artisticShe was a natural clown, a wonderful madcap, outrageous, and dazzling. She once attended a costume party, hosted by Elsa Maxwell, dressed as an angel, complete with wings, a halo, and a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Life magazine (8/25/1941) reported that Adele became difficult to work with by 1916 as she became more interested in her male suitors.
We [Fred and his sister and dancing partner Adele] made a habit of enjoying ourselves in private life. I don't mean that the work wasn't enjoyable, but we were fortunate enough to know how to live off stage.
My private life was No. 1 with me from the time of my marriage on. Before that, I suppose my career did come first. Everything changed when I married Phyllis in 1933.
If Adele never changed, the times did. During the 1960s and 1970s both America and England underwent social upheavals that changed forever the kind of world that Adele had known. Although she herself had always been totally frank, she railed at the new freedom. "All this sex stuff nowadays, it's so phony," she told a young friend. "I'd just love to see everyone get impotent. I think it would be great fun."
His first try in movies received a brutal reception from a Paramount executive who had reported that Fred Astaire: "Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances."
"I'd never seen him from out front before. It was also the first time I realized that Fred had sex appeal. Fred. Wherever did he get it?" >/i> - Adele Astaire after seeing Gay Divorce, 1933
Balanchine likened him to Bach “who in his time had a great concentration of ability, essence, knowledge, a spread of music. Astaire has that same concentration of genius; there is so much of the dance in him that it has been distilled.”
What did she dance? Hoop Dance, One Step, Tango and Waltz (Ballroom), Tap.
