Fred Astaire Part Three
(Continued from last post)
While it was the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers pair that shot both performers up to the upper echelons of fame, their partnership was fairly brief; they made only ten films together, nine of which within a span of a little more than half a decade. This was, of course, because Astaire was unwilling to be tied down to a single partner for too long a period of time – not that he disliked dancing with his sister or Ginger, it was simply because he had enough of dancing with an exclusive partner as a young performer and felt he could be more free and creative without one. And seeing that two of their last movies in the late 1930’s failed to make it big, Astaire finally left RKO; Ginger stayed to become one of RKO’s biggest stars.
After leaving RKO, Astaire opted to work outside any exclusive contracts from studios or talent group – freelancing may have been appealing to the performer at the time as there would be no risk of being held back creatively. Exploring the extents of his talent, he went to work with various stars of that time and generation, such as Eleanor Powell, Paulette Goddard and Rita Hayworth. The most notable musical team-ups that Astaire became a part of post-Ginger, however, wasn’t with the fairer sex, but with men – Bing Crosby (1942’s “Holiday Inn” and 1946’s “Blue Skies”) and Gene Kelly (1946’s “Ziegfeld Follies”).
In 1946, after “Blue Skies”, Astaire announced that he was retiring from show business. But the limelight still had plans for him – by 1949, he had starred with Judy Garland and Anne Miller for “Easter Parade” and had a brief reunion with his ex-partner Ginger Rogers for “The Barkleys of Broadway”. These refreshers prompted another slew of musical films from Astaire throughout the fifties, bringing up the number of his movie musicals to thirty within a span of twenty-five years. In the late 1950’s however, Astaire chose to concentrate on dramatic acting, for which he was critically praised.
Throughout the late fifties into the sixties, Astaire mostly limited his dancing to television, working with American dancer and actress Barrie Chase and releasing his last musical film, “Finian’s Rainbow” in 1968. He kept acting and performing well into the seventies, with his last film role being released in 1981.
Six years later, at the age of eighty-eight, Fred Astaire passed away from pneumonia and was buried in California. He is nevertheless one of the products of Nebraska that would not likely be forgotten so soon, for his contribution to the more modern American arts.
