Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire (1899-1987) was born Frederick Austerlitz to German and Austrian immigrants in Nebraska. He started entertaining in vaudeville with a song-and-dance act with his older sister, Adele Astaire. His meeting with future composer George Gershwin in 1916 set the tone for a great collaboration, as he and Adele starred in several of Gershwin’s Broadway musicals. After Adele retired in 1932, Fred went to Hollywood to make musical films at RKO Studios, where he established a highly successful partnership with Ginger Rogers. He left the studio in 1939 and had a peripatetic career that culminated in retirement in 1946. However, MGM brought him out of retirement to replace an injured Gene Kelly in the 1948 film Easter Parade, which led to a fruitful second career making more musicals. His perfectionism, musicianship, and insistence of being filmed in long takes and full figure (to prove that he didn’t need editing tricks to look good dancing) greatly influenced the worlds of dance and film.