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There comes a day when people begin to say, 'Why doesn't that old duffer retire?' I want to get out while they're still saying Astaire is a hell of a dancer.

Fred Astaire

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Fred Astaire
Age: 88 †
Born: 1899
Born: May 10
Died: 1987
Died: June 22
Actor
Choreographer
Dancer
Film Actor
Film Producer
Musician
Screenwriter
Singer
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Television Presenter
Omaha
Nebraska
Frederick Austerlitz
Still
Retiring
People
Dancer
Begin
Hell
Saying
Comes
Doesn
Astaire
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Retire

More quotes by Fred Astaire

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I have never had anything that I can remember in the business - and that includes all the movies and the stage shows and everything - that I didn't enjoy. I didn't like some of the small-time vaudeville, because we weren't going on and getting better. Aside from that, I didn't dislike anything.
Fred Astaire
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Oh, God! That boy moves in a very exceptional way. That's the greatest dancer of the century.
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And that love that wrinkles your nose touches my foolish heart.
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I had some ballet training but didn't like it. It was like a game to me.
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Why didn't you tell me I was in love with you?
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Do it big, do it right, and do it with style.
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I'm just a hoofer with a spare set of tails.
Fred Astaire
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In dealing with a girl or a horse, one lets nature take its course
Fred Astaire
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It takes time to get a dance right, to create something memorable.
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Slippery stages were the terror of my life.
Fred Astaire
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Dancing is a sweat job.
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If we followed our own advice, we'd be successful.
Fred Astaire
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Of course, Ginger was able to accomplish sex through dance. We told more through our movements instead of the big clinch. We did it all in the dance.
Fred Astaire
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We attend to his later performances as a dramatic actor with respect, but watching the nondancing, nonsinging Astaire is like watching a grounded skylark.
Fred Astaire
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I am bit sending messages with my feet. All I ever wanted was not to come up empty. I did it for the dough and the old applause.
Fred Astaire
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If the dance is right, there shouldn't be a single superfluous movement.
Fred Astaire
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Oh, there's no such thing as my favorite performance. I can't sit here today and look back, and say, Top Hat was better than Easter Parade or any of the others. I just don't look back, period. When I finish with a project, I say 'all right, that's that. What's next?'
Fred Astaire
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It's nice that all the composers have said that nobody interprets a lyric like Fred Astaire. But when it comes to selling records I was never worth anything particularly except as a collector's item.
Fred Astaire
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This search for what you want is like tracking something that doesn't want to be tracked. It takes time to get a dance right, to create something memorable.
Fred Astaire
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When working on my choreography I am not always receptive to outside suggestions or opinions. I believe that if you have something in mind in the way of a creation, such as a new dance, a sequence, or an effect, you are certain to come up with inaccurate criticism and damaging results if you go around asking for opinions.
Fred Astaire