I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in 'Flying Down to Rio,' at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in 'show business.
I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in 'Flying Down to Rio,' at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in 'show business.'
While I was making my solo films, RKO was busily trying to get me and Fred Astaire back together. The studio wanted to capitalize on the success of 'Flying Down to Rio' and realized that the pairing of Rogers and Astaire had moneymaking potential.
I did a dance with Fred Astaire in the movie 'Bandwagon.' I got to waltz just from left of camera to right of camera, and I'm taller than Fred Astaire. Fortunately, I was wearing a long skirt, so I waltzed with bended knees.
Fred Astaire. Not a handsome man. He said himself he couldn't sing. He was balding his whole life. He danced like a cheetah runs with the grace of the first creation. I mean, that first week. On one of those days God created Fred Astaire. Saturday maybe, since that was the day for the pictures. When you s Fred you felt better about everything. He was a cure. He was bottled in the films and all around the earth, from Castlebar to Cairo, he healed the halt and the blind. That's the gospel truth. St. Fred. Fred the Redeemer.
I felt Michael Jackson was inspired a little bit more from the elegance of a Fred Astaire. Michael loved Sammy Davis, Jr. and James Brown and Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. But he wasn't any of those people. To be inspired is one thing, but he made it all his own.
I remember vividly seeing 'Tarzan' and Fred Astaire, the Chaplin films, Fred Astaire musicals, MGM, because of my mother. She was just interested in everything and she took me to opera and ballet, and then ballet got me hooked.
In America, at the beginning of talkies, they pulled Fred Astaire from the theaters and put him on the screen and had all of these great composers write songs for him. They call it the Great American Songbook; I call it the Fred Astaire Songbook because they were written for him.
I'm really influenced by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.
As a little girl, I didn't dream of being a ballet dancer; I dreamt of being a movie star like Ginger Rogers and dancing with Fred Astaire. I used to watch the Sunday double-bills on TV and Iong to be part of what seemed a perfect Disneyland world. Astaire was a genius.
I want to do with skates what Fred Astaire is doing with dancing.
I loved Fred Astaire's way of dancing. He led you into the dance.
I studied dancing for 13 years. And loved to dance. Always wanted to dance with Fred Astaire.
My mom always had me and my brother watching old Fred Astaire movies.
Michael Jackson loved studying the greats. He felt that they could only add to what he did naturally. He was absolutely right. I mean, he studied James Brown for years when he was 10 years old, because the Jackson 5 would open for James. He studied him. He studied Fred Astaire. He loved to watch Fred's movies.
There's an old Fred Astaire movie where the stage becomes bigger and deeper and more complex. Moments like that really did impact on me and influence me.
I wanted to be Stan Laurel, then I wanted to be Fred Astaire and then Captain Kangaroo. I actually started out as a radio announcer when I was 17 and never left the business, so that's literally 70 years.