Fred & Ginger (& Mark) do ‘The Continental’ 1

mark sandrich, fred astaire do the continental, but not cheek to cheekphoto: MARC WANAMAKER/BISON ARCHIVES The wonderful shot of director Mark Sandrich and Fred Astaire palling around at RKO Studios comes courtesy of artsmeme friend Marc Wanamaker. Thank you, Marc! The director and dancer are collaborating on a crazy-long, Art Deco-drenched, epic dance sequence for ...
Fred of our dreams

From our friends at Julien’s Auctions, a pair of black-and-white silver gelatin prints of Fred Astaire taken by Andre de Dienes circa 1938. Both hand printed by de Dienes on double-weight paper and stamped by the photographer on verso. Sold at auction March 28, 2016.
Reading tap 1

Dancing, like writing, is a craft before it is an art. Rare is the professional who excels at both; the thousands of hours of practice necessary to make an artist rarely allow time for rigorous training in another genre. Somewhere between the craft and the art, though, lie scholarship and criticism, and the world is ...
Fred, seriously

Hollywood’s great dancing man, always jolly and carefree, here displays a different aspect. Fred Astaire in a somber mode, in Stanley Kramer’s ON THE BEACH (1959). Photo credit: theroadshowversion.com