(Should we be surprised that this clip came from a film entitled: "You Were Never Lovelier"? That she definitely was.)
The Great Fred Astaire
Quotations on Fred Astaire:
Our homeward step was just as light/As the tap-dancing feet of Astaire/And, like an echo far away,/A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
Eric Maschwitz's lyrics to A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square with music by Manning Sherwin
He's a genius...a classical dancer like I never saw in my life.
Mikhail Baryshnikov in "Interview with Mike Wallace", 60 Minutes, CBS Television. February 18, 1979
He was not just the best ballroom dancer, or tap dancer, he was simply the greatest, most imaginative, dancer of our time.
Rudolph Nureyev quoted in Cooke, Alistair. "Fred Astaire Obituary", Letter From America, BBC World Service, June 1987
When I was in the Soviet Union recently I was being interviewed by a newspaperman and he said, "Which dancers influenced you the most?" and I said, "Oh, well, Fred Astaire." He looked very surprised and shocked and I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "Well, Mr. Balanchine just said the same thing."
Jerome Robbins
No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business.
Mikhail Baryshnikov
There never was a greater perfectionist, there never was, and never will be, a better dancer, and I never knew anybody more kind, more considerate, or more completely a gentleman...I love Fred, John, and I admire and respect him. I guess it's because he's so many things I'd like to be and I'm not.
Bing Crosby in a letter to John O'Hara as quoted in Thomas, Bob. Astaire, the Man, The Dancer
By far the gentlest man I have ever known.
Frank Sinatra
Once after a dinner party, Gregory Peck and I drove Fred Astaire home. Fred lived in a colonial house that had a long porch with many pillars. When we dropped him off, he danced along the whole front porch, then opened the door, tipped his hat to us, and disappeared. Wow! Greg and I couldn't speak for a few minutes. It was a beautiful way to say thank you.
Kirk Douglas in Douglas, Kirk. Let's Face It. Wiley, 2007
I remember when I was doing a film with Fred Astaire, it was nothing for him to work three or four days on two bars of music. One evening in the dark grey hours of dusk, I was walking across the deserted MGM lot when a small, weary figure with a towel around his neck suddenly appeared out of the giant cube sound stages. It was Fred. He came over to me, threw a heavy arm around my shoulder and said: "Oh Alan, why doesn't someone tell me I cannot dance?" The tormented illogic of his question made any answer insipid, and all I could do was walk with him in silence.
Alan Jay Lerner in Lerner, Alan Jay. On the Street Where I Live. New York: Norton, 1978. p.89.
Fred Astaire with his first dancing partner, his sister Adele
God respects us when we work,
but he loves us when we dance.
~ Les Blanc (also attributed as a Sufi saying)
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