Fred stopped dancing in nineteen seventy. He was more than seventy years old at the time. He said a dancer could not continue dancing forever. He said he did not want to disappoint anyone, even himself.
Astaire's next film, Silk Stockings (1957), in which he co-starred with Cyd Charisse and his final musical for MGM, also lost money at the box office. Afterward, Astaire announced that he was retiring from dancing in films. His legacy at this point was 30 musical films in 25 years.
In 1973, he met Robyn Smith, a jockey, who filled the empty space left by his wife's death. The two were married in 1980, and many credit Smith for Astaire's happiness in his last years. He died in her arms at age 88 of pneumonia.
Due to the high cost and low profit of the most recent Astaire-Rogers vehicles, along with the stars' mutual desire to branch out, RKO announced the end of the on-screen partnership. Although their relationship remained amicable, both wanted to explore new avenues.
“Fred and I were colleagues… and we worked together beautifully,” Rogers writes. “True, we were never bosom buddies off screen, we were different people with different interests. We were a couple only on film.”
In 1931, Astaire met and soon fell in love with Phyllis Livingston Potter, a woman who came from one of Boston's most aristocratic families and who had never seen him on the stage; they were married in July 1933 and had two children: Fred Jr., born in 1936, and Ava, born in 1942.
Fred Astaire had passed on a chunk to his two children because he wasn't expecting to marry again so long after the death of his first wife, Phyllis, in 1954. So Fred left Robyn the jewel of his estate - the right to manage his intellectual property and buff the sheen on his legacy.
She had planned to make more appearances but a stroke left her partially paralysed and wheelchair bound. She never went to a doctor or even a hospital, in accordance with her beliefs. On April 25th, 1995, Ginger Rogers died at her Rancho Mirage home at the age of 83.
Did Judy Garland and Fred Astaire like each other?
Judy was just as enamored with Fred, remarking, "Fred put me completely at ease. He's a gentleman -- and lots of fun to work with." Miller summed up their partnership well: "Judy and Fred got along just great -- because she's a great pro and a fantastic entertainer, and he was, too.
In later years, his daily routine was little changed from the life he had always led: He woke up at 5 A.M. and breakfasted on a single boiled egg that kept his weight at a perpetual 134 pounds.
He was typically paired up with Ginger. Rogers, but, when he was asked about it, he secretly. confessed that his favorite dance partner just. happened to be Rita Hayworth.
Astaire himself, however, believes that he is past his peak and that Kelly will reign supreme in the field for at least another ten years. Fred Astaire, by the way, tells me it isn't true he stepped into Gene Kelly's dances for Easter Parade. “I had to create my own… I have my style; Gene has his.
That platinum blonde coif, that 24-inch waist, those perfectly toned legs—the last of which famously got hearts racing, with Rogers' sculpted calves and lithe outer thighs peaking out from underneath her long, billowy evening dresses as she and Astaire danced cheek to cheek in perfect sync.
Dancers are trained. Ginger knew how to dance when they teamed up. She won a dance contest at age 14. She began performing dance routines in vaudeville afterwards.
Ginger Rogers color portrait. You can see here how her eyes look greenish from a distance while they're actually color blue with a yellow burst around the iris.
Then he met Robyn Smith, a lithe, young jockey who had broken the sex barrier in thoroughbred racing. They were married June 24, 1980, when he was 81 and she was 35. The marriage astonished Hollywood and appalled Fred's sister, Adele, and daughter, Ava. But it endured.
How much older was Fred Astaire than Ginger Rogers?
It was during rehearsals for the show that Ginger and Fred met for the first time. He was already 30 years old and an established Broadway dance star when he was hired by the show's producer to help the dancers with their choreography. Ginger was only 19 at the time and it was her first major show.
Best known as a blonde, with curls or waves – this was the look she sported in most of the eight wonderful musicals she made with Fred Astaire in the 1930's.
