Fred Astaire defined elegance on the dance floor. With white tie, tails and a succession of elegant partners – Ginger Rogers, Cyd Charisse, Rita Haworth, Eleanor Powell, Judy Garland and others – he created an indelible image of the Anglo bon vivant. His origins, though, were far more humble.
In this comprehensive new book about the life and artistry of Fred Astaire, Peter Levinson looks carefully at the entirety of Astaire's career from vaudeville to Broadway to Hollywood to television. He explores Astaire's relationships with his vivacious dance partners, his friendship with songwriters like George Gershwin and Irving Berlin and his relationship with choreographers like Pandro S Berman to discover how Astaire, in effect, created his elegant persona. Astaire put his mark on the Hollywood musical, starting his career at RKO and then moving to MGM and the famous Freed Unit.
From his long list of films, certain classics like Swing Time, Top Hat, Royal Wedding and The Bandwagon revolutionised the presentation of dance on film; but, he also revolutionised the television variety special with the Emmy-Award-Winning An Evening With Fred Astaire. For Puttin' on the Ritz, veteran Hollywood insider, Peter Levinson interviewed over two hundred people who worked closely with Astaire to provide an intimate window on to his professional as well as his personal life. His new biography of Astaire is a celebration of the great era of sophistication on Broadway and in Hollywood as seen through the life of a man who learned how to put on the Ritz and become America's premiere song-and-dance-man: Fred Astaire.
