Sunday, September 1, 2013
FRED ASTAIRE (born May 10, 1899 – June 22,
1987) was an American film and Broadway stage dancer,
choreographer, singer, musician and actor. His stage and subsequent film and
television careers spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical
films, several award winning television specials, and issued numerous
recordings. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by
the American Film Institute. He is particularly associated with Ginger
Rogers, with whom he made ten films.
Gene Kelly, another major innovator in filmed dance, said that
"the history of dance on film begins with Astaire". Beyond film and
television, many classical dancers and choreographers, Rudolf Nureyev, Sammy
Davis, Jr., Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines,Mikhail Baryshnikov, George
Balanchine and Jerome Robbins among them, also acknowledged his
importance and influence.
Politically,
Astaire was a conservative and a lifelong Republican Party supporter, though
he never made his political views publicly known. Along with Bing
Crosby,George Murphy, Ginger Rogers, and others, he was a charter
(founding) member of the Hollywood Republican Committee. He was
churchgoing, supportive of American military action, and was dismissive of the
more open sexiness of movies in the 1970s.
Always immaculately turned out, he and Cary Grant were
called "the best-dressed actors in American movies". Astaire remained
a male fashion icon even into his later years, eschewing his trademark top hat,
white tie and tails (for which he never really cared) in favor of a breezy
casual style of tailored sports jackets, colored shirts,cravats and
slacks—the latter usually held up by the idiosyncratic use of an old tie in
place of a belt.
Astaire was married for the first time in 1933, to the 25-year-old
Phyllis Potter (née Phyllis Livingston Baker; born 1908, died September 13,
1954), a Boston-born New York socialite and former wife of Eliphalet Nott
Potter III (1906–1981), after pursuing her ardently for roughly two years, and
despite the objections of his mother and sister.Phyllis's death from lung
cancer, at the age of 46, ended 21-years of a blissful marriage and left
Astaire devastated. Astaire attempted to drop out of the film Daddy
Long Legs (1955), which he was in the process of filming, offering to
pay the production costs to date, but was persuaded to stay.
In addition to Phyllis Potter's son, Eliphalet IV (known as
Peter), the Astaires had two children. Fred, Jr. (born January 21, 1936)
appeared with his father in the movie Midas Run, but became a
charter pilot and rancher instead of an actor. He married Gale (born 1938) in
1956. Ava Astaire McKenzie (born March 19, 1942; married Richard MacKenzie)
remains actively involved in promoting her late father's heritage.
His friend, David Niven, described him as "a
pixie—timid, always warm-hearted, with a penchant for schoolboy jokes."
Astaire was a lifelong golf and Thoroughbred horse racing enthusiast.
In 1946 his horse Triplicate won the prestigious Hollywood Gold
Cup and San Juan Capistrano Handicap. He remained physically active
well into his eighties. At age seventy-eight, he broke his left wrist while
riding his grandson's skateboard.
On June 24, 1980, he was married again, to Robyn Smith (born
August 14, 1944), a jockey 45 years his junior, who rode for Alfred G.
Vanderbilt II and was herself, on the cover of Sports Illustrated on
July 31, 1972.
Astaire died from pneumonia on June 22, 1987. He was 88 years old.
He was interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth,
California. One last request of his was to thank his fans for their years
of support.
Astaire's life has never been portrayed on film. He always
refused permission for such portrayals, saying, "However much they offer
me—and offers come in all the time—I shall not sell." Astaire's will
included a clause requesting that no such portrayal ever take place; he
commented, "It is there because I have no particular desire to have my
life misinterpreted, which it would be."
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