Later, in the 1930s, the on-screen dance pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers influenced all forms of dance in the USA and elsewhere.

Musical stars such as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were among the most popular and highly respected personalities in Hollywood during the classical era ; the Fred and Ginger pairing was particularly successful, resulting in a number of classic films, such as Top Hat ( 1935 ), Swing Time ( 1936 ) and Shall We Dance ( 1937 ).

Many of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals of the 1930s also feature screwball comedy plots, notably The Gay Divorcee ( 1934 ) and Top Hat ( 1935 ).

During development at the University of Plymouth, in conjunction with BAE Systems and Sumitomo Precision Products, the iBot was nicknamed Fred Upstairs ( after Fred Astaire ) because it can climb stairs: hence the name Ginger, after Astaire's regular film partner, Ginger Rogers, for a successor product.

Top Hat was the most successful picture of Astaire and Rogers ' partnership ( and Astaire's second most successful picture after Easter Parade ), achieving second place in worldwide box-office receipts for 1935.

Dwight Taylor was the principal screenwriter in this, the first screenplay written specially for Astaire and Rogers.

" According to choreographer Hermes Pan, Astaire lost his temper and yelled at Rogers, who promptly burst into tears, whereupon her mother, Lela, " came charging at him like a mother rhinoceros protecting her young.

An additional night's work by seamstresses resolved much of the problem, however, careful examination of the dance on film reveals feathers floating around Astaire and Rogers and lying on the dance floor.

Later, Astaire and Pan presented Rogers with a gold feather for her charm bracelet, and serenaded her with a ditty parodying Berlin's tune:

Thereafter, Astaire nicknamed Rogers " Feathers " — also a title of one of the chapters in his autobiography — and parodied his experience in a song and dance routine with Judy Garland in Easter Parade ( 1948 ).

In the film, Astaire suffers from what Rogers terms an " affliction ": " Every once in a while I suddenly find myself dancing.

The routine ends as Astaire, now dancing with a statue, is interrupted by Rogers ' entrance, a scene which, as in The Gay Divorcee and Roberta, typifies the way in which Astaire inadvertently incurs the hostility of Rogers, only to find her attractive and wear down her resistance.

In " No Strings ( reprise )", Rogers, after storming upstairs to complain, returns to her room at which point Astaire, still intent on dancing, nominates himself her " sandman ", sprinkling sand from a cuspidor and lulling her, Horton and eventually himself to sleep with a soft and gentle sand dance, to a diminuendo reprise of the melody, in a scene which has drawn considerable admiration from dance commentators, and has been the subject of affectionate screen parodies.

Astaire sings to Rogers ' back, but the audience can see that Rogers ' attitude towards him softens during the song, and the purpose of the ensuing dance is for her to communicate this change to her partner.

Until the last thirty seconds of this two and a half minute dance the pair appear to pull back from touching, then with a crook of her elbow Rogers invites Astaire in.

The final supported backbend – Astaire and Rogers in the climax to " Cheek to Cheek "

The first backbends occur at the end of a sequence where Astaire sends Rogers into a spin, collects her upstage and maneuvers her into a linked-arm stroll forward, repeats the spin but this time encircles her while she turns and then takes her in his arms.

With the music reaching its grand climax Astaire and Rogers rush toward the camera, then away in a series of bold, dramatic manoeuvers culminating in three ballroom lifts which showcase Rogers ' dress before abruptly coming to a halt in a final, deepest backbend, maintained as the music approaches its closing bars.

Rogers, having conducted the dance in a state of dreamlike abandon now glances uneasily at Astaire before walking away, as if reminded that their relationship cannot proceed.

In Ziegfeld Follies ( 1946 ) – which was produced in 1944 but not released until 1946 – Kelly collaborated with Fred Astaire – for whom he had the greatest admiration – in the famous " The Babbitt and the Bromide " challenge dance routine.

It was a measure of his powers of persuasion that he managed to coax the 77-year-old Astaire – who had insisted that his contract rule out any dancing, having long since retired – into performing a series of song and dance duets, evoking a powerful nostalgia for the glory days of the American musical film.

While Fred Astaire had revolutionized the filming of dance in the 1930s by insisting on full-figure photography of dancers while allowing only a modest degree of camera movement, Kelly freed up the camera, making greater use of space, camera movement, camera angles and editing, creating a partnership between dance movement and camera movement without sacrificing full-figure framing.

* Bob Fosse, a noted jazz choreographer who created a new form of jazz dance that was inspired by Fred Astaire and the burlesque and vaudeville styles.

Astaire sings it through twice and during the last phrase leaps into a ballet jump, accompanied by leg beats, and launches into a short solo dance that builds in intensity and volume progressing from tap shuffles sur place, via traveling patterns, to rapid-fire heel jabs finishing with a carefree tour of the suite during which he beats on the furniture with his hands.

They make way for Astaire who strides confidently to the front of the stage and delivers the song, which features the famous line: " I'm stepping out, my dear, to breathe an atmosphere that simply reeks with class ," trading the occasional tap barrage with the chorus as he sings. The dance begins with Astaire and chorus moving in step.

" It is a song about a song and Rogers sings it to Astaire after which an off-camera chorus repeats it while the dance ensemble is photographed, Busby Berkeley-style, from above.

The camera then switches to Rogers and Astaire who bound down to the stage to perform a two minute dance, all shot in one take, with the Astaire-Pan choreography separately referencing the basic melody and the Latin vamp in the accompaniment.

" The Piccolino ( reprise )": After the various parties confront each other in the bridal suite with Rogers ' marriage to Rhodes revealed as a fake, the scene is set for Astaire and Rogers to dance into the sunset, which they duly do, in this fragment of a much longer duet – the original was cut after the July 1935 previews – but not before they parade across the Venetian set and reprise the Piccolino step.

Arlene Croce, Hannah Hyam and John Mueller all consider Rogers to have been Astaire's finest dance partner, principally because of her ability to combine dancing skills, natural beauty, and exceptional abilities as a dramatic actress and comedienne, thus truly complementing Astaire, a peerless dancer who sometimes struggled as an actor and was not considered classically handsome.

She generally avoided solo dance performances: Astaire always included at least one virtuoso solo routine in each film, while Rogers performed only one: " Let Yourself Go " from Follow the Fleet ( 1936 ).

Although the dance routines were choreographed by Astaire and his collaborator Hermes Pan, both have acknowledged Rogers's input and have also testified to her consummate professionalism, even during periods of intense strain, as she tried to juggle her many other contractual film commitments with the punishing rehearsal schedules of Astaire, who made at most two films in any one year.

* No. 41: Fred Astaire, Adele Astaire, Brother-sister actor / dancing act leased a flat here, along with their mother, Ann Astaire when playing the West End production, ' Stop Flirting ,' in 1923.

They also point to the use Astaire made of her remarkably flexible back in classic romantic dances such as " Smoke Gets in Your Eyes " from Roberta ( 1935 ), " Cheek to Cheek " from Top Hat ( 1935 ) and " Let's Face the Music and Dance " from Follow the Fleet ( 1936 ).

* Likenesses of Astaire and Rogers, apparently painted over from the Cheek to Cheek dance in Top Hat, are in the " Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds " section of The Beatles film Yellow Submarine ( 1968 ).

In December 2011 she featured in a television show where alongside choreographer Kim Gavin she recreated some of Hollywood's famous dance routines including some by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and Gene Kelly from films such as Singing In The Rain and Top Hat (" Cheek to Cheek ") on BBC Four.

Astaire reacted negatively to the first drafts, complaining that " it is patterned too closely after The Gay Divorcee ", and " I am cast as ... a sort of objectionable young man without charm or sympathy or humour ".

John Mueller summed up Rogers's abilities as follows: " Rogers was outstanding among Astaire's partners not because she was superior to others as a dancer but because, as a skilled, intuitive actress, she was cagey enough to realize that acting did not stop when dancing began ... the reason so many women have fantasized about dancing with Fred Astaire is that Ginger Rogers conveyed the impression that dancing with him is the most thrilling experience imaginable ".

Gene Kelly, another major innovator in filmed dance, said that " the history of dance on film begins with Astaire ".

Family legend attributes the name to an uncle surnamed " L ' Astaire ".

" According to Astaire, " Ginger had never danced with a partner before Down to Rio ".

* 1950: Ginger Rogers presented an honorary Academy Award to Astaire " for his unique artistry and his contributions to the technique of musical pictures ".

* 1982: The Anglo-American Contemporary Dance Foundation announces the Astaire Awards " to honor Fred Astaire and his sister Adele and to reward the achievement of an outstanding dancer or dancers ".

* In the Fred Astaire / Ginger Rogers feature film Swing Time ( 1936 ), Lucky ( Astaire ), when asked by Mr. Gordon, why he wishes to learn to dance, answers: " To flirt with terpsichory ".

This alludes to the song " Pick Yourself Up " from the 1936 film Swing Time, for which Jerome Kern had written the music, in which Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire sang Fields's words " Pick yourself up ; dust yourself off ; start all over again ".

Fred Astaire received a Golden Laurel nomination for " Top Male Musical Performance ".

He reprised this role with Astaire for a final time in The Sky's the Limit ( 1943 ), delivering the line: " If I were not such a gentleman's gentleman, I could be such a cad's cad ".

In the midst of this most complex of routines, Astaire and Rogers find time to gently poke fun at notions of elegance, in a delicate reminder of a similar episode in " Pick Yourself Up ".

After Shaw introduced the song to dance halls, MGM brought out the musical film Broadway Melody of 1940 in which Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell danced " Begin the Beguine ".

The press dubbed him " another Fred Astaire " and " the next Gene Kelly ".

Ken performed a tribute to the classic Fred Astaire number " One for My Baby " and duet with Ball for a rendition of " Lucy's Back in Town ".

* " Put Me to the Test ": Astaire, Burns, and Allen comic tap dance with whisk brooms, a routine inspired by vaudeville duo Evans and Evans and introduced to Astaire by Burns, who quipped: " Gracie and I ended up teaching Astaire how to dance ".

Hayworth, a talented and sensual dancer of astonishing natural grace and beauty, cooperated enthusiastically with Astaire's intense rehearsal habits, and was later to remark: " I guess the only jewels in my life are the pictures I made with Fred Astaire ".

According to Astaire, the original dance number that followed the song was cut from the film after the preview as the studio felt it " held up the story ".