Fred Astaire Net Worth

Fred Astaire's Quotes

• I have never had anything that I can remember in the business - and that includes all the movies and the stage shows and everything - that I didn't enjoy. I didn't like some of the small-time vaudeville, because we weren't going on and getting better. Aside from that, I didn't dislike anything.
• [on modern movies] 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.
• Of course, [Ginger Rogers] 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.
• I had some ballet training but didn't like it. It was like a game to me.
• People think I was born in top hat and tails.

Interesting Facts about Fred Astaire

1. Ranked #73 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
2. Following his death, he was interred at Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth, California, where longtime dancing partner, Ginger Rogers, is located.
3. The evaluation of Astaire's first screen test: "Can't act. Can't sing. Balding. Can dance a little."
4. Astaire disguised his very large hands by curling his middle two fingers while dancing.
5. First met lifelong best friend Irving Berlin on the set of Top Hat (1935).
6. After Blue Skies (1946), New York's Paramount Theater generated a petition of 10,000 names to persuade him to come out of retirement.
7. Born at 9:16pm-CST
8. The only time he and Gene Kelly ever danced together on screen (other than the linking-segments in the 1976 compilation movie, That's Entertainment, Part II (1976)) was in one routine, titled "The Babbitt and the Bromide" in the 1946 movie Ziegfeld Follies (1945).
9. Appears on the cover of The Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album.
10. He was one of the first Kennedy Center Honorees in 1978.
11. Don McLean's song "Wonderful Baby" was written with Astaire in mind; Astaire reportedly loved the song, and recorded it for an album.
12. Made a cameo appearance in John Lennon and Yoko Ono's film Imagine (1972), escorting Yoko through a doorway; after one successful take, he asked to try again, believing he could do a better job.
13. In 2000, the following album was released as a tribute to him: "Let Yourself Go: Celebrating Fred Astaire". All songs were performed by Stacey Kent.
14. He was voted the 19th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
15. His legs were insured for one million dollars.
16. Famously wore a necktie around his waist instead of a belt, an affectation he picked up from his friendship with actor Douglas Fairbanks but often mistakenly attributed to Astaire alone.
17. He was voted the 23rd Greatest Movie Star of All Time by Premiere magazine.
18. Named the #5 Greatest Actor on the 50 Greatest Screen Legends by the American Film Institute.
19. Born only 18 months after his sister Adele Astaire.
20. Is one of the many movie stars mentioned in Madonna's song "Vogue"