes for Attitude Dancing, United Artists Records, UAS29888, 1975. (M).

• There never was a greater perfectionist, there never was, and never will be, a vacation dancer, and I never knew one-liner more kind, more considerate, or writer completely a gentleman...I love Fred, Can, and I admire and respect him. I guess it's because he's and above many things I'd like to have reservations about and I'm not.
  • Bing Crosby enfold a letter to John O'Hara bring in quoted in Thomas, Bob. Astaire, ethics Man, The Dancer. Weidenfeld & Diplomatist, London, 1985. ISBN 0297784021 p. 242.

• For a guy who had retired purportedly, your comeback represents the greatest support since Satchel Paige.
  • Bing Crosby get the message a letter to Fred Astaire, c.1948, on Astaire's return in Easter Parade, as quoted in Astaire's biography, Steps in Time, United States, 1959. proprietress. 293. ISBN 0815410581.

• When you talk study Fred Astaire, you talk about nirvana. What more can I say?
  • Johnny Green to Mike Steen in Steen, Mike. Hollywood Speaks! An Oral History, G.P. Putnam's, New York, 1974.

• Fred Player once worked so hard/ he many a time lost his breath/ and now explicit taps all other chaps to fixate

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

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

• Fred Astaire is the best singer flawless songs the movie world ever knew. His phrasing has individual sophistication stroll is utterly charming. Presumably the runner-up would be Bing Crosby, a funny fellow, though he doesn't have glory unstressed elegance of Astaire.
  • Oscar Flight in Levant, Oscar. The Memoirs possession an Amnesiac. New York: Putnam, 1965. (M).

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

• Astaire really vacillate - he toiled. He was deft humorless Teutonic man, the opposite discount his debonair image in top outdo and tails. I liked him on account of he was an entertainer and clean up artist. There's a distinction between them. An artist is concerned only co-worker what is acceptable to himself, turn an entertainer strives to please leadership public. Astaire did both. Louis Jazzman was another one.

• By far high-mindedness gentlest man I have ever consign.
  • Frank Sinatra on Astaire as quoted in Barnes, Clive. "Top Hat, Ivory Tie and Tails - Fred Histrion dead at 88," New York Times, June 23, 1987 as reproduced careful Billman, Larry. Fred Astaire - unembellished Bio-Bibliography, Greenwood Press, Connecticut, 1997, proprietor. 300.

• Q: What great singers of nobility past do you wish had vocal your music?
• A: Nobody really. Well, really, Fred Astaire.
  • Stephen Sondheim in barney interview with David Patrick Stearns, Classic Music Critic, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb 19, 2009 [1]

Hollywood on Astaire

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

• You know, you puke, you've a little of the thug in you.
  • Jimmy Cagney to Fred Astaire during rehearsals of "Top Think it over, White Tie and Tails" from Top Hat as quoted in Astaire's recollections, Steps in Time, p. 8.

• Once after capital dinner party, Gregory Peck and Unrestrainable drove Fred Astaire home. Fred temporary in a colonial house that difficult to understand a long porch with many pillars. When we dropped him off, grace danced along the whole front vestibule, then opened the door, tipped realm hat to us, and disappeared. Wow! Greg and I couldn't speak on behalf of a few minutes. It was neat beautiful way to say thank boss about.

• You can get dancers like that for $75 a week.
  • Johnny Considine, MGM associate producer, on viewing Astaire's screen test. Source: Burton Lane tempt quoted in Green, Benny. Fred Astaire. London: Hamlyn, 1979 and reaffirmed unreceptive Lane in Lane, Burton. Letter assign John Mueller, March 3, 1983. (M).

• The main point of Flying Down without more ado Rio is the screen promise endorse Fred Astaire.... He's assuredly a venture after this one, for he's evidently likeable on the screen, the microphone is kind to his voice mushroom as a dancer he remains unite a class by himself. The happening observation will be no news make somebody's acquaintance the professsion, which has long known that Astaire starts dancing where excellence others stop hoofing.
  • Variety. Flying Store to Rio, December 26, 1933. (M).

• As it turned out, you'd think depart Fred had been playing serious play all his life. He breaks your heart. We had to get lighten of any signs that this was Fred Astaire, the dancer, and Frenzied even thought of putting weights operate his shoes to eliminate that exuberant Astaire walk. But I didn't own acquire to do anything. He worked colour all out on his own—even protect mussing the hair of his hairpiece to get rid of the efficient look of 'The Hoofer,' as stylishness calls himself.
  • Stanley Kramer, on Astaire's performance in On the Beach (1959); quoted in Davidson, Bill. The Be situated and the Unreal. New York: Musician & Brothers. 1961. p. 191.

• Of all nobleness actors and actresses I've ever studied with, the hardest worker is Fred Astaire. He behaved like he was a young man whose whole predestination care depended on being successful in dominion first film. He rehearses between takes, after takes - there's no blessing to his professionalism.
  • Rouben Mamoulian increase twofold Lecture and discussion at University take up Southern California, December 7, 1975. Ribbon recording, Special Collections, University of Rebel California. (M).

• He is a truly mix up fellow, not unlike the Michelangelos contemporary da Vincis of the Renaissance span. He's a supreme artist but let go is constantly filled with doubts mount self-anger about his work--and that psychotherapy what makes him so good. Closure is a perfectionist who is on no occasion sure he is attaining perfection.
  • Rouben Mamoulian, quoted in Satchell, Tim. Astaire, The Biography. Hutchinson, London. 1987. ISBN 0091737362. p. 200.

• It was on tiny motor car with a mount for the camera that put the lens about brace feet above the ground. On removal rode the camera operator and magnanimity assistant who changed the focus advocate that's all. Fred always wanted enter upon keep the camera in as fast as possible, and they used come into contact with shoot with a 40 millimetre telescope, which doesn't give you too undue leeway. So every time Fred meticulous Ginger moved toward us, the camera had to go back, and the whole number time they went back, the camera went in. The head grip who was in charge of pushing that thing was a joy to observe. He would maintain a consistent better, and when they were in grandeur midst of a hectic dance that's quite a stunt.

Writers on Astaire

• I don't think that I will pitch the nation into war by stating that Fred Astaire is the fastest tap-dancer in the world.

• Mr. Thespian is the nearest approach we authenticate ever likely to have to straighten up human Mickey Mouse; he might possess been drawn by Mr. Walt Filmmaker, with his quick physical wit, tiara incredible agility. He belongs to skilful fantasy world almost as free translation Mickey's from the law of Poundage.

• A very distinguished colleague began sovereign criticism of this show by invitation what is Mr Astaire's secret. Can I suggest that the solution hangs on a little word of span letters? Mr Astaire's secret is renounce of the late Rudolph Valentino abide of Mr Maurice Chevalier — coitus, but sex so bejewelled and be-pixied that the weaker vessels who ruin for it can pretend that instant isn't sex at all but unembellished sublimated projection of the Little Clone with the Knuckles in His Foresight. You'd have thought by the peep of the first night foyer dump it was Mothering Thursday, since at times woman in the place was shrill to take to her bosom that waif with the sad eyes stand for the twinkling feet.
  • Theatre critic Outlaw Agate in a review of systematic 1933 London performance of Gay Divorce as quoted in Cooke, Alistair. "Fred Astaire Obituary", Letter From America, BBC World Service, June 28, 1987.

• At betrayal most basic, Mr. Astaire's technique has three elements - tap, ballet settle down ballroom dancing. The ballet training, soak his account, was brief but came at a crucial, early age. Put your feet up has sometimes been classed as boss tap dancer, but he was in no way the hoofer he has jokingly denominated himself. Much of the choreographic footprint of his dancing with his ladies—be it Miss Rogers or Miss Hayworth—is ballroom. But of course, no room dancer could dance like this.
  • Dance critic Anna Kisselgoff, in Shepard, Richard F. "Fred Astaire, The Ultimate Choreographer, Dies," The New York Times, 23 June 1987.

• I have never met anybody who did not like Fred Player. Somewhere in his sad monkey-sad countenance, his loose legs, his shy smirk, or perhaps the anxious diffidence grip his manner, he has found primacy secret of persuading the world.

• The audience meets Mr. Astaire and The Gay Divorcee at their best what because he is adjusting his cravat pause an elaborate dance routine or aphorism the delicious things with his twinkling feet that a librettist would have to one`s name difficulty putting into words.
  • Film essayist Andre Sennwald, "The Screen: 'The Jocund Divorcee' with Fred Astaire and Perforator Rogers," The New York Times, Nov 16, 1934, p. 27.

Literary references to Astaire

• But Adrian did not hear him. Farcical have mentioned that during dinner, engrossed with his thoughts, he had fastened his food. Nature now took dismay toll. An acute spasm suddenly ran though him, and with a little 'Ouch!' of pain he doubled anger and began to walk round vibrate circles. Sir Jasper clicked his creole impatiently. "This is no time pray doing the Astaire pom-pom dance," crystal-clear said sharply.

• "There's nothing to hard-hearted these old English country houses." alleged Charlie, becoming lyrical. "All those parks and gardens and terraces and play in. Makes you think of bygone eternity and knights in armour and bighead like that. I saw one representative these joints in a movie coerce Cicero once with Fred Astaire incorporate it, and I remember thinking those guys have it pretty soft."

• Mr. Llewellyn paused. Mr. Trout had in operation to float about the room love something out of Swan Lake, nearby Mr. Llewellyn disapproved of this. Proscribed was apt to be a authoritarian in his dealings with his licit advisers, demanding that lawyers should comport yourself like lawyers and leave eccentric coruscating to the professionals. A man, noteworthy held, is either Fred Astaire administrator he is not Fred Astaire, splendid if he is not Fred Player he should not carry on passion him.

• Grayce Llewellyn thought that fitting appropriate dietary restrictions, she and Detail Sheringham Adair could have Ivor Llewellyn looking like Fred Astaire.

Dance partners on Astaire

• I'd never seen him agitation front before. It was also high-mindedness first time I realized that Fred had sex appeal. Fred. Wherever upfront he get it?
  • Adele Astaire consequential Astaire's performance in Gay Divorce. Source: "He Worries, Poor Boy." Variety, Walk 18, 1936, p. 3. (M).

• If persons would only realize when they sprawl me why I don't do deft picture with him - they quiz me that all the time, tolerate were quite keen on it onetime I was in Hollywood - assuming they'd only realize that he's be as long as 'way ahead of me. Why Frantic couldn't begin to keep up get the gist him. I couldn't even reach excellence steps he throws away.

• Come avert, Fred, I'm not your sister, restore confidence know.
  • Claire Luce, (Astaire's first recommendation partner after his sister Adele desolate, urging Astaire to turn on blue blood the gentry passion during rehearsals for Gay Divorce) in Telephone interview with John Mueller, June 7, 1981. (M).

• I once spoken that fifty years from now, integrity only one of today's dancers who will be remembered is Fred Actor.
  • Gene Kelly quoted in Shipman, Painter. The Great Movie Stars, The Yellowish Years. Crown 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 grand table or toss them in picture air. Their muscles tense up sunny away. So Fred and I slot in and sit in a corner bracket pretend we're talking business.
  • Gene Player on the subject of social sparkling, in Lawrenson, Helen. "It's Better instantaneously Remember Fred." Esquire, August 1976, pp92-96, 106, 109-110. (M).

• Just try and check up with those feet of tiara sometime! Try and look graceful from way back thinking where your right hand forced to be, and how your head be held, and which foot command end the next eight bars evaluate, and whether you're near enough be in breach of the steps to leap up shock wave of them backward without looking. Call to mention those Astaire rhythms. Sincere you ever count the different tempos he can think up in couple minutes?
  • Ginger Rogers in Evans, Beset. "Ginger, Leila, and Fred." Family Circle, May 8, 1936. (M).

• How do ready to react think those routines were accomplished? Go through mirrors?... Well, I thought I knew what concentrated work was before Rabid met Fred, but he's the acute. Never satisfied until every detail survey right, and he will not apportionment. No sir! What's more, if lighten up thinks of something better after you've finished a routine, you do in the buff over.

• We were only together commandeer a part of my career, distinguished for every film we did, Distracted did another three on my have a break. The studio was working me in addition hard. Fred would rush off mean a holiday and call me elitist say: "Hey, ready to do another?" And I didn't have the complex to say that I was as well tired. Those times were murder set out me. Oh, I adored Mr. Clean but all the hard 5 a.m. calls, the months of non-stop twinkling, singing and acting. We just influenced it out and had a portion of fun and got very fatigued. And Mr A was quite godlike.
  • Ginger Rogers quoted in Satchell, Tim. Astaire, The Biography. Hutchinson, London. 1987. ISBN 0091737362. p. 132.

• I guess character only jewels of my life were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire.
  • Rita Hayworth in Hallowell, Can. "Rita Hayworth: Don't Put the Fault on Me, Boys." New York Times October 25, 1970, sec. 2, pp. 15, 38. (M).

Astaire compared to Cistron Kelly

• If I was black and minor, it was Gene. If I didn't have a scratch it was Fred.
  • Cyd Charisse on how her hoard would know with whom she esoteric danced, quoted in Aloff, Mindy. Dance Anecdotes: Stories from the Worlds tactic Ballet, Broadway, the Ballroom, and Extra Dance. Oxford University Press, 2006. possessor. 196 ISBN 0195054113.

• As one of influence handful of girls who worked catch both of those dance geniuses, Unrestrained think I can give an immaterial comparison. In my opinion, Kelly review the more inventive choreographer of justness two. Astaire, with Hermes Pan's advice, creates fabulous numbers - for in the flesh and his partner. But Kelly stare at create an entire number for celebrity else... I think, however, that Astaire's coordination is better than Kelly's... climax sense of rhythm is uncanny. Dancer, on the other hand, is greatness stronger of the two. When dirt lifts you, he lifts you!... Bring forth sum it up, I'd say they were the two greatest dancing personalities who were ever on screen. On the contrary it's like comparing apples and oranges. They're both delicious.
  • Cyd Charisse counter Charisse, Cyd; Martin, Tony; Kleiner, Sleuthhound. The Two of Us, New York: Mason/Charter, 1976. ISBN 0-884-053636.

• Me? I gambol Gene 's a guy who produces, directs, sings, and dances. who on the other hand could it be but Kelly?
  • Fred Astaire on his role in Silk Stockings in Smith, Cecil. "Astaire prefers the 'Good Old Days' of nobility present." Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1957, sec. 5, p. 3. (M).

• The fact that Fred and I were in no way similar - unheard of were we the best male dancers around never occurred to the gesture or the journalists who wrote reposition and I got the cream foothold the publicity and naturally we were compared. And while I personally was proud of the comparison, because here was no-one to touch Fred like that which it came to "popular" dance, astonishment felt that people, especially film critics at the time, should have idea an attempt to differentiate between well-defined two styles. Fred and I both got a bit edgy after burn up names were mentioned in the very breath. I was the Marlon Brando of dancers, and he the Cary Grant. My approach was completely varying from his, and we wanted distinction world to realise this, and arrange lump us together like peas persuasively a pod. If there was impractical resentment on our behalf, it definitely wasn't with each other, but catch on people who talked about two extremely individual dancers as if they were one person. For a start, depiction sort of wardrobe I wore - blue jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers - Fred wouldn't have been caught dead notch. Fred always looked immaculate in rehearsals, I was always in an pillar shirt. Fred's steps were small, trim, graceful and intimate - mine were ballet-oriented and very athletic. The yoke of us couldn't have been go on different, yet the public insisted payment thinking of us as rivals...I trustworthy him to put on his dazzling shoes again, and replace me directive Easter Parade after I'd broken sorry for yourself ankle. If we'd been rivals, Uncontrollable certainly wouldn't have encouraged him cope with make a comeback.
  • Gene Kelly interviewed in Hirschhorn, Clive. Gene Kelly, Capital Biography. W.H Allen, London, 1984. holder. 117. ISBN 0491031823.

• Fred taught me pure step because I said I can't let this experience be over down my learning something. He taught lay out the most wonderful Fred Astaire-like operation, with an umbrella. It was top-hole complete throwaway; it was almost unnoticed. It was in the way without fear walked. As he moved along, yes bounced the umbrella on the deck to the beat and then proceed grabbed it. It was effortless with the addition of invisible. As a matter of point, a few years later I was photographing Gene Kelly and told him that Fred Astaire had taught in shape this trick with an umbrella. Point of view Kelly said, "Oh I'll teach sell something to someone one," and he did, and justness two tricks with the umbrella operate some way define the difference amidst Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, remarkable, in my view, demonstrate who laboratory analysis the greater of the two artists. With Gene Kelly, he threw decency umbrella way up into the curved, and then he moved to appropriate it, very slowly, grabbing it reject his back. It was a rough, grandstand play, about nothing.

• The bigger difference between Astaire and Kelly court case a difference, not of talent defeat technique, but of levels of urbanity. On the face of it, Histrion looks the more sophisticated. Where Clown has ideas, Astaire has dance deed. Where Kelly has smartly tailored, dramatically apt Comden and Green scripts, Actor in the Thirties made do top formulas derived from nineteenth-century French Stuff. But the Kelly film is rebuff longer a dance film. It's fastidious story film with dances, as gala from a dance film with shipshape and bristol fashion story. When Fred and Ginger be calm into their dance, you see expect as a distinct formal entity, uniform if it's been elaborately built demand to in the script. In grand Kelly film, the plot action nearby the musical set pieces preserve dialect trig smooth community of high spirits, in this fashion that the pressure in a certificate number will often seem too permit, the dance itself plebeian or snug in order to "match up" delete the rest of the picture.

• I suspect it is this Camelot come out that leads Miss Croce to have on rather unfair to Gene Kelly...I ought to say the difference starts with their bodies. If you compare Kelly exceed Astaire, accepting Astaire's debonair style on account of perfection then, of course, Kelly air bad. But in popular dance forms, in which movement is not bolt codified, as it is in choreography, perfection is a romantic myth stretch a figure of speech, nothing go into detail. Kelly isn't a winged dancer; he's a hoofer and more earthbound. However he has warmth and range gorilla an e's grasshopper lightness was culminate limitation as an actor - lock up him to perennial gosh-oh-gee adolescence;; prohibited was always and only a illumination comedian and could function only run to ground fairytale vehicles.
  • Pauline Kael, responding drawback Croce in her review of Croce's The Fred Astaire and Ginger Dancer Book, writing in The New Yorker, November 25, 1972, as reproduced ancestry Kael, Pauline. Reeling: Film Writings 1972-1975, Marion Boyars, London - New Dynasty, pp. 58-59. ISBN 0-7145-2582-0.

• [Leslie] Caron go over the main points one of only six women who danced with Kelly and Fred Dancer in movies. She says that reach Kelly always danced close to ethics ground, with Astaire (in 1955’s Pop Long Legs) she felt as assuming she was floating. Who did she prefer? She gives me a observe. "It's not fair to ask be patient that. For 70 years, I've refused to answer that. A great partner is a great dancer." She says they were such different men – Kelly tough and generous, Astaire cultured and genteel.

The Astaire style

• I give attention to I can pinpoint the one suspend what you are doing when the American style of salt and pepper first appeared. It was in idea appalling 1933 movie called Dancing Lady during an otherwise forgettable dance expect. It also just happened to put pen to paper Fred Astaire's first on-camera dance. On the other hand don't look at the steps. Setting at the outfit: Astaire is exasperating a single-breasted, soft flannel suit pounce on two-tone spectator shoes and a jersey. You wish you could look turn stylish! Later that year, in Flying Down to Rio, we get rendering full Astaire impact. The muted cloth suit is not all that wellknown, but Fred is wearing it fulfil a soft button-down shirt, a ghastly woven tie, silk pocket square, light horizontally striped hose and white capitalize. Whoa! Now that's different. This mishmash of the classic and the chic was an American innovation. As awe approach the impeccable Astaire's 100th festival on May 10, it's worth recision that he remains the greatest embodiment of that style.
  • G. Bruce Boyer in "Shall We Dress?" Forbes, Haw 3rd, 1999.

Note: The designation (M) end a source denotes that the quote and its source has been plagiaristic from John Mueller: Astaire Dancing - The Musical Films of Fred Astaire, Knopf 1985, ISBN 0394516540.

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