The Full Biography
Fred Astaire. Dancer. Actor. The Omaha kid who made a full body, filmed in one take, look like a casual decision, then spent the later years proving the feet were not the only instrument.
This is his story.
The image most people still carry is a man in tails, Ginger Rogers in his arms, a floor that seems larger because he refuses to waste a corner of it. The RKO years. What the still cannot show is Frederick Austerlitz of Omaha, a child act with his sister Adele that was the first career, a man who almost quit when she married, and a later life of Barrie Chase television, a second marriage, and a death in 1987 that the clips have never accepted.
He was born on May 10, 1899, in Omaha, to Frederic Austerlitz and Johanna Geilus. The family went east in 1905. Adele, three years older, was the brighter light at first; Fred was the one who stayed after she left the act for Lord Charles Cavendish in 1932. Vaudeville had already made them. Broadway made them a grammar: Lady, Be Good!, Funny Face, the stage The Band Wagon in 1931, The Gay Divorce. Hollywood was not sure. David O. Selznick’s memo about the screen test — the one that undervalued the face and could not deny the feet — is the industry joke. The joke is incomplete. RKO signed him anyway.
RKO paired him with Ginger Rogers. Flying Down to Rio (1933) was a supporting slot; “The Carioca” is the number the stills stole. The Gay Divorcee (1934) made them the leads. Roberta (1935). Top Hat (1935), Irving Berlin, “Cheek to Cheek,” a white set that still teaches elegance as a job. Follow the Fleet (1936). Swing Time (1936), Jerome Kern, “The Way You Look Tonight,” a Bojangles tribute that is also an argument about how to film a tap. Shall We Dance (1937), the Gershwins, “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” Carefree (1938). The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) closed the first run of the partnership. Hermes Pan is the collaborator the public under-credits. Astaire insisted on the wide shot. No cutting away from a turn the feet had already earned. That insistence is why the pictures still teach.
He left Rogers and did not collapse. Broadway Melody of 1940 put him with Eleanor Powell, a tap conversation between equals. Rita Hayworth in You’ll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942). Bing Crosby in Holiday Inn (1942) and Blue Skies (1946). Judy Garland in Easter Parade (1948). Rogers one last time in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949). Royal Wedding (1951) is the ceiling dance, a man who treated a room as a partner. Vincente Minnelli’s The Band Wagon (1953), with Cyd Charisse, is the backstage picture that knows what a late style is. Daddy Long Legs (1955). Funny Face (1957), with Audrey Hepburn, Paris as a fashion plot. Silk Stockings (1957). The dramatic work — Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach (1959), then The Towering Inferno (1974), an Oscar nomination for supporting actor — is a man who had always been an actor who happened to be the best dancer in the building. He married Phyllis Potter in 1933; she died of cancer in 1954, a hole the columns underfiled. He married Robyn Smith, a jockey, in 1980, a surprise the columns treated as a stunt and that lasted until his death.
The RKO numbers still teach because he treated rehearsal as the picture. “Night and Day” in The Gay Divorcee. “Cheek to Cheek” in Top Hat, feathers in Rogers’s dress that shed onto his tuxedo and became a fight and then a legend. “Never Gonna Dance” in Swing Time, a last number that is also a breakup. “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” in Follow the Fleet. Hermes Pan in the room, counting, arguing, protecting the wide shot with him. Astaire’s singing is a rhythm instrument: thin, exact, good enough that Berlin and Kern and the Gershwins trusted it. He was not a voice. He was a phrase. The camera, held back, is the collaborator the stills forget. Cut to a smile and the turn dies. He would not let the turn die.
After Rogers, the partners are a second education. Hayworth is fire. Powell is a tap equal. Garland in Easter Parade is a wounded instrument he handled with care; she was not the first choice — Gene Kelly broke an ankle — and the picture became a hit anyway. Charisse in “Dancing in the Dark” is a walk through Central Park that is also a thesis. Hepburn in Funny Face is a model who can actually move; he treated her as a partner, not a prop. The ceiling dance in Royal Wedding is a trick that still looks like thought. He designed it with the same patience he used on a ballroom. The trick is the patience.
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I have no desire to prove anything by dancing. I just want to get it as near right as I can.Fred Astaire
The turn is the television specials with Barrie Chase in the 1960s: a man who could have become a wax museum instead inventing a late style that was sharper, stranger, still exact. He did not become a nightclub nostalgia act. He became, instead, the standard every choreographer still fails in private.
Six things most people never knew
- Adele was the first star of the act. He became Fred Astaire after she left. The grace sits on a second career.
- The Selznick memo is real and incomplete. The face failed a test. The feet did not. RKO bet on the feet.
- He fought for the full-body shot. No editor’s rescue. If the turn was wrong, they did it again.
- Hermes Pan is inside the RKO canon people call Astaire. A partner in the room. The credits still undersell him.
- The Barrie Chase specials are the second masterpiece of the feet. 1960s television, not a ballroom waxwork.
- Robyn Smith, the jockey, was the last marriage, not a stunt. 1980 until 1987. The columns were wrong about the duration.
His children from Phyllis — Fred Jr. and Ava Astaire — have had to share a myth that looks effortless and was labor. A stepson, Peter, was already in the house. Friends from the last decades describe a man who golfed, watched his weight of reputation, and could still be sharp about a bad cut. He died on June 22, 1987, in Los Angeles, of pneumonia. He was eighty-eight. The wide shot outlived him.
The later years
After the MGM musicals, the life was long: television, a few pictures, honorary statues, a house that was not a museum until it had to be. In 1958 An Evening with Fred Astaire won multiple Emmy Awards and proved a dancer could invent a style for a small screen without cutting the body out of the frame. Another Evening with Fred Astaire (1959) and Astaire Time (1960) kept the experiment. Barrie Chase was the partner those specials required: younger, sharp, not a replacement Rogers. The numbers are angular and modern. He had already, in The Band Wagon, written a late style for film. The specials wrote one for living rooms.
He took parts that did not ask him to tap. On the Beach is a last-days drama in which he is a scientist, not a top hat. The Pleasure of His Company (1961) and The Notorious Landlady (1962) used the speaking voice. Finian’s rainbow, on film in 1968, is a musical he almost did not survive as a production. The Towering Inferno (1974) put him in a burning building as a con man with manners; the Academy nominated the supporting performance. Ghost Story (1981) is an old man in a horror plot. He accepted an honorary Oscar in 1950, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1978, and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1981. He treated the statues as receipts, not as a second career.
Phyllis’s death in 1954 had already been the private hole. He raised the children and kept the work. In 1980 he married Robyn Smith, who had ridden Thoroughbreds for a living. He was eighty-one. She was in her thirties. The columns wanted a stunt. The marriage lasted until June 22, 1987, when he died of pneumonia in Los Angeles. He was eighty-eight. She was there. The house in Beverly Hills had been a working address, not a shrine. The tails are the folk memory. The late style is the file. The last chapter was not a death date. It was thirty years of proving the feet were not the only instrument, and of refusing to become a wax museum that replayed “Cheek to Cheek” on command.
The Emmy specials with Chase are the file the tails do not own. He was nearly sixty when An Evening with Fred Astaire aired. He could have walked through the RKO hits and sat down. He did not. He built new numbers, angular, sometimes strange, still exact, and he kept the whole body in the frame on a television that preferred close-ups. Chase was not Ginger. That was the point. The specials won statues and then became, for dancers, a private textbook. He golfed between them. He watched his weight. He could still tell an editor, decades on, when a cut had stolen a landing.
Robyn Smith is the last household, not a stunt. She had ridden winners. He liked horses and competence. The marriage lasted seven years, until pneumonia on June 22, 1987. Ava and Fred Jr. had already grown up inside the myth of effortlessness and the fact of labor. Friends from the last decade describe a man who was courtly, sharp, and finished with being asked to put the tails on for a party. He had already written the late style. He had already been nominated for The Towering Inferno as an actor. He had already outlived Adele. The clips have never accepted the death. The wide shot is why. A full body, one take, a turn that does not need a rescue — that is the remainder, and it is a chapter, not a date.
He had already, in the 1960s and 1970s, taken Christmas specials and guest spots that could have been nostalgia traps. He treated them as jobs with a mark. Finian’s Rainbow on film is a production he survived more than a triumph he claimed. Ghost Story is an old man in a horror plot who still knows how to enter a room. The AFI night in 1981 is a civic object; the speech is short. He preferred a fairway and a living room that did not ask him to put the tails on. Robyn kept that room. Ava has had to speak for the labor inside the myth. Choreographers still fail in private against the wide shot. That failure is the honor. The tails are the folk memory. The late style — Chase, The Band Wagon, the actor in a burning tower — is the file. He died at eighty-eight with the turns still true. The clips have never accepted the date. They should not. The chapter is the insistence that the whole body stay in the frame.
Adele’s death in 1981 had already closed the first career inside the second. He had been her second for a childhood and then, after 1932, a man who had to invent Fred Astaire without the brighter light. He did. Rogers was the partner the stills sold. Chase was the partner the late style required. Robyn was the household. The honorary Oscar, the Kennedy Center, the AFI night — receipts. The fairway was the life. Pneumonia on June 22, 1987, is a date the clips have never accepted. They should keep not accepting it. The wide shot is still the will. The feet were never the only instrument.
He golfed. He watched his weight. He could still tell you when an editor had cut a turn in half. Friends say the sharpness never left the living room. Adele had died in 1981; the first star of the act did not outlive the second. He had already, in the Chase specials and The Band Wagon, written the ending he wanted. The clips have never accepted 1987. That is the remainder the wide shot earned.
After he was gone
Every musical that cuts away from the feet owes him an apology. Every dancer who makes difficulty look like speech is in his house. Rogers still arrives in the same sentence. The sentence is fair and incomplete. He danced with the century. She was the partner the stills sold. The wide shot is the will.
He came out of Omaha, played Adele’s second, almost quit, took Rogers, demanded the whole body in the frame, outlived the partnership, invented a late television style, and died at eighty-eight with the turns still true. If you only remember the tails, you have the still. If you remember Adele, the wide shot, and Barrie Chase, you have him.
Portrait: Columbia Pictures (studio publicity still) · Public domain (studio publicity still) · via Wikimedia Commons