If you're a real fan of Fred Astaire (or perhaps only of crossword puzzles) you'll know the name of Fred's first partner. His sister Adele, whom he called Delly, was considered to be the more talented of the two siblings. She danced with Fred from the start, and later left the stage to marry a British aristocrat.
The Astaires began training early. Ann Austerlitz wasn't content to stay in Omaha, Nebraska. When her husband Frederick lost his position as a salesman for a brewery (yet another victim of Prohibition), she decided that it was time to see if their talented children could make it in vaudeville.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Austerlitz had a fondness for the theater, and it wasn't terribly difficult to convince Frederick that Ann should take the children to New York to continue to study and try to break into show business.
In the early 1900s, Mrs. Austerlitz and her two children took the train to New York City. It was also about this time that she decided the children should be called "Astaire", as Austerlitz wasn't likely to fit neatly on a marquee. Her husband again agreed. Some years later, both parents changed their surname to Astaire.
Adele and Freddie did well in their classes. In fact, they soon were placed in a skit based on Cyrano de Bergerac. There was just one hitch. Adele was not only older than Fred, she was also considerably taller. So Adele played Cyrano, and Fred, clad in a long blond wig, had to be her Roxane!
The skit was considered a success just the same, and Claude Alvienne, who ran the dancing school, created an act for the Astaires: "Juvenile Artists Presenting an Electric Musical Toe-Dancing Novelty". Adele and Fred danced on twin wedding cakes, toe-danced and played drums and colored lights with their feet, and had two costumes each. Adele was a bride and then a glass of champagne, Fred a top-hatted groom and later a lobster.
In 1907, this was just the thing for vaudeville, and they were something of a hit. They even played the Orpheum Circuit for 20 weeks, at $150.00 weekly...this at a time when some families were coping on $8.00 a month.
On their second tour the act was refined a bit. Some of the gimmicks were thrown out, and others added, though the act as a whole was streamlined. It was at this time that Fred learned to play accordion (you can see him doing this in the film Roberta, where he plays a bandleader), and also a bit of clarinet. Now they were "The Astaires: Songs and Dances". This went well, too, but Delly was now gettting even taller, so the the family spent the next two years in a suburb of New Jersey, where the children attended school as Fred's height crept closer to Adele's.
In those two years, the fashion of dance changed, as it usually does. Vernon and Irene Castle's trendy dance routines revolutionized social and theater dance. They created the famous Castle Walk, popularized things such as maxixie (a tango form), and are generally credited for beginning the craze for public partner dancing, which previously was not comme il faut. Ballroom dance had progressed beyond the waltz and the private ball.
The Austerlitzes had kept abreast of these changes, and Fred himself was looking into "hard shoe", clog, step dance and "buck and wing", all of which led to what is now known as tap dancing. Adele and Fred went back to their dance studies. To find out whether the team could combine all this they approached Ned Wayburn, a producer and Broadway director.
By this time, Fred was as much choreographer as performer, and his perfectionism had become apparent to everyone he knew in the theater. Adele, who had coped with this (and appreciated it, as she didn't care to be so persnickety), called him Moaning Minnie. In return, she was his Funny Face.
In 1923 they proceeded to conquer England in a remake of their show For Goodness Sake (renamed Stop Flirting for the British audience). At the triumphant London debut, Adele gave a curtain call speech, and Fred, pushed out after her, waved a hand and added, "She said it." 1929 brought them another smash hit there: Funny Face. That was also the year that Adele met Lord Charles Cavendish, second son of the Duke of Devonshire.
1930 began with a flop, first called Tom, Dick and Harry, later Smiles. No matter what they called it, it was a turkey. But it is where Fred first shot down the chorus boys with his cane. If you've seen Top Hat, you've seen the routine. First he shoots here and there, putting gaps in the line-up; then, he mows ‘em down like he's holding a tommy gun. Also around this time, Fred was called to help doctor a dance routine for the Gershwin's Girl Crazy. The star of the number in question was one Ginger Rogers.
Adele and Fred Astaire would make one last duel appearance on stage, in The Band Wagon. It was a solid hit, if not a smasheroo, and a good send-off for Adele. In May 1932, she married Charlie Cavendish.
The Gay Divorcé (1932) was Fred's next show, and his first as a leading man. In previous shoes, Delly had been the lead, and Fred played the second lead. This is the show that became the film The Gay Divorcée with Ginger Rogers.
Fred and Ginger were first seen together on film in Flying Down to Rio as second leads, a situation that soon changed. (That was 1933.) The Gay Divorcée followed in 1934. That was the real birth of Fred and Ginger, the most elegant and enchanting dance team of film history.*
However, without Adele, Fred wouldn't have been there in the first place.
* By this time Fred Astaire was a twenty-seven year veteran of show business. Ginger had been dancing professionally since 1925, after winning a silver medal for in a Charleston contest. Not exactly an "overnight success"!
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