Fred Astaire Part Two
(Continued from last post)
By the 1920’s, George and Ira Gershwin, along with Fred and Adele Astaire, had won the hearts of the public with shows like “Lady Be Good” (1924) and “Funny Face” (1927) in Broadway and London. This rise in popularity gave not only the Gershwins, but the Astaires as well, the kind interest that their talents very much deserved.
In 1932, Fred and Adele had to part ways as an act; Adele had chosen to get married, and she married well (she married Lord Charles Cavendish). Now a solo act, Fred nevertheless continued to be successful; in fact, without a partner to incorporate into performances, the younger Astaire soon imbued his dancing with his own sense of energy and style, which many found appealing. It wasn’t long before Astaire was signed by RKO Pictures, despite the almost legendary “bad screen test” that he had (this being the origin of the popular – albeit inaccurate – quote “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Balding. Can dance a little.”).
By 1933, Astaire had made his Hollywood debut, making an appearance as himself in “Dancing Lady”. Later that same year, Astaire was featured in a film that would take him to superstardom. On the twenty-ninth of December 1933, “Flying Down Rio” introduced to the world to the new darlings of dancing duets – Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. While initially reluctant to be paired off in his performances, Astaire didn’t deny that he and the girl had a chemistry that appealed to the general audience. Together, the Astaire and Rogers pair made dancing an essential ingredient to a successful Hollywood film musical, with six of their movies becoming the biggest RKO moneymakers at the time. This kind of success also made Astaire one of the very few actors at the time who received percentages of his films’ profits; he did, after all, craft much of the choreography in these movies.
Astaire had practically reinvented dancing on film; he insisted on having the camera record a dance routine in a single shot, making sure that the dancers are fully in view the whole time. He also stressed that the singing and dancing should not be pointless – they should be INTEGRAL to the plot’s progression, and not come out of the blue. With the popularity of his films, his style of presenting dance in movies was quickly adopted by the mainstream, cementing Astaire’s status as a major contributor of influence in Hollywood musical films.
(To be continued in next post)
