Fred Astaire - biography

“Dancing is a sweat job.”

“Disco is just jitterbug.”

“I don’t want to be the oldest performer in captivity...  I don’t want to look like a little old man dancing out there.”

“I had some ballet training but I didn’t like it.  It was like a game to me.”

“I have no desire to prove anything by dancing.  I have never used it as an outlet or a means of expressing myself.  I just dance.  I just put my feet in the air and move them around.”

“I just put my feet in the air and move them around.”

“Of course Ginger was able to accomplish sex through dance.  We told more through our movements instead of the big clinch.  We did it all in the dance.”

“The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.”

“The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed.  Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it’s considered to be your style.”

“They tend to overdo the vulgarity.  I’m not embarrassed by the language itself.  But it’s embarrassing to be listening to it, sitting next to perfect strangers.”

“People think I was born in top hat and tails.”

“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.”

Fred Astaire has appeared in the following films:
Flying Down to Rio (1933)
Dancing Lady (1933)
The Gay Divorcee (1934)
Roberta (1935)
Top Hat (1935)
Follow the Fleet (1936)
Swing Time (1936)
Shall We Dance (1937)
A Damsel in Distress (1937)
Carefree (1938)
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)
Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
Second Chorus (1940)
You’ll Never Get Rich (1941)
Holiday Inn (1942)
You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
The Sky’s the Limit (1943)
Yolanda and the Thief (1945)
Blue Skies (1946)
Ziegfeld Follies (1946)
Easter Parade (1948)
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Three Little Words (1950)
Let’s Dance (1950)
Royal Wedding (1951)
The Belle of New York (1952)
The Band Wagon (1953)
Daddy Long Legs (1955)
Funny Face (1957)
Silk Stockings (1957)
On the Beach (1959)
The Pleasure of His Company (1961)
The Notorious Landlady (1962)
Finian’s Rainbow (1968)
Midas Run (1969)
The Towering Inferno (1974)
The Amazing Dobermans (1976)
Un taxi mauve (1977)
Ghost Story (1981)
South of Reno (1988)