Top 100 Astaire Quotes
#1. No one around me was obsessed with Fred Astaire except for me. It just snowballed, really. I started with tap lessons. When I didn't have tap shoes, I taped nickels on the bottom of my penny loafers.
David Hallberg
#2. When I was young, I ran to see Astaire and Rogers, Huston, Lubitsch - they were formative for me. I also read 'Flash Gordon' when I was 6, but if I were still reading it when I was 16, I'd have been an imbecile.
Lina Wertmuller
#3. [Hugh Jackman is] an Adamantium-laced Fred Astaire.
Jon Stewart
#4. Compositionally I always wanted to be like Fred Astaire.
Morton Feldman
#5. The thing is that my idols have always been the types of guys who could do anything: Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Sinatra, Dean Martin; and when you look up to people like that, you don't accept that you need to be compartmentalised.
Justin Timberlake
#7. I remember vividly seeing 'Tarzan' and Fred Astaire, the Chaplin films, Fred Astaire musicals, MGM, because of my mother. She was just interested in everything and she took me to opera and ballet, and then ballet got me hooked.
Mikhail Baryshnikov
#8. Fred Astaire was a more formal, trained dancer who loved waltzing and only danced with the girls.
Leslie Caron
#9. I make up cassettes all the time - to take on the road with me - a song from this album, a song from that album. That's the way I listen to music; it's like one of those K Tel things: it's from all over. I listen to Fred Astaire, I listen to African folk music, I listen to Talking Heads.
Robert Palmer
#10. Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat.
Gene Kelly
#11. What I got, unconsciously, from admiring Fred Astaire was that he didn't want what he was doing to look difficult. What was difficult, in my opinion, was making it look so genuine, so effortless. I equally have tried to remain unseen on the screen.
Stanley Donen
#12. I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in 'Flying Down to Rio,' at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in 'show business.'
Stanley Donen
#14. I was asked to act when I couldn't act. I was asked to sing 'Funny Face' when I couldn't sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn't dance - and do all kinds of things I wasn't prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.
Audrey Hepburn
#15. I wish I was born in that era: dancing with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, going to work at the studio dressed in beautiful pants, head scarves, and sunglasses.
Catherine Zeta-Jones
#16. I'm really influenced by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.
Cris Judd
#17. Fred Astaire is my hero. I love him because he was willing to kill himself to make his art look effortless. And because he proved it's possible to be an artist and a good person.
Connie Willis
#18. We attend to his later performances as a dramatic actor with respect, but watching the nondancing, nonsinging Astaire is like watching a grounded skylark.
Fred Astaire
#19. I studied dancing for 13 years. And loved to dance. Always wanted to dance with Fred Astaire.
Lauren Bacall
#20. What do dancers think of Fred Astaire? It's no secret. We hate him. He gives us a complex because he's too perfect. His perfection is an absurdity. It's too hard to face.
Mikhail Baryshnikov
#21. Wrap up the 20th century; Fred Astaire is gone.
Jack Kroll
#22. This is what I understood by it: that for Astaire the person in the film was not especially connected with him.
Zadie Smith
#23. There's an old Fred Astaire movie where the stage becomes bigger and deeper and more complex. Moments like that really did impact on me and influence me.
Kenny Ortega
#24. When Ginger Rogers danced with Astaire, it was the only time in the movies when you looked at the man, not the woman.
Gene Kelly
#25. You see, as far as the man's personality goes, there's no one who can touch Fred Astaire. He's unique.
Donald O'Connor
#26. The Fred Astaire movies made a huge impression on me.
Anton Du Beke
#27. Fred Astaire told me things I will never forget. Gene Kelly also said he liked my dancing. It was a fantastic experience because I felt I had been inducted into an informal fraternity of dancers, and I felt so honored because these were the people I most admired in the world.
Michael Jackson
#28. Dancing, as Fred Astaire said, is next to ditch-digging. You sweat and you slave and the audience doesn't think you have a brain in your head.
Ann Miller
#29. I guess the only jewels of my life were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire.
Rita Hayworth
#30. Sure he was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything [Fred Astaire] did, .. backwards and in high heels.
From: Frank and Ernest by Bob Thaves, art by Bob Thaves.
Bob Thaves
#31. When I am asked about influences, I always say I bow down to Fred Astaire, because when you look at him dancing you never look at his extremities, do you? You look at his centre. What you never see is the hours of work that went into the routines, you just see the breathtaking spirit and freedom.
Alan Rickman
#32. Astaire was not a sexual animal, but he made his partners look so extraordinarily related to him.
Mikhail Baryshnikov
#34. I felt Michael Jackson was inspired a little bit more from the elegance of a Fred Astaire. Michael loved Sammy Davis, Jr. and James Brown and Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. But he wasn't any of those people. To be inspired is one thing, but he made it all his own.
Kenny Ortega
#35. My uncle, who was a little more flamboyant, always said the guy who dressed the best was Fred Astaire.
Andy Garcia
#37. When I am cast in a movie where I feel that the woman's part is more interesting, I usually start thinking about Spencer Tracy and Fred Astaire. They seem to be the most clear actors when working with women.
Jack Nicholson
#38. Astaire never thought of what he was doing as balletic, but Kelly was always trying to dance with women on points. And his choreography is so showy and flashy. He always looks self-satisfied to me.
Matthew Bourne
#39. No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business.
Mikhail Baryshnikov
#40. I spent an entire evening seated between Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, being charmed from either side. It was pure Hollywood magic.
Lorna Luft
#41. I've always had an innate ability to dance, but I'm not as spiffy as those cinema legends like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.
John Travolta
#42. When Fred Astaire danced, everything in this world was perfect.
Stanley Donen
#43. Sure he (Fred Astaire) was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did,..backwards and in high heels.
Robert Thaves
#44. If Fred Astaire is the Cary Grant of dance, I'm the Marlon Brando.
Gene Kelly
#45. From Fred Astaire I learned discipline and hard work.
Dirk Benedict
#46. Did any artist ever bring more pure joy to more people than Fred Astaire?
Jack Kroll
#47. Because we are human, because we are bound by gravity and the limitations of our bodies, because we live in a world where the news is often bad and the prospects disturbing, there is a need for another world somewhere, a world where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers live.
Roger Ebert
#48. Don't just walk through the flames. Get your Fred Astaire on and DANCE through them. Joy is around everywhere, even when the night falls hard.
J.R. Ward
#49. Fred Astaire never let you see him sweat, but he sweetened his deceptively casual virtuosity with just enough charm to make it irresistible.
Terry Teachout
#50. As a dancer, obviously, we are all inspired by Michael Jackson, and I always looked up to Gene Kelly. He was a bigger version of Fred Astaire, and he was amazing as well.
Maksim Chmerkovskiy
#51. I grew up with the movies of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and Judy Garland - these are the kinds of shows and the kinds of numbers in shows that I dreamed of being in and doing when I was a kid.
Max Von Essen
#52. (reporter interviewing Broadway dancer Tommy Tune
'Do you think that greats like Fred Astaire possessed some kind of magic?'
(pause)
'No. Magic possesses them'.
Tommy Tune
#53. The greatness of America is that it produces exuberant geniuses like Louis Armstrong and Fred Astaire and Leonard Bernstein. We are meant to be a jazzy people who talk big and jump on the table and dance; we aren't supposed to be dopey and glum and brood over old injuries.
Garrison Keillor
#54. I want to do with skates what Fred Astaire is doing with dancing.
Sonja Henie
#55. It's nice that all the composers have said that nobody interprets a lyric like Fred Astaire. But when it comes to selling records I was never worth anything particularly except as a collector's item.
Fred Astaire
#56. There comes a day when people begin to say: "Why doesn't that old duffer retire?" I want to get out while they're still saying Astaire is a hell of a dancer.
Fred Astaire
#57. I've worked with Jack Warner and Jimmy Stewart - and Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Johnny Depp twice. I've had dinners with Fred Astaire and Cary Grant.
Peter Guber
#58. Mick Jagger moves like a parody between a majorette girl and Fred Astaire.
Truman Capote
#59. When I was a kid, I loved Nicholas brothers films. It was like skateboarding. Even Gene Kelly: I always preferred him to Fred Astaire, just because he was more athletic, like skateboarding.
Harmony Korine
#60. I dug up my dad's old Fred Astaire tapes, and now I find him super-inspiring. He's, like, one of the best dancers.
Adam G. Sevani
#62. Over the years, myths were built up about my relationship with Fred Astaire. The general public thought he was a Svengali, who snapped his fingers for his little Trilby to obey; in their eyes, my career was his creation.
Ginger Rogers
#63. I wanted to be Stan Laurel, then I wanted to be Fred Astaire and then Captain Kangaroo. I actually started out as a radio announcer when I was 17 and never left the business, so that's literally 70 years.
Dick Van Dyke
#64. After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.
Ann Richards
#65. I love the old Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies; they're so beautiful to look at. It's such a shame we don't make them anymore. Although, I don't know how you could make tap dancing current and topical.
Jamie Bell
#66. I loved old black and white movies, especially the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals. I loved everything about them - the songs, the music, the romance and the spectacle. They were real class and I knew that I wanted to be in that world.
Sharon Stone
#67. In America, at the beginning of talkies, they pulled Fred Astaire from the theaters and put him on the screen and had all of these great composers write songs for him. They call it the Great American Songbook; I call it the Fred Astaire Songbook because they were written for him.
Tony Bennett
#68. Dancing in Tijuana when I was 13 - that was my 'summer camp.' How else do you think I could keep up with Fred Astaire when I was 19?
Rita Hayworth
#69. When the bespangled Miss Charisse wraps her phenomenal legs around [Fred] Astaire, she can be forgiven everything - even the fact that she reads her lines as if she learned them phonetically.
Pauline Kael
#70. While I was making my solo films, RKO was busily trying to get me and Fred Astaire back together. The studio wanted to capitalize on the success of 'Flying Down to Rio' and realized that the pairing of Rogers and Astaire had moneymaking potential.
Ginger Rogers
#71. I remember seeing the first Astaire-Rogers musical on television, and I couldn't believe how beautiful it was. It dawned on me that you don't have to wear a cowboy hat to be a man.
Edward Herrmann
#72. I was spawned by some pretty good people in this business - Mr. Astaire, Mr. Tracy. They stopped and took their time to talk to people.
Robert Wagner
#73. I asked Fred Astaire once when he was about my age if he still danced, and he said 'Yes, but it hurts now.' That's exactly it. I can still dance, too, but it hurts now!
Dick Van Dyke
#74. Being young isn't about age, it's about being a free spirit. You can meet someone of 20 who's boring and old, or you can meet someone of 70 who's youthful and exciting. I met Fred Astaire when he was 72 and I was 21, and I fell in love with him. He certainly was a free spirit.
Twiggy
#75. I just put my feet in the air and move them around.
Fred Astaire
#76. I have no desire to prove anything by dancing ... I just dance.
Fred Astaire
#77. Do it big, do it right and do it with style.
Fred Astaire
#79. Of course, Ginger was able to accomplish sex through dance. We told more through our movements instead of the big clinch. We did it all in the dance.
Fred Astaire
#80. I just put my feet in the ground and move them around.
Fred Astaire
#81. I don't make love by kissing, I make love by dancing.
Fred Astaire
#83. I'm just a hoofer with a spare set of tails.
Fred Astaire
#84. I don't like top hats, white ties, and tails.
Fred Astaire
#85. Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.
Fred Astaire
#86. People think I was born in top hat and tails.
Fred Astaire
#87. And that love that wrinkles your nose touches my foolish heart.
Fred Astaire
#88. I had some ballet training but didn't like it. It was like a game to me.
Fred Astaire
#89. Dancing is a vertical interpretation of a horizontal intention.
Fred Astaire
#90. When a clumsy cloud from here, meets a fluffy little cloud from there, he billows towards her. She scurries away, and he scuds right up to her. She cries a little, and there you have your showers. He comforts her, they spark! That's the lightning. They kiss........Thunder.
Fred Astaire
#91. When you have a Dancing partner, there's always gonna be a moment where the girl's gonna cry, Ginger didn't do that. But, most every other girl I've worked with have cried because they said "aah, I can't do it" and I have to go "Yes, you can, Shut up!" and they do do it.
Fred Astaire
#92. The unpadded shoulders, the three-buttoned long and boxy coat, the too-short, thin pants, and the thin ties with striped buttoned shirts in dark colors-well, I suppose this may go very well with some personalities but it's not for me. To me, all such look like TV producers. Maybe they want to.
Fred Astaire
#94. Some people seem to think that good dancers are born, but all the good dancers I have known are taught or trained..
Fred Astaire
#95. I don't want to be the oldest performer in captivity ... I don't want to look like a little old man dancing out there.
Fred Astaire
#96. I don't remember anybody ever pointing me out as a dancing prodigy, but I played a not bad second base.
Fred Astaire
#97. If the dance is right, there shouldn't be a single superfluous movement.
Fred Astaire
#98. The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.
Fred Astaire
#99. If it doesn't look easy it is that we have not tried hard enough yet.
Fred Astaire
#100. The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style.
Fred Astaire
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