Fred Astaire
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Fred Astaire was not only a great dancer; changing the face of the American movie musical with his style and grace but was also an actor in many different dramatic and comedic roles in both movies and TV specials. He won multiple Emmys for his work in television. He was also a singer and one of his single is "Cheek To Cheek".
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About
Fred Astaire or "Frederick Austerlitz" in real life was born on May 10, 1899 at Omaha, Nebraska to "Frederic E. Austerlitz", An Australian immigrant and traveling salesman and "Ann Geilus". His sister Adele, older by eighteen months, showed a talent for dancing at an early age, and although only four years old, young Fred accompanied his sister to ballet school.
When their father became suddenly unemployed, the family moved to New York City to launch the show business career of the children. In 1905, Fred and Adele made their vaudeville debut on a stage in New Jersey as a miniature bride and groom, and began touring on the Orpheum circuit in an act called "Juvenile Artists Presenting an Electric Musical Toe-Dancing Novelty."
The local paper praised the duo as "The greatest child act in vaudeville." Fred and Adele grew up dancing together in vaudeville, and were bonafide stars while still in their teens and twenties, with smash hits on the New York and London stages.
The siblings enjoyed five years of success, but Adele soon grew and blossomed while Fred remained a skinny kid, making it difficult for the two to dance together. As they grew older, Fred caught up with Adele, and they began performing together again, this time in a string of stage hits on Broadway and in London.
However in 1932, Adele retired from show business to marry Lord Charles Cavendish, and Fred was left to fend for him. In that year, he struck out on his own with a new partner, Claire Luce, starring in Cole Porter's comedy musical "The Gay Divorce" in which he introduced the song "Night and Day."
Soon, however, Fred agreed to test for films. He made his film debut under MGM in Dancing Lady in 1933 with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. His second film, Flying Down to Rio, paired him with "Ginger Rogers". Their performance dazzled audiences across the nation. Dancing Partners made nine musicals together at RKO between 1933 and 1939.
Fred was voted Money-Making Star in the Motion Picture Herald Fame Polls for three years in a row from 1935 to 1937, and in 1949, he won an honorary Oscar for "raising the standards of all musicals. Aside from being a choreographer, a dancer, broadways stage dancer. He also released several singles like, "Isn't This a Lovely Day?", "Cheek to Cheek" and "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" in 1935, "Let's Face the Music and Dance" in Follow the Fleet in 1936 among others. Fred died of pneumonia in Los Angeles, California on June 22, 1987 at the age of 88.
Awards & Certifications
Chart Toppers
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Tours & Concerts
There are no current tour and concert schedules for Fred Astaire.
Announcements
There are no announcements as of this time
Discography
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Singles
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Other artists
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Contemporaries
Trivia
- Ranked #73 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
- One of the first Kennedy Center Honorees in 1978.
- He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- He was voted the 19th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
- His legs were insured for one million dollars.
- He was voted the 23rd Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere Magazine.
- Named the #5 greatest actor on The 50 Greatest Screen Legends by the American Film Institute.
