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.

Following the success of You're a Big Boy Now, Coppola was offered the reins of the movie version of the Broadway musical Finian's Rainbow, starring Petula Clark, in her first American film, and veteran Fred Astaire.

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.

* 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.

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 ).

Fred Astaire was also coaxed out of retirement for Easter Parade and made a permanent comeback.

An avid dancer, Abdul was inspired towards a show business career by Gene Kelly in the classic film Singin ' in the Rain as well as Debbie Allen, Fred Astaire, and Bob Fosse.

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.

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.

He hosted the 1981 American Film Institute tribute to Fred Astaire, which was his final appearance in Hollywood.

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.

At least my mother was there to support me in the confrontation with the entire front office, plus Fred Astaire and Mark Sandrich.

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.

The choreography, in which Astaire was assisted by Hermes Pan, is principally concerned throughout with the possibilities of using taps to make as much noise as possible.

Astaire declares his preference for bachelorhood and the song – this number was the brainchild of scriptwriter Dwight Taylor and is found in his earliest drafts – emerges naturally and in mid-sentence.

As Horton leaves to investigate, Astaire continues to hammer his way around the suite, during which he feigns horror at seeing his image in a mirror – a reference to his belief that the camera was never kind to his face.

" 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.

Fred Astaire was hired to help the dancers with their choreography.

Rogers was most famous for her partnership with Fred Astaire.

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.

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 ".

*" Wonderful Baby ", a tribute to Fred Astaire that Astaire himself recorded.

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.

" However, this did not affect RKO's plans for Astaire, first lending him for a few days to MGM in 1933 for his Hollywood debut, where he appeared as himself dancing with Joan Crawford in the successful musical film Dancing Lady.

" As Astaire himself observed, " I've never yet got anything 100 % right.

He portrayed himself in the Fred Astaire film, Second Chorus ( 1940 ), which featured Shaw and his orchestra playing " Concerto for Clarinet.

Astaire, with Hermes Pan's help, creates fabulous numbers – for himself and his partner.

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.

Pan continued to collaborate with Astaire right up until the latter's last musical picture, Finian's Rainbow ( 1968 ), which was a disaster on a number of fronts, not least for Pan himself.

* " You Were Never Lovelier ": A Kern melody, sung by Astaire to Hayworth, with a celebratory dance reprise at the film ’ s end, initiated by an armour-suited Astaire falling off a horse, and shedding his knight ’ s armour, only to reveal himself in white tie and tails.

In it, Astaire parodies himself by dancing with a hatstand and appears to parody his rival and friend Gene Kelly by inserting a mock bodybuilding episode during which he kicks aside some Indian clubs in a reference to Kelly's routine with The Nicholas Brothers in The Pirate.

Kaye starred in several movies with actress Virginia Mayo in the 1940s, and is well known for his roles in films such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty ( 1947 ), The Inspector General ( 1949 ), On the Riviera ( 1951 ) co-starring Gene Tierney, Knock on Wood ( 1954 ), White Christmas ( 1954, in a role originally intended for Fred Astaire, then Donald O ' Connor ), The Court Jester ( 1956 ), and Merry Andrew ( 1958 ).

and subsequently directed and co-starred with his friend Fred Astaire in the sequel That's Entertainment, Part II ( 1976 ).

" In particular, he wanted to create a completely different image from that associated with Fred Astaire, not least because he believed his physique didn't suit such refined elegance: " I used to envy his cool aristocratic style, so intimate and contained.

She is one of the few dancers or actresses who has danced with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Rudolf Nureyev.

She also starred in the successful musicals Lili ( 1953 ), with Mel Ferrer ; Daddy Long Legs ( 1955 ), with Fred Astaire, and Gigi ( 1958 ) with Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier.

Other films include The Hucksters ( 1947 ) with Clark Gable, Show Boat ( 1951 ), The Snows of Kilimanjaro ( 1952 ) with Gregory Peck, Lone Star ( 1952 ) with Clark Gable, Mogambo ( 1953 ) with Clark Gable and Grace Kelly, 1954's The Barefoot Contessa with Humphrey Bogart ( which some consider to be Gardner's " signature film " since it mirrored her real life custom of going barefoot ), Bhowani Junction ( 1956 ), The Sun Also Rises with Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn ( in which she played party-girl Brett Ashley ) ( 1957 ), and the film version of Nevil Shute's best-selling On the Beach with Peck and Fred Astaire.

There ensued a lifelong friendship with Berlin contributing to more Astaire films ( six in total ) than any other composer.

Of his experience with Astaire in Top Hat Berlin wrote: " He's a real inspiration for a writer.

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 ).

Astaire introduced a new style of dress that broke step with the spats, celluloid collars, and homburgs worn by aristocratic European-molded father-figure heroes.

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.