Fred Astaire
The golden age of Hollywood musical filmmaking, roughly stretching from the early sound era through the mid-twentieth century, produced a remarkable concentration of talent in dance, song, and screen performance. Fred Astaire was among the figures who emerged from that period to work across multiple entertainment forms, carrying his craft from the stage to the cinema and eventually to television.
Born on May 10, 1899, in Omaha, Nebraska, Astaire worked throughout his career as a dancer, singer, musician, choreographer, stage actor, film actor, and television actor, presenter, and producer. The breadth of those roles was unusual even in an era when entertainers were expected to move between mediums, and Astaire's work as a choreographer meant he wasn't simply performing material created by others — he had a hand in shaping what appeared on screen and stage. He died on June 22, 1987, in Los Angeles, having spent the better part of nine decades as a working American entertainer.
The honors Astaire received over the course of his career reflect how broadly his contributions were recognized. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an Honorary Award, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded him its prize for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The Grammy organization recognized him twice — once with a Lifetime Achievement Award and once with a Grammy Hall of Fame award. The American Film Institute presented him with its Life Achievement Award, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association gave him the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award. He also received the Kennedy Center Honors, which acknowledged his contributions to American culture through the performing arts.
Taken together, those awards span film, music, and the broader performing arts — a range that mirrors the variety of roles Astaire held across his career. The Kennedy Center Honors, in particular, placed him among a select group of American performers recognized for lifetime contributions to the cultural life of the country, and it stands as a fitting marker of where his career ended up.
Quotes by Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire's insights on:
What counts more than luck is determination and perseverance. If the talent is there, it will come through. Don’t be too impatient. Stick at it. That’s my advice. You have to plug away, keep thinking up new ideas. If one doesn’t work, try another.
The unpadded shoulders, the three-buttoned long and boxy coat, the too-short, thin pants, and the thin ties with striped buttoned shirts in dark colors-well, I suppose this may go very well with some personalities but it’s not for me. To me, all such look like TV producers. Maybe they want to.
I have never had anything that I can remember in the business – and that includes all the movies and the stage shows and everything – that I didn’t enjoy. I didn’t like some of the small-time vaudeville, because we weren’t going on and getting better. Aside from that, I didn’t dislike anything.
I don’t remember anybody ever pointing me out as a dancing prodigy, but I played a not bad second base.
It’s nice that all the composers have said that nobody interprets a lyric like Fred Astaire. But when it comes to selling records I was never worth anything particularly except as a collector’s item.
Oh, there’s no such thing as my favorite performance. I can’t sit here today and look back, and say: “Top Hat was better than Easter Parade or any of the others”. I just don’t look back, period. When I finish with a project, I say: “All right, that’s that. What’s next?”
This search for what you want is like tracking something that doesn’t want to be tracked. It takes time to get a dance right, to create something memorable.
