Biography of Fred Astaire

Dancing on the world

10 may 1899 22 June 1987 Frederick Austerlitz, aka Fred Astaire was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on 10 may 1899. Son of a wealthy Austrian emigrated to America, he studied at the Alvienne School of Dance and the Ned Wayburn School of Dancing. From an early age is very attached to the older sister Adele, who will be her professional partner for more than twenty-five years. Since Fred Astaire, impelled by an irresistible attraction towards the dancing, take lessons and learn the essential steps. As soon as you feel ready dance in cabaret and vaudeville theaters along with the inseparable sister. Their skill and talent did not go unnoticed. Skipping the usual, unnerving, ranks, the two brothers see themselves offer participation in a feature film when they are only little more than 15-year-olds. An opportunity presents itself with "Fanchon the Cricket", a movie starring the then-famous Mary Pickford. Synonymous with ballet and Broadway musicals, but then was true goal and inspiration of both (in those days the cinema wasn't widespread it has today, nor had the same prestige). The couple prepares a show where we can bring to light all their abilities, made of numbers funambolicis and virtuosic passages. The debut in the prestigious Theatre is marked by "Over the top": thanks to this musical the couple explodes. Audiences and critics compete to find the adjectives most egregious and the show's sold-out evenings continuously collects. It's just the beginning of a series of big hits that will last for a period of 20 years. In these extraordinary fourteen years the Astaire will contribute to the success of the most beautiful musical by Ira and George Gershwin, among which "Lady be good" and "Funny face." After Broadway many shows, docking in London, where Astaire have the opportunity to register the most popular songs. In fact, it is worth remembering that Fred Astaire not only renewed the musical, flagship of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, with the figure of the actor singer and dancer, but it was more than that an actor also prepared a personal interpreter of the songs of Porter and Gershwin. In 1931 Adele marries lord Charles Cavendish and retired from show business. Like many Broadway star Fred Astaire is summoned to Hollywood, where he plays himself in Robert z. Leonard's "Dancing Lady" (1933), with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. The same year the great dancer is with Dolores Del Rio, and Ginger Rogers in the film by Thornton Freeland "Carioca". They are all very successful titles and confirming the tremendous grip that the dancer is able to exert on the public. The 1934 was the year that formalizes a big sodality became proverbial (Fellini will draw inspiration for one of his last film), the one with Ginger Rogers. Protagonists together of some titles, achieved a resounding success with "top hat", a success so wide that can be considered the peak of their careers. It is a sentimental story in which the two, between a dialogue and others, are unleashed in a series of choreographed pyrotechnic and exciting really, such that it is impossible not to be astounded and involved. Along with the amazing Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire will turn many of his most famous films of the years ' 30: from "winter Follies" to "follow the fleet", from "I want to dance with you" a "Pinwheel". The couple is still considered a movie icon, so much so that it is no longer even necessary to mention them by name and surname: just say "Ginger and Fred". Another of the best films starring Fred Astaire is certainly "variety show", shot in 1953 by an inspired Vincente Minnelli, famous also because it contains within it a stunning number interpreted with Cyd Charisse. But the activity of the dancer was more versatile than it may seem. In addition to dancing Fred Astaire was also dedicated to the choreography, as can be seen in the achievements of "Daddy long-legs" and "Cinderella". It should be noted that Fred Astaire has never won an Academy Award with one of his great musical, but only one Academy Award special prize in 1949 and, now elderly, a strange nomination for best supporting actor for the film by John Guillermin "the towering inferno" (1974). Very few awards when you consider that, according to critics, Fred Astaire played a role in modern dance parallel to the great Russian Dancer Vaslav Nijinsky in the field of classical music. It's hard to imagine dancing in the twentieth century without Fred Astaire. As the Russian Dancer (protagonist of the Ballets produced by Diaghilev and set to music by Igor Stravinsky) revolutionized classical ballet with a physicality than ever before, so the American stilizzava the dances of African American origin due to its magical lightness. In 1980, the elder actor has married for the third time, with Robyn Smith, but it was off to Los Angeles a few years later, on June 22, 1987.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.