Want to know the best Fred Astaire movies? How about the worst Fred Astaire movies? Curious about Fred Astaire box office grosses or which Fred Astaire movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Fred Astaire movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
A little while ago, I got the idea that I needed to have a page for the Top 25 Classic Actors and the Top 25 Classic Actresses according to the American Film Institute. A quick check of my existing pages found I had already done movie pages on 19 of the actors and 10 of the actresses. So now that I have 21 pages to write, I figure I should get started with the 5th highest rated actor, Fred Astaire.
Fred Astaire (1899-1987) was born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska. Fred Astaire’s first dance partner was his older sister Adele. They became a very popular vaudeville dance act when Fred Astaire was only 7 years old. By 1917 the brother and sister dancing act was already appearing on Broadway. In 1932 Adele retired from dancing and Fred moved to Hollywood to appear in movies. In 1933 he appeared in Flying Down To Rio. Astaire got 5th billing in the movie and his dance partner in the movie, Ginger Rogers got 4th billing. Reviewers singled out their dancing and the pair would be matched up 9 more times in their career.
The Rogers-Astaire team owned the box office for the rest of the 1930s. The pinnacle of their collarboration was 1935’s Top Hat which has some of the best dancing ever filmed for motion pictures. Fred Astaire had many successes without Ginger Rogers, as he appeared in the box office hits, Holiday Inn, Blue Skies, Easter Parade, and The Towering Inferno. His last movie was 1981’s Ghost Story which was almost 50 years after his screen debut.
His IMDb page shows 50 acting credits from 1933-1981. This page will rank 39 Fred Astaire movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television appearances, cameos and some of his movies made outside of the Hollywood system were not included in the rankings.
Fred Astaire Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Fred Astaire Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Fred Astaire movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Fred Astaire movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Fred Astaire movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Fred Astaire movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Fred Astaire movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Fred Astaire movie won.
- Sort Fred Astaire movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Use the search and sort button to make this page very interactive.
- ### If worldwide box office is the same as domestic box office…then worldwide grosses were not available.
Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Fred Astaire Table
- Twenty-nine Fred Astaire movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark. That is a percentage of 74.35% of his movies listed. The Towering Inferno (1974) was his biggest box office hit.
- An average Fred Astaire movie grosses $147.70 million in adjusted box office gross.
- Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter. 32 Fred Astaire movies are rated as good movies…or 82.05% of his movies. Top Hat (1935) is his highest rated movie while The Amazing Dobermans (1976) is his lowest rated movie.
- Twenty-four Fred Astaire movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 61.53% of his movies.
- Five Fred Astaire movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 15.15% of his movies.
- A “good movie” Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 60.00. 33 Fred Astaire movies scored higher that average….or 84.16% of his movies. Top Hat (1935) got the the highest UMR Score while The Amazing Dobermans (1976) got the lowest UMR Score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Fred Astaire
1. Fred Astaire survived a disastrous screen test. According to Astaire the result of the screen test was “He can’t act…his is going bald…also dances”. Others claim it said “Can’t act, can’t sing, going bald, can dance a little”….either way not a good screen test.
2. Between 1933 and 1939 Fred Astaire starred with Ginger Rogers in 9 movies. They would appear in their 10th and final film in 1949’s The Barkleys of Broadway. Their screen partnership is one of the greatest of all-time.
3. Fred Astaire was married twice in his life. He married Phyllis Potter in 1933 and they were married until 1954 when she passed away after a battle with cancer. Fred Astaire had three kids with Potter: step son Peter, son Fred Jr. and daughter Ava Astaire McKenzie. In 1980 he married Robyn Smith.
4. Fred Astaire received one Oscar® nomination for acting in his career. He was nominated but did not win Best Supporting Actor for 1974’s The Towering Inferno. He was given an Honorary Oscar® in 1950 “For unique artistry and his contributions to the technique of musical pictures”.
5. Fred Astaire received more love from the Golden Globe® voters as he received 5 Golden Globe® nominations. Those five movie were: The Towering Inferno, Finian’s Rainbow, The Pleasure of His Company, On The Beach and Three Little Words.
6. Fred Astaire became good friends with legendary music composer George Gershwin back in 1916 many years before they both would become famous.
7. Fred Astaire retired from movies after making 1946’s Blue Skies. He unretired as his fan support talked him back into making more movies….he returned in 1948 to replace an injured Gene Kelly in Easter Parade.
8. Fred Astaire insisted on a stationary camera rather than a moving camera to film dance numbers..it was a rule he stuck to over the years…always saying…..”Either I dance or the camera dances”.
9. Two famous roles Fred Astaire turned down…..the lead role in Yankee Doodle Dandy and the part of Bert on Mary Poppins.
10. Check out Fred Astaire‘ career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
AFI’s Top 25 Screen Legend Actors….with links to my movie pages on the Screen Legend
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
this is interesting. while i was reading it i wondered if he ever danced with Gene Kelly? i saw where you said he replaced him in easter parade. how about Dick Van Dyke who did get the role of bert in “Mary Poppins”.
Hey mimic, yep as Flora mentioned…he danced with Kelly in Ziegfeld Follies and That’s Entertainment….both quality movies but he was not playing a movie role so they fall almost into the documentary category….the same thing with 1933’s The Dancing Lady which also starred Joan Crawford and Clark Gable…Astaire was in the movie, but he played himself and his only scene was dancing with Crawford….so it did not make the list either…thanks for checking out my Astaire page.
Hey Flora thanks for sharing the information about Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire
Yesterday night I watched one of those Rankin-Bass christmas specials from the 1970s, with the stop-animated wooden puppets. “Santa Claus is coming to Town”. Fred Astaire voiced the character who did all the exposition. (The puppet even looked a little like him.) Mickey Rooney did the voice of Santa and Kennan Wynn did the Winter Warlock. It was one of my favorites as a kid.
Rob
Hey Rob….wow…I remember watching that Christmas show ever Christmas but until your comment I never knew that, Fred Astaire was providing the voice. I think as a child I thought it was Stan Laurel….although they do look alike…thanks for bringing back some nice memories for me.
A possible solution to James Dean’s career being short: You could combine him with his Rebel Without a Cause costar Sal Mineo who also died young with a small number of films. Mineo isn’t one of the top stars, but being in the same film give them a reason to go in the same hub. (Of course, Natalie Wood had a much longer career.)
Thanks for the suggestions on James Dean….I can see doing a Natalie Wood hub in the future. I am now up to 6 Fred Astaire movies…still well behind you and Steve….but at least it is no longer one movie. I watch Swing Time, Follow the Fleet and Daddy Long Legs.
So far I have found Top Hat and Swing Time as the better movies….Daddy Long Legs was pretty good as well…but then again I have always had a crush on Leslie Caron…I was not too impressed with Carefree and Follow the Fleet….Follow the Fleet seemed to have too many storylines in the movie….I wanted more Fred and Ginger and less of Randolph and Harriet…..So I know have seem 6 of the Top 20…And I now have a favorite Fred Astaire moment….there is a scene in Daddy Long Legs were he jumps on a food cart and flys down the hallway like a plane….done very smoothly.
well, then, you need a Leslie Caron hub.(psst! she’s still alive)
Glad to gear you now have a favourite Fred Astaire moment. As you see more of his films, you will see it is harder to order any dance in preference even if you can pick out an ultimate favourite.
As for Follow the Fleet, I see you are not a fan of Ozzie and Harriet. 🙂 I prefer her son’s music career. I’ve seen a lot of Randolph Scott films (including westerns), so I’ve never minded Scott having a prominent part in the film. But I’d rather have had his love interest be Irene Dunne.
Hey Flora….yep Leslie Caron would count on the pulse side of my pages…lol. The first movie that I noticed with her was Father Goose….since then I have watched many of her movies. I actually have gotten 4 more Fred Astaire movies that I can watch….Easter Parade, The Band Wagon, On The Beach and Funny Face…which will move my Astaire movie total to 10 after I watch them sometime this busy weekend…..speaking of this weekend…good luck with your performace this weekend.
The concert is tomorrow. We were supposed to have one tonight too, but the Powers That Be didn’t realize that with the Santa Claus parade being the same night we would have roads closed downtown right where are venue is 🙁 None of audience would have parking, so tonight was cancelled. None of this would have happened if we had our concert on the other side of town, but we have this brand new Cultural Centre and…
(Flora fumes over bad organizational decisions.)
We had the same issue here yesterday….one kid had an orchestra event the same night one kid had a Xmas parade. So my wife and I had to take one event each…I got the parade with the little ones. Well good luck tonight I am sure things will go great. As for Fred movies I am now up to 8 movies as I watched the band wagon and funny face this weekend.
Cogerson, you are the go to Hubber for all things movie related. It is fun to skim through the comment section and listen to the back and forth between you and Flora. I like Fred Astaire, but not as much as you guys. 14/4 ratio, you are going to have to lean toward the ladies.
Hey mckbirdbks….thanks for stopping by….I think the comments are sometimes much better than the hub I wrote…Flora and Steve have so much classic movie knowledge that they are nice enough to share…normally I feel I match their knowledge…but not on Fred Astaire…before yesterday I had seen one Astaire movie…and I that was The Towering Inferno….and he only has a supporting role.
The other day my mother-in-law and mother were complaining that I had too many actors and not enough actresses….after looking at the AFI list I would have to agree with them….and now the ratio is 15/4…lots of great actresses will be coming to these pages soon…thanks for the compliment and the comment.
Regarding the 14:4 ratio, I think Mckbirdbks is right as to your order for these lists. Save the men for your current stars hubs while you start to catch up.. if you are still doing the current/classic/current switch….
Hey Flora….yep I am going to have to come up with a plan….especially since that only leaves 10 actors and 21 actresses….then when you think two of the actors James Dean(only three movies) and Charlie Chaplin(maybe I can find ten of his movies)…will be very short hubs. So I will start with Bette Davis next and do some current actors as well….but looking at my numbers the classic ones generate more traffic especially after the hubs have some age to them.
Thinking about people you cannot find like Chaplin, you can always spend a lot of time talking about their movies you can’t find information on datawise. i.e. Have tables only on the films you can find. But talk about Chaplin’s legacy etc. overall in a similar manner to the hub you did on your father’s favourite movies. In other words, just accept that silent stars are going to have a different format to their pages than the format you prefer.
Hey Flora….I think you are right I am going to have to come up with a different format for Charlie Chaplain, Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, and probably for Greta Garbo and Mae West. It should be interesting when I get to those people….thanks for showing me a solution to a problem I thought I was going to face in the future.
Hey Cogerson you might enjoy Funny Face if you haven’t seen it, one of your favourites Audrey Hepburn stars with Fred. It’s a nice pleasant film, very good use of colour.
Hey Steve…thanks for the suggestion…I will add Funny Face to the list of movies to watch…..checking out my awesome library I see they have lots of Fred Astaire DVD movies(only one on Blu-Ray so far)…just waiting for me to check them out. My count should reach 5 in the next 12 to 16 hours…I am on a roll.