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PEOPLE IN AMERICA -May 5, 2002: Fred Astaire
By Nancy Steinbach
ANNCR:
PEOPLE IN AMERICA -- a VOA Special English program about famous Americans of the past. Today, Harry
Monroe and Kay Gallant tell the story of dancer and movie star, Fred Astaire.
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
The year is Nineteen Thirty-Two. The United States is suffering the greatest economic
depression in its history. Jobs are hard to find.
One young man is attempting to get a job dancing in the movies. Earlier, he and his sister
had made a short film showing how they danced and sang. A motion picture company
official watches the film. He writes this about the young man: "Can't act. Can't sing.
Slightly bald. Can dance a little."
Even with this poor report, the young man still gets a job in the movies. And -- in time -- his acting, singing and
dancing changed the American motion picture musical. His name was Fred Astaire.
((TAPE CUT One: "I Want to Be a Dancing Man"))
VOICE TWO:
Fred Astaire was born in the middle western city of Omaha, Nebraska, in Eighteen Ninety-Nine. He was the
second child of an Austrian beer maker, Frederick Austerlitz, and his wife, Ann Gelius Austerlitz. Fred and his
sister, Adele, learned to dance when they were very young. Their mother took them to New York to study dance.
They performed in their first professional show when Fred was ten years old and Adele was twelve. Later, as
teen-agers, the two danced in many shows throughout the United States.
Their first big success was on Broadway in Nineteen-Seventeen. One critic wrote that Fred danced as if he had no
bones.
VOICE ONE:
The Astaires -- as they were known -- quickly became Broadway stars. During the
Nineteen-Twenties, they sang and danced in eleven different shows. They also performed
in England.
In Nineteen Thirty-Two, Adele Astaire married a British man, and stopped performing.
Critics had always considered her a better dancer than her brother. But Fred did not give
up. He would go on alone ... in the movies. Many years later in the film, "The
Bandwagon," he played a man in a similar situation.
((TAPE CUT Two: "By Myself, Alone"))
VOICE TWO:
One of Fred's first films was called, "Flying Down To Rio." It was in this movie that he first danced with a young
woman named Ginger Rogers.
Fred and Ginger were not the stars of the picture. But when they danced this dance, The
Carioca, everyone knew that something important was happening in the world of movie
dancing.
((TAPE CUT Three: "The Carioca")
)
VOICE ONE:
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made nine movies together. Their dancing was
considered -- and still is considered -- the best ballroom dancing in the world.
Dance critic Arlene Croce wrote: "Astaire and Rogers became the most popular team the
movies have ever known. Their dancing was a vehicle of serious emotion between a man and a woman. It never
happened in the movies again."
Many great American song writers wanted to write songs for Fred and Ginger. Among them were Jerome Kern,
Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George and Ira Gershwin. They liked the way Fred sang a song. He did it simply,
with respect for the words. One of these songs was Cole Porter's "Night and Day." Fred sang it to Ginger in the
movie, "The Gay Divorcee."
((TAPE CUT Four: "Night and Day"))
VOICE TWO:
Fred Astaire made forty other films. In addition to Ginger Rogers, he danced with many
other talented women. Rita Hayworth. Eleanor Powell. Judy Garland. Cyd Charisse.
Leslie Caron.
Fred also danced alone in some very unusual places. He danced up walls and on the
ceiling in the film, "Royal Wedding". He danced on rooftops in "The Belle of New
York". He danced on roller skates in "Shall We Dance?". And he danced with
firecrackers exploding at his feet in "Holiday Inn".
VOICE ONE:
Fred Astaire made all this look easy. But it was not.
Critics have said his technical skill was the greatest in the history of the movie
musical. He said: "Dancing is a sweat job. You cannot just sit down and do it. You
have to get up on your feet. It takes time to get a dance right, to create something
memorable. I always try to get to know my dance so well that I do not have to think,
'what comes next?'. Everything should fall into line. And then I know I have got
control of the floor."
VOICE TWO:
Before each movie was filmed, Fred Astaire and his partner worked for as many as six weeks to plan each step
and movement. He also planned how the cameras would photograph them, so that as much dancing as possible
could be filmed at one time.
Earlier, movie directors had photographed dancers showing one part of their body at a time as they danced. Fred
would not permit this. He wanted movie-goers to see his whole body at all times. And he would not permit any
camera tricks to make his dancing appear smoother or faster than it was.
In Nineteen Forty-Nine, Fred Astaire won a special award for his film work from America's Motion Picture
Academy. He also won awards from the television industry for a number of his television programs.
VOICE ONE:
Fred stopped dancing in Nineteen-Seventy. He was more than seventy years old at the time. He said a dancer
could not continue dancing forever. He said he did not want to disappoint anyone, even himself. He danced again
in public only once after that. It was with another great male dancer, Gene Kelly, in the movie, "That's
Entertainment, Part Two"
.
Fred did not always appear as a dancing man. He had a dramatic part in the movie, "On The Beach", in Nineteen
Fifty-Nine. And he starred in a non -dancing television series called, "It Takes a Thief"
.
VOICE TWO:
Fred Astaire and his first wife, Phyllis, raised three children. Phyllis died in Nineteen Fifty-Four. Twenty-five
years later, Fred married race horse rider Robyn Smith.
Fred Astaire died on June Twenty-Second, Nineteen Eighty-Seven. He was eighty-eight years old. He was called
the greatest dancer in the world. His dancing was called perfect. And movie-goers everywhere will remember
him as a great performer whose work will live forever in his films.
((TAPE CUT Five: "I Want to Be a Dancing Man")
)
ANNCR:
You have been listening to People In America -- a program in Special English on the Voice of America. This
program was written by Nancy Steinbach. Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe were the narrators. I'm Shirley Griffith.
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