Fred Astaire (Icons of America) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The life of legendary dancer, singer and actor Fred Astaire has been chronicled before, but here, author Epstein (Snobbery:The American Version) brings a winning populist awe to his biographic probe of the movie star's time-tested magic. Epstein's honest intentions do little to mask his admiration and fascination with the icon, but it proves contagious as he gallops through Astaire's early life in turn-of-the-century Nebraska and first career steps as a sidekick to sister Adele in New York vaudeville. Despite apocryphal tales of a less-than-favorable RKO screen test ("Balding. Can't sing. Dances a little."), studio head David O. Selznick thought Astaire "a really sensational bet," and gave the performer his first Hollywood break. Epstein explores Astaire's star-making but personally disagreeable pairing with Ginger Rogers, and the better-liked partners who followed (Rita Hayworth, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn and others); defensively recounts Astaire's tight-lipped relationship with the media (which led many to suggest he was just dull); and celebrates the performer's earnest and dedicated spirit. Though Epstein's witty asides can great, his conversational tone keeps the life story moving, making this a good, quick read for even casual fans.
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From School Library Journal

Essayist and fiction writer Epstein (Snobbery: The American Version; Fabulous Small Jews: Stories) turns his discerning gaze to the legendary dancer and star Fred Astaire. Although he presents general biographical details, Epstein's chief concern is with Astaire the artist, and he thoroughly scrutinizes all aspects of his talent. Epstein devotes attention to every facet of the Astaire image, discussing at length his physical characteristics and unique sense of style. He also spends a good portion of the book addressing Astaire's dancing partners and the varying success of each. Most biographies tend to focus on the sensational details of the life lived; Epstein, however, places the magic of Astaire's art front and center, which results in an astute and ardent examination. The author's passion for his subject makes this an engaging read, even for those with only cursory knowledge of Astaire. Essential for all dance collections and recommended for all performing arts collections in universities and large public libraries.—Katherine Litwin, Chicago
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; illustrated edition edition (October 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300116950
• ISBN-13: 978-0300116953
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #257,298 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A BIG Disappointment, November 16, 2008

By	H. Axelrod (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The apparent premise and presumption of Joseph Epstein's book "Fred Astaire" is that the magic of Fred Astaire will be analyzed, described and explained to the reader. In the words of Mr. Epstein: "Whence derived Fred Astaire's sublimity, his magic? That is the great, happy question at the center of this little book." While Mr. Epstein is a witty and sometimes pleasantly irreverent writer, this slim volume of mostly recycled information falls far short of answering this question.

The initial attempt to define Mr. Astaire's magic is directed at the physical appearance of this "most attractive of men". Epstein begins this exercise by spending an inordinate number of pages describing and belittling Astaire's physical features, while admiring his clothes. However, he describes at the outset that Astaire was like a male version of "belle laide" : homely feature-by-feature yet stunning in totality. By his own words he therefore admits that this exercise is pointless. It is doubly pointless since nothing is said that has not appeared elsewhere or is not obvious from watching the films.

Recognizing after two chapters, that perhaps the force of Mr. Astaire's personality may be important to explaining his attractiveness, Epstein spends more fruitless pages trying to define his great charm; to pin down the indefinable. Charm is a characteristic that needs to be experienced and words are simply not adequate, as Mr. Epstein himself handily proves. During this discussion he says time and time again, that by his definition, Astaire is "not at all sexy". Of course, Epstein's definition of sexy includes features such as brutality, manly reticence, handsome features, and ample height and muscle. He fails to comprehend that romantic, gentle and graceful sensuality can also be sexy and that Fred Astaire excelled at projecting these qualities and has had, and continues to have, great appeal to women.

Mr. Epstein then proceeds to brutally spear the genre of musical comedy, mainly on the basis of "absurd scripts". To illustrate the point he provides examples from plot summaries of many Astaire films. Not only is this rather tedious, it is also unnecessary since he says absolutely nothing new. In my opinion, judging musicals on the basis of plots is not the best criteria since plots are usually the least important aspects. It is the execution that is critical, and that depends on successfully melding superior acting, singing and dancing against a background of lovely music and imaginative staging. The integrity of Mr. Astaire's acting, whether in dialog, song or dance, makes almost any character and situation plausible within the film's context no matter how irrational or absurd-seeming. Mr. Epstein is also somewhat puzzled by how the nonsense of the musicals can charm and be unforgettable. But he does finally concede that this "frivolity" (as he calls it) can produce uncomplicated happiness and joy.

Another surprising conclusion is that Mr. Astaire's acting abilities were limited to light comedy. He says that it is "unimaginable for Astaire to play heels" and that "being mean or dispirited was not in his range". In making these assertions, Mr. Epstein reveals his unfamiliarity or lack of understanding of many of Astaire's roles. Mr. Astaire has in fact successfully projected those very traits in post-1939 films like "The Barkleys of Broadway", "The Pleasure of His Company", "The Sky's the Limit", "On the Beach" and even in the 1936 movie"Swing Time". Mr. Epstein should have done more research.

The concluding section of the book is devoted to examining how to categorize Fred Astaire. He is being measured by Mr. Epstein for the roles of genius and icon. According to Mr. Epstein's judgment he qualifies as an icon, but not as genius. It seems that to be a genius "by any serious definition" it is necessary to produce something that others cannot immediately appreciate. So even though Mr. Epstein recognizes that Fred Astaire elevated popular entertainment into art, his deficiency was that it was too appealing to mass audiences. Although there is no question that Mr. Astaire's innovative artistry appealed to children and other unsophisticated people, it was also lauded by the most discerning of professionals in the dance and ballet world, as Mr. Epstein himself notes. The complexity and layers of meaning in his dances are still being unraveled and are not yet completely understood. In fact, Fred Astaire did not aspire to create art. He did what he did to please himself, and us, with his drive for perfection, amazing musicality and creativity, and a surplus of talent, charm and style. All he did was to produce magic.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dead Beats, July 10, 2009

By	R. Chaffey "beckahi" (Chicago) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If one is looking for a brief biography of Fred Astaire, this book by Joseph Epstein is definitely not the place to start. While Epstein does include some biographical material, he purports that he will try to answer the question of what made Fred Astaire so magical and beguiling. Yet he fails in even answering that.

"Fred Astaire" begins promisingly enough with some early biographical information about the dancer, but it is quickly derailed by Epstein's focus on the qualities that supposedly made Astaire so magical. He concentrates on Astaire's eccentric features and frame, his style and choice of clothing, his aristocratic airs, and his unique singing voice and ability. The best information that Epstein manages to squeeze into his critique of Astaire is the information regarding his various dancing partners and a comparison with Gene Kelly, but even that information seems all too scant.

Epstein's writing style can best be described as flogging a dead horse. In order to make sure the readers understand his comparisons he must carry them to the nth degree (and for no purpose whatsoever). The material is redundant as Epstein seems to cover the exact same material in several different chapters. Each chapter is taken up with a lot of quotes rather than narrative or new information, and some of his choices of comparison seem rather odd for a volume about Fred Astaire and his movies and talent. For someone who is supposedly a fan of the dancer, Joseph Epstein seems awful disparaging, which makes "Fred Astaire" a rather depressing read rather than a joyful or magic one.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Sparkling Appreciation, Not a Biography, January 16, 2009

By	R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Alexander Woollcott was dazzled by a dance act on Broadway in 1918. The often acid-tongued reviewer praised "... that nimble and lack-a-daisical Adaire named Fred. He is one of those extraordinary persons whose sense of rhythm and humor have been all mixed up, whose very muscles of which he seems to have an extra supply, are facetious." Woollcott spelled the name wrong, but he got the praise right, and everyone knew about Fred Astaire once movie musicals came in vogue. _Fred Astaire_ (Yale University Press) by Joseph Epstein is not a biography, although it contains many biographical details. It is a small personal volume of essays, insightful and appreciative, about a performer who reached perfection, and was beloved by critics and the public. There is research here, and many quotations from others who have admired Astaire's work, but Epstein, who is a lecturer, editor, and author of essays and books not about Hollywood, has taken the tough assignment of coming to an understanding of Astaire's greatness. "After one has identified Fred Astaire's multiple and several steps and manifold moves," writes Epstein in a typical inclusive and lyrical manner, "his swirling leaps, his lifts, crazy-legged noodling, skips, hops, leg jabs, tap spins, struts, lunges, back kicks, tap barrages, high-stepping, stamping, darting, soft spins, arabesques, hip flips, saunterings, cross-overs, knee-and-pelvis jerks, strolls, turning jumps, steps done with a slight retard, syncopations, quick circling steps - after one has noted all these and the scores more of different moves he made, one still hasn't accounted for the magic in his performance. Can it be pinned down?"

No, the magic cannot be pinned down, not completely, but it can be completely appreciated. Even Astaire didn't profess a deep understanding of it. "I'm just a hoofer," he'd say. If perfectionism is a flaw, he harnessed it for his performances and for those of his fellow dancers. Of course there is a great deal about his partnership with Ginger Rogers here, and comparisons between her and the other partners he had before and after. They may not have liked each other much, but they hid any respectful chilliness between them, acted convincingly as if they were becoming infatuated in each film, and it worked. They were pros. For all the superb dancing, Epstein spends a welcome chapter on Astaire's singing. "Standard descriptions of Astaire's singing voice include the words _reedy_ and _wobbly_. Some said that his full vocal reach was only an octave, but if so, within that octave he could get an awful lot accomplished." Songwriters liked him to deliver their songs, and wrote specifically with Astaire in mind. "You gave Astaire a song and you could forget about it," said Irving Berlin. "He knew the song. He sang it the way you wrote it. He didn't change anything. And if he did change anything, he made it better." Epstein is surely right when he says that at least part of the secret was Astaire's perfect diction, a clarity which got the songs across with intimacy. "His diction also enabled him to bend words nicely to the rhythms of songs, so that "umbrella" emerges as "um-ber-ella" with no harm done." (If that reference to that pronunciation doesn't make "Puttin' on the Ritz" go through your head, you need to see _Blue Skies_ again soon.)

Astaire made it all look effortless; of course there was a huge amount of effort given to make such an impression. He had charm; as Epstein says, you can easily enjoy Gene Kelly as a heel in _Pal Joey_, but you cannot imagine Fred Astaire playing a heel. "He did frivolous, charming, happy; mean or too dispirited wasn't in his range, was probably even against his nature." You can also see Gene Kelly performing in street clothes, but Astaire was never better than in his tuxedo. The formality was never a drawback, for you were on Astaire's side in the movies. "He was this little guy, skinny, with big ears, a long chin, and too wide a forehead, whose only chance is to get the girl onto the dance floor, where he will let his feet do his seducing for him." The plots of his musicals may have been silly (Epstein is surely right that the more frames that simply had Astaire dancing in them, the better was the movie), but they often involved his being the underdog due to no fault of his own. He was an aristocrat, but an American version; he may have been in a tux, but he was not snooty but glamorous, not cynical but likeable. He was somehow attainable; you can imagine yourself being just as snappy in a tux as Astaire was (it's just a suit), and you can imagine yourself dancing just as well (it's just hoofing). No, you'll never pull it off, but what is Hollywood for if not for inspiring a dream or two? Epstein's delightful, flowing prose is just the mirror needed for reflections on one of the greatest of American entertainers.