Fred Astaire
Birthday: 1899-05-10
Place of Birth: Omaha, Nebraska, USA
Biography: Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American dancer, singer, actor and choreographer. He is widely regarded as the most influential dancer in the history of film. Born as Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 10, 1899, to Johanna (Geilus) and Fritz, a brewer, he entered show business at age 5. He was successful in vaudeville and on Broadway as well as in London's West End together with his sister Adele, a partnership that lasted 27 years. After Adele retired to marry in 1932, Astaire headed to Hollywood. Signed to RKO, he was loaned to MGM to appear in Dancing Lady (1933) before starting work on RKO's Flying Down to Rio (1933). In the latter film, he was teamed with Ginger Rogers, with whom he worked in 9 RKO pictures. Astaire later appeared opposite a number of partners, including Cyd Charisse, Rita Hayworth, Vera-Ellen and Barrie Chase. Astaire remained active well into old age, starring in musicals through 1968, and also performed a number of straight dramatic roles in film and TV. Throughout his career, he was also active in recording and radio. He died of pneumonia on June 22, 1987 in Los Angeles.
Movies
Top Hat
Showman Jerry Travers is working for producer Horace Hardwick in London. Jerry demonstrates his new ...
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Swing Time
Lucky is tricked into missing his own wedding to Margaret and has to make $25,000 so her father will...
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The Towering Inferno
At the opening party of a colossal—but poorly constructed—skyscraper, a massive fire breaks out, thr...
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The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town
The Mailman decides to stop another deluge of letters by answering questions about the Easter Bunny:...
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Shall We Dance
Ballet star Petrov arranges to cross the Atlantic aboard the same ship as the dancer and musical sta...
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Roberta
Football player John Kent tags along as Huck Haines and the Wabash Indianians travel to an engagemen...
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Ghost Story
Four successful elderly gentlemen, members of the Chowder Society, share a gruesome, 50-year-old sec...
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Second Chorus
Danny O'Neill and Hank Taylor are rival trumpeters with the Perennials, a college band, and both men...
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Daddy Long Legs
Wealthy American, Jervis Pendleton has a chance encounter at a French orphanage with a cheerful 18-y...
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Flashing Spikes
An old ballplayer, thrown out of baseball due to a bribery scandal, becomes friends with a young phe...
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Funny Face
A shy Greenwich Village book clerk is discovered by a fashion photographer and whisked off to Paris ...
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Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
A postman, S.D. Kluger, decides to answer some of the most common questions about Santa Claus, and t...
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Holiday Inn
Lovely Linda Mason has crooner Jim Hardy head over heels, but suave stepper Ted Hanover wants her fo...
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Follow the Fleet
When the US Navy fleet docks at San Francisco, sailor Bake Baker tries to rekindle the flame with hi...
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The Gay Divorcee
Seeking a divorce from her absentee husband, Mimi Glossop travels to an English seaside resort. Ther...
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Flying Down to Rio
An American bandleader woos a Brazilian beauty who is already engaged to his employer. His friends...
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On the Beach
In 1964, atomic war wipes out humanity in the northern hemisphere; one American submarine finds temp...
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You'll Never Get Rich
A Broadway choreographer gets drafted and coincidentally ends up in the same army base as the boyfri...
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The Band Wagon
A Broadway artiste turns a faded film star's comeback vehicle into an artsy flop....
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Easter Parade
On the day before Easter in 1911, Don Hewes is crushed when his dancing partner (and object of affec...
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Carefree
Dr. Tony Flagg's friend Steven has problems in the relationship with his fiancée Amanda, so he persu...
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The Barkleys of Broadway
Josh and Dinah Barkley are a successful musical-comedy team, known for their stormy but passionate r...
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Finian's Rainbow
An Irishman and his daughter arrive in the American South with a stolen pot of gold, hoping to make ...
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Three Little Words
Song-and-dance man Bert Kalmar can't continue his stage career after an injury, so he has to earn hi...
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Silk Stockings
After three bumbling Soviet agents fail in their mission to retrieve a straying Soviet composer from...
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The Belle of New York
In squeaky-clean New York at the turn of the century, playboy Charlie Hill falls so much in love tha...
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Ziegfeld Follies
The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld looks down from heaven and ordains a new revue in his gr...
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The Sky's the Limit
Flying Tiger Fred Atwell sneaks away from his famous squadron's personal appearance tour and goes in...
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Yolanda and the Thief
Johnny Riggs, a con man on the lam, finds himself in a Latin-American country named Patria. There, h...
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You Were Never Lovelier
An Argentine heiress thinks a penniless American dancer is her secret admirer....
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Broadway Melody of 1940
Johnny Brett and King Shaw are an unsuccessful dance team in New York. A producer discovers Brett as...
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Dancing Lady
Janie lives to dance and will dance anywhere, even stripping in a burlesque house. Tod Newton, the r...
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A Damsel in Distress
Lady Alyce Marshmorton must marry soon, and the staff of Tottney Castle have laid bets on who she'll...
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Royal Wedding
A brother and sister dance act encounter challenges and romance when booked in London during the Roy...
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The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
In 1911, minor stage comic, Vernon Castle meets the stage-struck Irene Foote. A few misadventures la...
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The Notorious Landlady
An American junior diplomat in London rents a house from, and falls in love with, a woman suspected ...
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Showbiz Goes to War
While a few Hollywood celebrities such as James Stewart and Clark Gable saw combat during World War ...
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Blue Skies
Jed Potter looks back on a love triangle conducted over the course of years and between musical numb...
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The World Premiere of 'Finian's Rainbow'
This documentary has interviews with actors and the director as they arrive for the 1968 New York wo...
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That's Entertainment, Part II
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time includi...
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The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again
Walter Brennan is back as the clever and funny over the hill Texas Ranger Nash Crawford. This time t...
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The Purple Taxi
With his mauve taxi, the old philosopher Dr. Seamus Scully runs around the small green roads of the ...
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Hollywood: The Dream Factory
A documentary about the glorious history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its decline leading to t...
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The Pleasure of His Company
Biddeford "Pogo" Poole, an urbane charmer, has been absent for most of the life of his daughter, Jes...
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The Amazing Dobermans
An ex-con man and his five trained Dobermans help a Treasury Dept. agent stop a racketeer and his ga...
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Doris Day: It's Magic
When the cameras rolled, Doris Day wore a happy face, never hinting at the pain she endured in her p...
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Let's Dance
Years after the death of her husband, Kitty McNeil takes her son and flees from the home of her weal...
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George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey
Biography of the legendary filmmaker directed by his son....
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Midas Run
A veteran secret service officer from Britain hijacks a government shipment of $15 million of gold o...
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The Man in the Santa Claus Suit
The mysterious owner of a costume shop rents a Santa Claus suit to three very different men: a math ...
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Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10)
The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of editio...
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A Family Upside Down
An elderly married couple find that as their physical and mental health deteriorates, they find them...
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Going Hollywood: The '30s
Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were...
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You're the Top: The Cole Porter Story
Biographical portrait of one of Broadway's most brilliant songwriters. Told through the use of archi...
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Dance Crazy in Hollywood
American dancer and choreographer Hermes Pan recalls his life and work as he relives the glorious hi...
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"All -Singing All-Dancing" Before And After
The development of sound and song dance production techniques, and how they come together in 'Holida...
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Easter Parade: On the Avenue
This documentary tells the story of the making of Irving Berlin's Easter Parade....
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Cole Porter in Hollywood: Begin the Beguine
An overview of Cole Porter’s musical contributions to the film Broadway Melody of 1940....
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Cole Porter in Hollywood: Satin and Silk
This documentary short subject details the making of the 1957 MGM musical, "Silk Stockings". Hosted ...
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That's Entertainment!
Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year hi...
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Audrey Hepburn: Remembered
Audrey Hepburn was one of the movies' best-loved stars, blessed with beauty, talent, an elegant soph...
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A Bing Crosby Christmas
The program on this DVD is basically a retrospective produced in the early 1990s for public televisi...
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Perspectives: For the Love of Fred Astaire
Strictly Come Dancing's Len Goodman shows his softer side in Fred Astaire tribute. Includes intervie...
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That's Dancing!
A documentary film about dancing on the screen, from it's orgins after the invention of the movie ca...
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That's Entertainment! III
Some of MGM'S musical stars review the studios history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929...
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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American ent...
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Hollywood Musicals of the 40's
Highlights from the great musicals of the 1940s. Stars featured include Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney,...
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Another Evening with Fred Astaire
A one-hour live television special starring Fred Astaire....
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The Fred Astaire Show
Ten years after the award winning "An Evening With..." Astaire shows us his "hip" credentials in thi...
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An Evening with Fred Astaire
A one-hour live television special starring Fred Astaire....
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Complicated Women
Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, u...
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Twenty Years After
This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then ...
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Imagine
A surreal, half-fiction, half real life footage of a day in the life of John lennon and Yoko Ono, co...
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The Lion Roars Again
A chronicle of the 1975 International Press Conclave hosted by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer over two days in ...
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La La La
When the silent cinema learned to speak, the audience was surprised not only by the voices of the ac...
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Stars of Cabaret
A collection of amateur films made by photographer Roderic Vickers and friends....
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Astaire and Rogers: Partners in Rhythm
Featuring clips from all 10 films which Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers made together from 1933 to 1949...
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1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year
This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and in...
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Bing Crosby: Rediscovered
Bing Crosby was, without a doubt, the most popular and influential multi-media star of the first hal...
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Sid & Judy
Explore the dramatic career and personal struggles of the talented and tragically short-lived entert...
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Fred Astaire donne le 'la'
Success is inevitable for a musical in which Fred Astaire appears - if it was also written by one of...
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Darcey Bussell: Looking for Fred Astaire
Documentary in which Darcey Bussell profiles Hollywood dancer Fred Astaire, marking 30 years since h...
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Reunited at MGM: Astaire and Rogers Together Again
A cherished remembrance of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers reunited for the film, "The Barkleys of Br...
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The Fred Astaire Songbook
A loving tribute to Astaire the singer, hosted by Audrey Hepburn....
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Astaire and Rogers Sing the Great American Songbook
Compilation of memorable songs from the Great American Songbook sung by Fred Astaire and Ginger Roge...
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S Wonderful, 'S Marvelous, 'S Gershwin
A musical tribute to brothers George and Ira Gershwin...
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Hollywood Singing and Dancing: A Musical History - The 1930s: Dancing Away the Great Depression
A two-hour in-depth exploration into the Hollywood musicals of the 1930s....
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Hollywood Singing and Dancing: A Musical History - The 1940s: Stars, Stripes and Singing
This is a two-hour in-depth exploration into the Hollywood musicals of the 1940s....
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Gene Kelly - An American in Hollywood
Gene Kelly is a legend of the heyday of the Hollywood musical. His name stands for masterpieces such...
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Hooray for Hollywood
A celebration of Hollywood in the 1930s, featuring a compilation of clips from features and newsreel...
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Rain Man
When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincin...
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