With Ginger Rogers at number 7, you don’t get any prizes for guessing that Fred Astaire must feature near the top of the SK Dance Studio Top 10 Dancers of All Time list. Although most famous for his pairing with Ginger, Fred’s primary partner in his early career was his older sister Adele and together, they enjoyed much success on the Vaudeville circuit and on Broadway. But the siblings went their separate ways and Fred set his sights on Hollywood.
Big screen success wasn’t instant though and not everyone appreciated his talents. One movie executive famously knocked him back with the summary: “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Slightly balding. Can dance a little”. A little? Are you kidding? In 1933, Astaire managed to land a small role in a Joan Crawford movie which gave him a foot in the door at RKO. There he was matched with Ginger Rogers and the rest is history.
Fred was well known as a perfectionist, in terms of both his choreography and the way in which his routines were executed. With Fred, nothing was left to chance, with every last detail of every single move carefully thought out. This was proved in the 1952 film “The Belle of New York” in which he filmed a solo dance number called “I Want to Be a Dancin’ Man”. Some time after the film was completed, movie bosses decided that the stage set and Fred’s costume needed upgrading, so had him film the dance sequence again. Watch these two versions side-by-side and you’ll see exactly how well rehearsed Astaire was – it’s like dancing with a reflection!
Fred insisted that his dance sequences were shot from a stationary camera which held the dancers in full view. This meant limited cutting away, no camera trickery and no fancy editing to help make the sequence more engaging for the viewer. Combine this with Fred’s preference for filming routines in one single take and you’ve got proof of both his technical brilliance and how utterly mesmerising he was as a dancer.
As well as the snappy tap routines and stunningly smooth ballroom numbers for which Fred and Ginger were famous, Astaire’s capacity for mastering a wide range of dance genres allowed him to continually re-invent himself and keep his choreography super-fresh. With Rita Hayworth for instance, he fused his signature tap style with Latin-inspired moves, whilst with Cyd Charisse in the “The Band Wagon”, Astaire performed an all-together more avant-garde piece in the “Dem Bones Café” scene with enormous flair. It’s said that Michael Jackson was heavily influenced by Astaire – kind of obvious when you compare this sequence with the Smooth Criminal video.
Whilst not quite in my number one spot, Fred Astaire is a complete dancing legend and totally warrants a high ranking place in the SK Dance Studio Top 10 Dancers of All Time list.