Also from the Homeless Brother album, " Wonderful Baby " was a number 1 on the AOR chart in 1975 and was later recorded by Fred Astaire.

Due to the enormous labour involved in sewing each ostrich feather to the dress, Astaire — who normally approved his partner's gowns and suggested modifications if necessary during rehearsals — saw the dress for the first time on the day of the shoot, and was horrified at the way it shed clouds of feathers at every twist and turn, recalling later: " It was like a chicken attacked by a coyote, I never saw so many feathers in my life.

In later life, Rogers remained on good terms with Astaire: she presented him with a special Academy Award in 1950, and they were co-presenters of individual Academy Awards in 1967, during which they elicited a standing ovation when they came on stage in an impromptu dance.

The Astaire Story later won the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999, a special Grammy award to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old and that have " qualitative or historical significance.

Astaire remained a male fashion icon even into his later years, eschewing his trademark top hat, white tie and tails ( for which he never really cared ) in favor of a breezy casual style of tailored sports jackets, colored shirts, cravats and slacks — the latter usually held up by the idiosyncratic use of an old tie in place of a belt.

They went on to co-write the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Carefree a few months later.

Much later, it was reprised in the ballet " Limehouse Blues " featuring Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer in the musical film Ziegfeld Follies ( 1946 ).

Here, Astaire conveys a sunny yet nostalgic romanticism but later, when the music is danced to as part of " Never Gonna Dance ", the pair will create a mood of sombre poignancy.

The dance is a nostalgic celebration of love, in the form of a syncopated waltz with tap overlays-a concept Astaire later reworked in the similarly impressive " Belle of New York " segment of the " Currier and Ives " routine from The Belle of New York ( 1952 ).

*" Begin the Beguine "-words and music by Cole Porter, sung first in an operatic style by Lois Hodnott ( who was also used to dub the vocals for screwball soprano Carmen D ' Antonio in the comedy audition sequence Il Bacio in the middle of the movie ) and later in a jazz style by The Music Maids, danced by Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell, including a lengthy passage in which they tap dance with no musical accompaniment.

Gehry originally named the house as Fred and Ginger ( after the famous dancers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – the house resembles a pair of dancers ) but this nickname is now very rarely used ; moreover, Gehry himself was later " afraid to import American Hollywood kitsch to Prague ", so refused his own idea.

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 ".

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.

" According to Hepburn, she insisted on Astaire as a precondition for her participation.

According to Hollywood folklore, a screen test report on Astaire for RKO Radio Pictures, now lost along with the test, is reported to have read: " Can't sing.

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.

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.

Paramount Pictures ' Bob Hope was Caught In The Draft, Warner Brothers told Phil Silvers and Jimmy Durante You're In The Army Now, Columbia Pictures put Fred Astaire in the army declaring You'll Never Get Rich, Hal Roach gave his new comedy team of William Tracy and Joe Sawyer Tanks a Million and 20th Century Fox had the former Hal Roach team of Laurel & Hardy going Great Guns.

Astaire had never met Berlin before this film, although he had danced on stage to some of his tunes as early as 1915.

For " Top Hat, White Tie and Tails ", probably Astaire's most celebrated tap solo, the idea for the title song came from Astaire who described to Berlin a routine he had created for the 1930 Ziegfeld Broadway flop Smiles called " Say, Young Man of Manattan ," in which he gunned down a chorus of men – which included teenagers Bob Hope and Larry Adler – with his cane.

In this number Astaire had to compromise on his one-take philosophy, as Sandrich acknowledged: " We went to huge lengths to make the ' Top Hat ' number look like one take, but actually it's several.

According to Astaire, when they were first teamed together in Flying Down to Rio, " Ginger had never danced with a partner before.

" Astaire also had this to say to Raymond Rohauer, curator at the New York Gallery of Modern Art: " Ginger was brilliantly effective.

In any case, the test was clearly disappointing, and David O. Selznick, who had signed Astaire to RKO and commissioned the test, stated in a memo, " I am uncertain about the man, but I feel, in spite of his enormous ears and bad chin line, that his charm is so tremendous that it comes through even on this wretched test.

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

His next partner, Lucille Bremer, was featured in two lavish vehicles, both directed by Vincente Minnelli: the fantasy Yolanda and the Thief, which featured an avant-garde surrealistic ballet, and the musical revue Ziegfeld Follies ( 1946 ), which featured a memorable teaming of Astaire with Gene Kelly to " The Babbit and the Bromide ," a Gershwin song Astaire had introduced with his sister Adele back in 1927.

Astaire personally won the Emmy for Best Single Performance by an Actor but the choice had a controversial backlash because many felt that his dancing in the special was not the type of " acting " the award was designed for.

The Annenberg Estate or Sunnylands, owned by philanthropists Walter and Leonore Annenberg, had long been popular with the wealthy and powerful, including Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Queen Elizabeth II, and Mary Martin.

In 1905 Adele Astaire had a successful vaudeville act with her younger brother, Fred Astaire.

The title selection was accompanied by a video directed by Stanley Donen, which drew inspiration from Royal Wedding, a 1951 Fred Astaire film Donen had directed.

Powell worked side by side with Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding ( 1951 ), when she was brought in to replace June Allyson, who had become pregnant, and then Judy Garland, who dropped out due to illness.

It has had four major revivals ( 1955, 1960 and 1967, 2009 ), and was also made into a film starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, in 1968.

She returned in triumph to Columbia Pictures and was cast in the musical You'll Never Get Rich ( 1941 ) opposite Fred Astaire, in one of the highest-budgeted films Columbia had ever made.

( Fred Astaire and Morton DaCosta had already declined.

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 ".

) According to film historian Robert Osborne, in specially-filmed introductions produced for Turner Classic Movies, it was Astaire who suggested to Kelly that the two take advantage of this potentially last-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform together, something Kelly had actually wished for out loud during his narration of the first That's Entertainment!

*" They Can't Take That Away from Me "-Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers from The Barkleys of Broadway ( 1949 )

*" They Can't Take That Away From Me " ( Brunswick, 1937 ) performed by Fred Astaire with Johnny Green & His Orchestra

* " I Can't Be Bothered Now ": sung by Astaire while executing a tap solo with cane in the middle of a London street and escaping on a bus.

Astaire continued to act into the 1970s, appearing on television as the father of Robert Wagner's character of Alexander Mundy in It Takes a Thief and in films such as The Towering Inferno ( 1974 ), in which he danced with Jennifer Jones and for which he received his only Academy Award nomination, in the category of Best Supporting Actor.

Astaire is referenced in the 2003 animated feature, The Triplets of Belleville, in which he is eaten by his shoes after a fast-paced dance act.

* 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.

But the dance act for the archives is The Babbitt and the Bromide Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly trade taps and double-takes to a photo finish.

Aside from the dancing-which contains a famous solo performance to the standard " One For My Baby ", described by Astaire as " the best song specially written for me " -- the script provided him with his first opportunity to act in a serious dramatic role, and one with which his acting abilities, sometimes disparaged, appear to cope.