I have seen a better one so far in 2015 and I have no doubt I will not see a better one before that big old ball drops in Times Square:
ASTAIRE WAY TO HEAVEN
To make matters even happier: Don follows the title with a grand appreciation of Mr. Astaire.
A highlight:
Astaire worked hard. While his style looked simple and easy-going, he was a perfectionist who put in many hours of rehearsal. He had a good ear for music. By 18, he was on Broadway as part of a patriotic review. Throughout the 1920s they appeared in musicals with music by George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and others. Their musicals also played in the West End.
Hollywood was their next logical move. He signed with RKO, but he flunked the screen test, with a report tersely writing him off, “Can’t act. Slightly bald. Also dances.”
But David O. Selznick, head of production at RKO, did not write the dancer off, noting in a memo, “I am uncertain about the man, but I feel, in spite of his enormous ears and bad chin line, that his charm is so tremendous that it comes through even on this wretched test.”
Please do take the time to click here and read the rest of this warm appreciation of one of the most talented people America has ever produced.
Speaking of Heaven: take it away Irving…
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