At age seven, Astaire started touring the vaudeville circuit partnered with his sister Adele. The duo began began a highly successful Broadway dancing career in 1917. During the 1920s and early 30s, they won over both Broadway and London stage audiences in such hit shows as "Lady, Be Good", "Funny Face" and "The Band Wagon". After Adele retired to marry a titled Englishman, Astaire successfully remolded his generally asexual comic image into leading man material with the musical, "Gay Divorce", which he starred in both on Broadway and in London.
Eager to explore the possibilities of dance in the cinema, Astaire made his first (small) film appearance opposite Joan Crawford in "Dancing Lady" (1933), despite the famous (and probably apocryphal) verdict on his Hollywood screen test: "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little." His partnership with Rogers began shortly afterwards when they stole the spotlight from the leads of "Flying Down to Rio" (1933) by dancing the Carioca. The following year Astaire's last stage show was retailored as the new team's first co-starring vehicle, "The Gay Divorcee" (1934). The partnership with Rogers would last through ten films; among their finest were "Roberta" (1935), "Top Hat" (1935, which included Astaire's signature routine to Irving Berlin's title song), "Follow the Fleet" (1936), and "Swing Time" (1936). Throughout these films Astaire balanced his blistering tap solos and striking ballroom duets with a charm and energy at once the last word in after-dinner elegance and a unique variation on the modest, even ordinary, hero.
Toward the end of the decade the team's popularity began to ebb. Having been teamed with his sister onstage, Astaire had been sometimes leery of being half of another team, and Rogers wanted to pursue a wider range of roles in comedy and drama herself. Astaire's one musical without Rogers during the 30s, "A Damsel in Distress" (1937), though it plays delightfully today, was his one film to lose money at the box-office. After the mixed reception given his highly uneven but nonetheless enjoyable tapfest opposite fellow virtuoso Eleanor Powell, "Broadway Melody of 1940" (1940), Astaire regained popularity helping boost Rita Hayworth to stardom in two enjoyable outings. The failure of the lavish "Yolanda and the Thief" (1945), however, and two films as Bing Crosby's second banana led Astaire to retire from film in 1946. He kept busy opening up a chain of Fred Astaire Dance Studios and enjoyed travel for a time, but his plans for a relaxed future soon came to an end.
When Gene Kelly injured himself filming "Easter Parade" (1948), Astaire was summoned to fill in opposite Judy Garland. One of the biggest hits of the year, this holiday perennial gave the gracefully aging master dancer a momentum which carried him through a highly successful decade with Arthur Freed's musical unit at MGM. He reunited with Rogers for the enjoyable "The Barkleys of Broadway" (1949) and came up with two of his most inventive solos in "Royal Wedding" (1951): one with a coat rack for a partner and one in which careful filming allowed Astaire to literally dance on the walls and ceilings of a room.
A series of roles at MGM which capitalized on aspects of Astaire's biography reached a summit with "The Band Wagon" (1953), which is notable less as a dance showcase than as a surprisingly touching, thinly disguised rendering of a dancer shifting gears in middle age. He took on an increasingly paternal demeanor in his films, most delightfully opposite Audrey Hepburn in "Funny Face" (1957), and continued dancing from 1958 through 1968 in four award-winning TV specials in which he partnered the lithe Barrie Chase.
Although Astaire was, as an actor, sometimes slightly self-conscious, and his roles in musicals were tailored to a specific and modest range, he was an appealing performer of energy, warmth and sensitivity. Astaire's first straight dramatic role could not have been a more vivid contrast to the gaiety which had come to characterize his work: as a scientist dourly awaiting the end of the world in "On the Beach" (1959). He proved himself, however, to be an assured performer even when he didn't turn to song or dance; he was at his best in the drawing room comedy of "The Pleasure of His Company" (1961), but also graced such diverse films as "The Towering Inferno" (1974; Oscar-nominated as Best Supporting Actor) and "Ghost Story" (1981). Astaire won an Emmy for a dramatic turn as a heart attack victim in "A Family Upside Down" (NBC, 1978) and played eight roles in the NBC holiday movie "The Man in the Santa Claus Suit" (1979).
Astaire's one-shot return to musicals during this late-career stage, Francis Ford Coppola's "Finian's Rainbow" (1968), was a disaster, though the star, ever the trouper, emerged blameless. Given Astaire's immensely impressive career track record, it could hardly dim the luster of the performer critic Stephen Harvey called "the most revolutionary film performer since Charlie Chaplin", who choreographers from Merce Cunningham to George Balanchine hailed as "a genius", whose sister Adele dubbed him "Moaning Minnie" for his workaholic ways, and who novelist Graham Greene lovingly described as "the closest we are ever likely to get to a human Mickey Mouse".