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The Astaires: Fred & AdeleStock informationGeneral Fields
Special Fields
DescriptionBefore "Fred and Ginger," there was "Fred and Adele," a show-business partnership and cultural sensation like no other. In our celebrity-saturated era, it's hard to comprehend what a genuine phenomenon these two siblings from Omaha were. At the height of their success in the mid-1920s, the Astaires seemed to define the Jazz Age. They were Gershwin's music in motion, a fascinating pair who wove spellbinding rhythms in song and dance. In this book, the first comprehensive study of their theatrical career together, Kathleen Riley traces the Astaires' rise to fame from humble midwestern origins and early days as child performers on small-time vaudeville stages (where Fred, fatefully, first donned top hat and tails) to their 1917 debut on Broadway to star billings on both sides of the Atlantic. They became ambassadors of an art form they helped to revolutionize, adored by audiences, feted by royalty, and courted socially by elites everywhere they went. From the start, Adele was the more natural performer, spontaneous, funny, and self-possessed, while Fred had to hone his trademark timing and elegance through endless hours of rehearsal, a disciplined regimen that Adele loathed. Author descriptionBorn in Australia and educated at Sydney and Oxford Universities, Kathleen Riley is a classical scholar and modern theater historian. She is the author of Nigel Hawthorne on Stage and The Reception and Performance of Euripides' Herakles: Reasoning Madness. At Oxford in 2008 she convened the first international conference on the art and legacy of Fred Astaire. Table of contentsList of illustrations ; Foreword by John Mueller ; Acknowledgements ; Preface ; Introduction: Moaning Minnie and Goodtime Charlie ; Chapter 1: Opening the bill ; Chapter 2: Over the top ; Chapter 3: Dancing comedians ; Chapter 4: Nightingales in Berkeley Square ; Chapter 5: Fascinating rhythms ; Chapter 6: The golden calf ; Chapter 7: Frater, ave atque vale ; Chapter 8: By myself ; Chapter 9: After the dance ; Chronologies: ; 1. (a) The shows ; 1. (b) Charity performances ; 2. Other notable events in theatre, 1917-1933 ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index |