Fred & Adele Astaire, 1930

“She is so American & perfect, so slim & graceful. I adore her ugly face and the pearls tight around her neck. She is perfect & he’s too marvellous also. I should adore to go to sleep with him. Jost stroke him all over & then go to sleep. It would be too perfect. He’s so modern & American & subtle & slick. He has the most lovely shaped head a & gorgeous fat little common nose & sensual little fat lips. Oh! He’s gorgeous, & he moves just so sloppily & perfectly…Their dancing is just too extraordinarily marvelous to describe…He is so unclumsy & yet so un-effeminate.” - Cecil Beaton

Adele Astaire (September 10, 1896 – January 25, 1981) and Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987)  

Adele left show business in 1932 to become the wife of Lord Cavendish, the second son of the ninth Duke of Devonshire. Fred said of his sister on her retirement, “She was a great artist and inimitable, and the grandest sister anybody could have.” He had followed her into dancing. When he was 5 and she was 8, their parents sent him to her dance classes so he could keep her company, but he got interested. They had a 27 year career together.

Fred Astaire, 1935

Keir Dullea striking a Leonardo Da Vinci pose in US Magazine in the article “Keir Dullea’s Space Odyssey” (December 31, 1984).  He was 48 years old!!!!

2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

Fred Astaire in “Follow the Fleet” (1936)

Fred Astaire in Yolanda and the Thief (1945) dir. Vincente Minnelli

“Look Dave, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.” – 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Fred Astaire