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21 Fred Astaire was incomparable. There’s no more succinct way to describe him or his career. He arrived in Hollywood an established Broadway star and almost immediately became a legend, movie business jargon for an irreplaceable screen presence with indefinable magic. It didn’t hurt that Astaire did something no one else was doing in any comparable way: he danced. Astaire stayed at or near the top for a quarter century , never dropping off the radar entirely or experiencing a genuine slump. The critics generally adored him and he was admired by men and women alike (not an easy feat, especially for a dancing man).1 When the studio system collapsed and the film musical as Astaire had known it folded, he transitioned seamlessly onto television for a final decade of successful song and dance. He danced on camera into his seventies. Astaire’s path as dancer, singer, movie star and icon is incomparable. Still, comparisons need to be made, if only to understand exactly how Astaire managed to carve out and sustain a uniquely empowered position as a dancer and dancemaker on film, television, and records, the signature creative media of the twentieth century. Astaire didn’t work in a vacuum, and this chapter begins the work of surrounding Astaire with a creative context by considering his peers in four categories: dancing leading men, singing leading men, tap dancers, and musicians. The first three situate Astaire in the Hollywood film industry; the fourth inserts him into the realm of popular music, specifically among jazz musicians “There’s a difference and Astaire is it” chapter 1 He’s distinctly likeable on the screen, the mike is kind to his voice and as a dancer he remains in a class by himself. . . . There’s a difference and Astaire is it. —Variety’s review of Flying Down to Rio (1933) 22 | Astaire among Others of the swing era. That Astaire finds a meaningful place in each of these categories testifies to the breadth of his talents. And yet, in the entertainment industry as Astaire knew it, the musical content of these four areas might easily overlap. Astaire’s uniqueness lies in his historic ability to be, at once, dancer, singer, tapper, and musician. This context-setting chapter explores large patterns, using synoptic views of the careers of select entertainers as the unit of comparison. Subsequent chapters descend to a greater level of detail. dancing leading men Variety’s review of Roberta (1935) saw Astaire’s ascending star as potentially opening a bold new world for dancers. After noting that Astaire was adept at “light comedy,” which might come in handy if his audiences “ever tire of the stepping,” the reviewer looked toward the future: “Meanwhile [Astaire] can consider himself a Christopher Columbus who has discovered for the boys and girls on the hoof a new world— Hollywood. There are other dancers around who can troupe as well as dance, and now that Astaire has led the way, they may follow.”2 Variety’s prediction proved off the mark: movie audiences never tired of Astaire’s “stepping,” and he had almost no followers. With the exception of Gene Kelly, no male film star made much of a mark as a dancing leading man. Several male stars took on dancing lead roles, but all, including Kelly, appeared in both musicals and nonmusical genres. No other male star hung his entire reputation on the musical the way that Astaire did. And he never stopped making pictures. When Astaire as Tony Hunter in The Band Wagon (1953) says he “hasn’t made a picture in three years,” it’s a line that distances Astaire from the character he’s playing. In the three years before The Band Wagon, no fewer than four films starring Astaire hit the nation’s theaters; all but The Belle of New York met with success at the box office. Between his screen debut in the early 1930s and the general drop-off in musical pictures in the mid-1950s, Astaire never went more than seventeen months between the release of his pictures (that includes his supposed retirement between Blue Skies and Easter Parade) except for a two-year gap caused by World War II and Metro ’s tardy release of Ziegfeld Follies. Over the full length of his studio career—between 1933 and 1957—a new Astaire musical premiered on average every nine or ten months. Relentless filmmaking over the course of decades was not unusual for a studio-era...

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