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 ".

Ava Astaire McKenzie ( born March 19, 1942 ; married Richard MacKenzie ) remains actively involved in promoting her late father's heritage.

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 ).

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:

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.

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.

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.

Dining together during carnival night in Venice, and to help assuage her guilt, Astaire declares: " Let's eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we have to face him ," which serves as the cue for the music of " The Piccolino ", the film's big production number.

She went on to make a series of films with Fox, Warner Bros. (" Gold Diggers of 1933 "), Universal, Paramount, and RKO Radio Pictures and, in her second RKO picture, Flying Down to Rio ( 1933 ), she worked for the first time with Fred Astaire.

This event, which was shown on television, was somewhat marred when Astaire's widow, Robyn Smith, who permitted clips of Astaire dancing with Rogers to be shown for free at the function itself, was unable to come to terms with CBS Television for broadcast rights to the clips ( all previous rights holders having donated broadcast rights gratis ).

Astaire was always on the lookout for new steps on the circuit and was starting to demonstrate his ceaseless quest for novelty and perfection.

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 ".

Astaire incorporates this into his routine, first startling him with a tap burst then escorting him ostentatiously to the telephone.

In the first part of the solo which follows, Astaire embarks on a circular tap movement, embellished with cane taps into which he mixes a series of unpredictable pauses.

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.

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

Although Astaire refused dance lessons at first, he easily mimicked his older sister's step and took up piano, accordion and clarinet.

" 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.

He made two pictures with Rita Hayworth, the daughter of his former vaudeville dance idols, the Cansinos: the first You'll Never Get Rich ( 1941 ) catapulted Hayworth to stardom and provided Astaire with his first opportunity to integrate Latin American dance idioms into his style, taking advantage of Hayworth's professional Latin dance pedigree.

The first of these programs, 1958's An Evening with Fred Astaire, won nine Emmy Awards, including " Best Single Performance by an Actor " and " Most Outstanding Single Program of the Year.

At RKO Radio Pictures, Fred Astaire was preparing his first musical feature without Ginger Rogers, and comedian Charley Chase was set to appear in a comic sidekick role.

She appeared in a major role alongside Fred Astaire in his first RKO film without Ginger Rogers: A Damsel in Distress ( 1937 ) but audiences were disappointed and the film flopped.

This is likely the only Astaire performance to have imperfections, as it was live, and Levant would repeatedly change the tempo of his accompaniment to Astaire's singing during the bridges between verses, which appeared to get him quite off balance at first.

The first dancer featured on film as a partner of both the stars Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, Hayworth appeared in a total of 61 films over 37 years.

Cohn continued to showcase Hayworth's dance talents ; she was the first dancer featured on film to partner with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

The film is jokingly regarded as the first ( and only ) M-G-M musical made at Paramount Studios since Roger Edens was the producer, Stanley Donen was the director, and quite a few of the staff members under the Arthur Freed Unit at Metro ( including Adolph Deutsch, Conrad Salinger, and Skip Martin ), along with Astaire and Kay Thompson, were brought over to Paramount to make this film.

The first American original cast recording as we know it was an early experimental LP of program transcriptions of selections from The Band Wagon, a 1931 revue starring Fred and Adele Astaire.

She first appeared with Astaire in a brief routine in Ziegfeld Follies ( produced in 1944 and released in 1946 ).

* " Pick Yourself Up ": The first of Kern's standards is a charming polka first sung and then danced to by Astaire and Rogers.