Fall 2009Vol. 4, No. 3

This book review is from TOS Vol. 4, No. 3. The full contents of the issue are listed here.

Fred Astaire by Joseph Epstein

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. 198 pp. $22 (cloth).

Reviewed by Scott Holleran

In the light and lively Fred Astaire, author and journalist Joseph Epstein offers an excellent overview of the career of the world’s greatest male ballroom and tap dancer. This short biography, part of Yale University’s Icons of America series, is like its subject—accessible yet elegant.

Astaire began his dance training at the age of five after his mother, Johanna Austerlitz, brought him to New York City in the hopes of grooming him and his talented older sister, Adele, for careers in show business. Attending dance school with his sister, young Frederick took to the art form and was soon rehearsing with Adele in routines developed by their instructor. Changing their last names to “Astaire,” the brother-sister act hit the theatrical circuit and began a professional career that lasted many years and included appearances on Broadway with Al Jolson and Fanny Brice; and work with famed showman Flo Ziegfeld, who paid the duo an impressive $5,000 per week during the Depression (pp. 12, 15).

After Adele retired at the age of thirty-five, Astaire sought fortune in Hollywood. Shortly after being famously dismissed by a studio executive as “Balding. Can’t sing. Dances a little.” (p. 18), Astaire was noticed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and signed to a three-week contract for $1,500 per week. His first role—playing himself in Dancing Lady opposite Joan Crawford—proved that he had potential as a screen star (p. 19). . . .